Scene of General McPherson's Death
1864 or 1866
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 25.4 × 36.1 cm (10 × 14 3/16 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Pfeiffer and Rogers Funds, 1970
Accession Number
1970.525 (35)
Art Historical Context
George N. Barnard's *Scene of General McPherson's Death* (1864 or 1866) captures a poignant moment from the American Civil War's Campaign. Union Major General James B. Mc was fatally shot on July 22, 1864, during the fierce Battle of Atlanta, a pivotal clash in General William T. Sherman's toward the Confederate heartland. As an official photographer for Sherman's army, Barnard documented the war's raw aftermath, turning battlefield sites into stark visual records that humanized the conflict's toll. This albumen silver print, made from a glass negative, exemplifies mid-19th-century photograph...
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 ...