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George N. Barnard
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Union troops southwest of Atlanta William Tecumseh Sherman and his staff American Civil War: Manassas, Virginia Ruins of Charleston, South Carolina, photograph by George N. Barnard, c. 1865. View of Atlanta, Georgia; photograph by George Barnard.On September 1, 1864, Union General William Sherman took Atlanta with small losses. Atlanta was a small city but an important railhead and supply center for the South; beyond its military importance, its capture assured Lincolns reelection. In November Sherman left Atlanta, now little more than a smoking ruin, and began his three-hundred-mile march to Savannah, destroying all possible military resources in his path. American Civil War: Peninsular Campaign Nashville, Tennessee Bull Run, Virginia Confederate fort on Peach Tree Street in Atlanta, Georgia Bull Run, Virginia
Quick Facts
In full:
George Norman Barnard
Born:
Dec. 23, 1819, Coventry, Conn., U.S.
Died:
Feb. 4, 1902, Cedarvale?, N.Y. (aged 82)
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Union troops southwest of Atlanta
Union troops southwest of Atlanta Union troops southwest of Atlanta during the American Civil War, photograph by George N. Barnard, 1864. The photographer's darkroom can be seen at right centre.

George N. Barnard

American photographer
Also known as: George Norman Barnard
Written by
Alison Eldridge
Alison Eldridge was Managing Editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Alison Eldridge
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

George N. Barnard (born Dec. 23, 1819, Coventry, Conn., U.S.—died Feb. 4, 1902, Cedarvale?, N.Y.) was an American photographer who served as the official army photographer for Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s Military Division of the Mississippi during the American Civil War.

William Tecumseh Sherman and his staff
1 of 2
William Tecumseh Sherman and his staffGen. William Tecumseh Sherman (leaning on the breech of the cannon) and staff at Union Fort No. 7, Atlanta, 1864, photograph by George N. Barnard.
American Civil War: Manassas, Virginia
2 of 2
American Civil War: Manassas, VirginiaConfederate fortifications with Union soldiers in Manassas, Virginia, photograph by George N. Barnard, March 1862.

Barnard began producing daguerreotype photographs in his 20s, opening his first studio in Oswego, N.Y., in 1846. While in Oswego he captured shots of a burning mill in 1853—some of the earliest news photos ever taken. In the late 1850s he began working for noted photographer Edward Anthony, and shortly before the outbreak of civil war he started working for Mathew Brady. During that time he learned the collodion wet-plate process. Some of Barnard’s first wet-plate photographs were taken in 1862 at the Bull Run battlegrounds. The following year he was appointed official photographer for the Military Division of the Mississippi, documenting camps, fortifications, and rail lines and duplicating maps for Sherman and his men. In 1864–65 Barnard accompanied Sherman’s army on its invasion of Georgia and the “March to the Sea.”

Ruins of Charleston, South Carolina, photograph by George N. Barnard, c. 1865.
Ruins of Charleston, South Carolina, photograph by George N. Barnard, c. 1865.

After the war ended in 1865, Barnard returned to key battlefield areas that he had been unable to photograph—probably due to time constraints in processing photos on the battlefield—and captured more of the destruction the war had wrought. In 1866 he published Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign, which is considered one of the most important photographic books from the period. Barnard later worked as a photographer in numerous locations—including Chicago, where he set up a studio that was subsequently destroyed in the fire of 1871. He also briefly worked for George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, in New York.

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Alison Eldridge