Pontoon Bridge Across The James

Art Historical Context

Behold the engineering marvel captured in *Pontoon Bridge The James* by James Gardner, an albumen print from June 186. This striking image, plate 69 in Alexander Gardner's seminal *Photographic Sketch Book of the, Volume II* (1866), documents a critical moment in the American Civil War. As Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant maneuvered during the Overland Campaign, they constructed this vast pontoon bridge—over 2,000 feet long—across the James River near Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, to outflank Confederate lines and advance toward Petersburg. Gardner's photograph exemplifies the pioneering documentary style of Civil War photography, where artists like the Gardner brothers used large-format cameras to record the war's raw realities with unprecedented detail. The albumen process, printing from glass negatives onto paper coated with egg whites, produced rich tonal range and sharp clarity, making these images enduring artifacts that brought the conflict's scale to civilians back home. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography and Media Department, this 17.7 × 22.9 cm print (on a larger album page) highlights not just military ingenuity but the human endeavor behind it—soldiers laboring amid the chaos. It reminds us how photography shifted from portraiture to history's witness, immortalizing the Union's relentless push toward victory.