Burial of the Dead, Fredericksburg
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933
Accession Number
33.65.119
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Burial of the Dead, Fredericksburg** (1863) is a stark albumen silver print from a glass negative, captured by photographer Andrew Joseph Russell under the famed Mathew B. Brady Studio. This poignant image from the American Civil War depicts Union soldiers solemnly burying fallen comrades after the brutal Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia—a Union debacle in December 1862 that claimed over 12,000 lives amid futile assaults on Confederate positions. The photograph's historical weight lies in its unflinching portrayal of war's human toll, with rows of wrapped corpses awaiting interment, under...
About the Artist
Andrew Joseph Russell|Mathew B. Brady · 1830–1902
Andrew Joseph Russell (1829–1902) was a pioneering American photographer whose work captured the raw drama of the Civil War and the monumental engineering of the transcontinental railroad. Born on March 20, 1829, in Walpole, New Hampshire, to Joseph Russell and Harriet Robinson, he grew up in Nunda, New York, where he developed an early passion for painting, creating portraits, landscapes, and eve...