Battlefield in Atlanta
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 27.8 × 35.9 cm (10 15/16 × 14 1/8 in.) mount: 45.5 × 55.8 cm (17 15/16 × 21 15/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Patrons' Permanent Fund
Accession Number
1995.36.12
Art Historical Context
**Battlefield in Atlanta**, captured by George N. Barnard 1864, offers a stark glimpse into the devastation of the American Civil War As General William T. Sherman's Union forces laid siege to Atlanta that summer—a turning point that boosted Northern morale and paved the way for his infamous March to the Sea—ard, Sherman's official photographer, documented scarred landscape. This albumen print preserves the chaotic aftermath: shattered earth, abandoned artillery, and the grim remnants of conflict, evoking the human toll of one of the war's bloodiest campaigns. The albumen print medium, popula...
About the Artist
George N. Barnard · 1819–present
George N. Barnard (1819–1902) was a pioneering American photographer whose six-decade career spanned the dawn of the medium, from daguerreotypes to Civil War documentation. Born into a farming family in Coventry, Connecticut, on December 23, 1819, he lost his father at age seven and apprenticed in family businesses before marrying in 1843 and relocating to Oswego, New York. There, he launched one ...