The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 1: The Opening Battles.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

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[40] on Broadway and was well launched upon the new trade of furnishing daguerreotype portraits to all comers. He was successful from the start; in 1851 his work took a prize at the London World's Fair; about the same time he opened an office in Washington; in the fifties he brought over Alexander Gardner, an expert in the new revolutionary wet-plate process, which gave a negative furnishing many prints instead of one unduplicatable original; and in the twenty years between his start and the Civil War he became the fashionable photographer of his day — as is evidenced not only by the superb collection of notable people whose portraits he gathered together, but by Bret Harte's classic verse (from “Her letter” ):

Well, yes — if you saw us out driving
     Each day in the Park, four-in-hand--
If you saw poor dear mamma contriving
     To look supernaturally grand,--
If you saw papa's picture, as taken
     By Brady, and tinted at that,--
You'd never suspect he sold bacon
     And flour at Poverty Flat.

Upon this sunny period of prosperity the Civil War broke in 1861. Brady had made portraits of scores of the men who leaped into still greater prominence as leaders in the terrible struggle, and his vigorous enthusiasm saw in this fierce drama an opportunity to win ever brighter laurels. His energy and his acquaintance with men in authority overcame every obstacle, and he succeeded in interesting President Lincoln, Secretary Stanton, General Grant, and Allan Pinkerton to such an extent that he obtained the protection of the Secret Service, and permits to make photographs at the front. Everything had to be done at his own expense, but with entire confidence he equipped his men, and set out himself as well, giving instructions to guard against breakage by making two negatives of everything, and infusing into all his own ambition to astonish the world by this unheard — of feat.

The need for such permits appears in a “home letter” from E. T. Whitney, a war photographer whose negatives, unfortunately, have been destroyed. This letter, dated March 13, 1862, states that the day before “all photographing has ”