:00:23. > :00:29.In the autumn of 1862, in the second year of the American Civil
:00:29. > :00:37.War, Confederate and Union armies came together in a savage battle.
:00:37. > :00:43.Antietam. In the day that is followed, a Scots-born photographer,
:00:43. > :00:46.Alexander Gardner, captured shocking images of death and
:00:46. > :00:51.disfigurement. Here along this Hagerstown Pike they found men
:00:51. > :00:56.lying on the field as they fell. They were in all sorts of different
:00:56. > :01:00.poses, rigour mortis had set in. No-one had ever seen a battlefield
:01:00. > :01:07.before. They certainly had never seen the way a battlefield looked
:01:07. > :01:13.when the battle was over. A century on, David Hume Kennerly, won a
:01:13. > :01:17.Pulitzer prize for his pictures of another American war. There are
:01:17. > :01:21.some similarities between my work and Gardner. Vietnam, I would
:01:21. > :01:31.picture the soldier going over a blown away hillside. He has a
:01:31. > :01:33.
:01:33. > :01:36.photograph that's very similar. David Hume Kennerly foted four
:01:36. > :01:44.decades of American Presidents. Alexander Gardner captured the
:01:44. > :01:50.final four years of Abraham Lincoln. No photographer got closer to
:01:50. > :02:00.America's Great War time leader. was the first to go in tight and
:02:00. > :02:06.focused on the eyes. The intense look into somebody's soul. From the
:02:06. > :02:10.first battles to the final retribution. Gardner's pictures
:02:10. > :02:15.framed the whole agonising story. That is the most amazing photo. To
:02:15. > :02:19.tell the story in one frame is what it's all about. He really was a
:02:19. > :02:28.great photographer. I would put him up against any photographer I've
:02:28. > :02:34.ever seen in my life. Witness to the most turbulent decade in
:02:34. > :02:44.American history, the founding father of photojournalism,
:02:44. > :02:51.
:02:51. > :03:01.Alexander Gardner was the Scot Who David Hume Kennerly has come to
:03:01. > :03:02.
:03:02. > :03:07.Washington DC in search of his predecessor. There are two
:03:07. > :03:13.Alexander Gardners, big beard. He has a bow and an arrow. That's a
:03:13. > :03:17.photograph in a costume out of the Old Wild West. Like a tourist photo.
:03:17. > :03:23.This is, here is America. This is how they dress. This is the Indian
:03:23. > :03:29.gettup, right? Absolutely. Send it back to Scotland. Alexander
:03:29. > :03:37.Gardner's great American adventure began in New York. He arrived in
:03:38. > :03:45.1856. It was the right place, it was the right time. The city had
:03:45. > :03:50.fallen in love with portrait photography. Born in Paisley he was
:03:50. > :03:55.a political radical and a man of many talents. A trained jeweller, a
:03:55. > :04:02.newspaper editor and a portrait photographer. He found work at New
:04:02. > :04:10.York's most famous studio. 359 Broadway. Headquarters of America's
:04:10. > :04:12.greatest photographer, Mathew Brady and his self-styled National
:04:12. > :04:19.Portrait Gallery. This moment in time, more is more. You could never
:04:19. > :04:25.have too much stuff, too much gold, too many drapes. Too many frames,
:04:25. > :04:35.too many mirrors, too many anything. It would be flor to ceiling
:04:35. > :04:36.
:04:36. > :04:45.pictures. -- floor to ceiling picture Detective Sergeant s. --
:04:45. > :04:51.glsh pictures. One of the people who came here was the Prince of
:04:51. > :04:57.Wales. His visit to America. The first visit of British royalty to
:04:57. > :05:02.America. One of the people on his itinerary would be Brady. Anybody
:05:02. > :05:06.whose name could be in the paper, Brady wanted to come to his gallery.
:05:06. > :05:10.The Great Hall of Por rates was only one part of the Brady
:05:10. > :05:16.operation. Upstairs, camera operators like Alexander Gardner
:05:16. > :05:19.would put on their jor overalls and photograph the famous. This picture
:05:19. > :05:25.looks like Gardner wearing his every day work clothes in a way.
:05:25. > :05:29.This is a studio self-portrait in which Gardner sits in this famous
:05:29. > :05:34.chair that Presidents and all sorts of other political, military
:05:34. > :05:40.leaders of the day had sat in. There he is sitting in it, in his
:05:40. > :05:50.very typical studio dress. There is a relaxed quality and casualness.
:05:50. > :05:51.
:05:52. > :05:59.He exhibits a great deal of self- Photographers of the 18 '50s were
:05:59. > :06:07.not considered artists. --1850's were not considered artists.
:06:07. > :06:11.Gardner was a camera operator under the vision of Mathew Brady. Their
:06:11. > :06:15.job relied on long exposures and the co-operation of the sun. Your
:06:16. > :06:21.chair, your table would be right under the sky light. You can see
:06:22. > :06:29.the sky light here. The glasses were focusing the light down on to
:06:29. > :06:33.the sitter. They had a big stand that clamped you in place, so that
:06:33. > :06:38.you wouldn't move. You would stay perfectly in focus. All the time,
:06:38. > :06:45.you have been sitting under this light just waiting and waiting. It
:06:45. > :06:51.couldn't have been fun. Brady's studio was the most Fay nous in New
:06:51. > :06:56.York. His methods were old fashioned. -- famous in New York.
:06:56. > :07:03.His methods were old fashioned. Images fixed on metal plates which
:07:03. > :07:11.were impossible to copy. Gardner wrifd the newest European
:07:12. > :07:18.technology. Using a chemical to make glass negatives. If you wanted
:07:18. > :07:26.one for yourself and your mother, you could do it. One for your
:07:26. > :07:32.campaign for President and one for the newspaper, you could do it.
:07:32. > :07:37.campaign, in particular, early in 1860 a little-known Illinois lawyer
:07:37. > :07:44.came to New York. His speech to the Cooper Union established his
:07:44. > :07:51.manifesto. Taken the very same day, a Brady studio photograph
:07:51. > :07:54.established his identity. His name was Abraham Lincoln. It's a
:07:54. > :08:01.deliberate setup. False column that you see apportioned in the
:08:01. > :08:05.background, or a table with a book on it. It wants to insert him into
:08:05. > :08:11.this portrait-style. What is fascinating about it to me too,
:08:11. > :08:15.Lincoln had a real sense of promotion. Lincoln said this
:08:16. > :08:20.picture and my Cooper Union speech made me President. That is a
:08:20. > :08:25.powerful image. Until JFK, there was no-one that understood the
:08:25. > :08:29.power of the image, I think, as well as Lincoln did? I completely
:08:29. > :08:34.agree. Lincoln is the first President to understand the
:08:34. > :08:42.political importance of photography. This new visual technology that he
:08:42. > :08:46.could use to his advantage. None of his predecessors got that. Lincoln
:08:46. > :08:52.campaigned to restrict slavery, a policy that appealled to the
:08:52. > :08:57.liberal sensabilities of Alexander Gardner. Back in Scotland, Gardner
:08:57. > :09:06.had edited the radical Glasgow Sentinel newspaper. He had called
:09:06. > :09:12.slavery "a stain on the escutcheon of the otherwise freest country in
:09:12. > :09:17.the world." Lincoln victory tore that country apart. Slave owning
:09:17. > :09:20.states began to leave the union. Civil war seemed inevitable.
:09:20. > :09:25.Washington would be at the centre of that war. At the centre of
:09:25. > :09:31.Washington was a new photographic studio. The Brady franchise had
:09:31. > :09:38.arrived in the heart of the nation's capital. The location
:09:38. > :09:43.itself was excellent, less away from the US capital. Less than a
:09:43. > :09:47.mile away from the White House and from all the key buildings. It was
:09:47. > :09:55.across from Market Square. Brady needed someone he could trust to
:09:55. > :09:58.manage his Newark tonne operation. He choose Alexander Gardner. The
:09:58. > :10:08.humble photographer had arrived at the very centre of American
:10:08. > :10:10.
:10:10. > :10:15.political life. He wouldn't be the last. Time Magazine gave me the
:10:15. > :10:21.assignment to photograph Forde. I spent a lot of time travelling
:10:21. > :10:27.around with him, covering him for Time. Got to know the family. When
:10:27. > :10:34.he became President, August 9th, 1974, he offered me the job as his
:10:34. > :10:37.White House photographer. I said, Mr President, he had only been
:10:37. > :10:42.President for eight hours, I said there are only two things I would
:10:43. > :10:45.like. I thought about this. I want total access. I want to work
:10:46. > :10:51.directly for you, not the White House press secretary or anybody
:10:51. > :11:01.else. He looked at me and he said, you know Air Force One at the
:11:01. > :11:02.
:11:02. > :11:09.weekends. Kennerly took the job. He has photographed every President
:11:09. > :11:14.since. This picture of Clinton was taken in the Oval Office. He was
:11:14. > :11:18.talking to families of the Pan Am 103 plane blown up over over
:11:18. > :11:21.Lockerbie Scotland. You could see how serious he. Is he was really
:11:21. > :11:26.affected by what he was hearing from the people who had lost their
:11:26. > :11:34.loved ones on that aeroplane. That's what photography is all
:11:34. > :11:44.about. Peeling back a layer of somebody's personality and ill luem
:11:44. > :11:45.
:11:45. > :11:52.naiting that for other people. -- ill luem nait. Alexander Gardner
:11:52. > :11:58.would also capture the character and concerns of his President. In
:11:58. > :12:01.February 1861 a deeply troubled Abraham Lincoln arrived at Mathew
:12:01. > :12:11.Brady's Washington studio. The man from Paisley was to take his
:12:11. > :12:15.
:12:15. > :12:19.Can you imagine Lincoln sitting in this room and what is on his mind.
:12:19. > :12:23.He arrived in Washington, there is controversy over that in the first
:12:23. > :12:31.place. He is coming to the head of a country that is falling apart.
:12:31. > :12:35.You talk about weighty issues. Here he is, possibly for some moments of
:12:35. > :12:41.joyable solitude, nobody is calling on him, what must be running
:12:41. > :12:47.through his head in this room is incredible to contemplate. He is
:12:48. > :12:56.making his face available to the larger public. His face is bearded.
:12:56. > :13:00.By the time he was elected to his inauguration he grows a period. It
:13:00. > :13:10.may be because he wanted to look more like the Generals that he was
:13:10. > :13:13.going to be leading. Gardner took five very similar portraits of an
:13:13. > :13:16.impatient President. Lincoln sat very still for most of them. He
:13:16. > :13:21.pulled his pocket watch out of Higgs pocket and must have looked
:13:21. > :13:25.at. It in one of the pictures the watch appears. There is no record
:13:25. > :13:30.of any interactions between Gardner and Abraham Lincoln and the
:13:30. > :13:36.assistants while they were here. One of the assistants said he
:13:36. > :13:45.looked care worn already. I'm sure that is a huge under statement.
:13:45. > :13:51.4th March 1861, Lincoln was inaugurated President. 27 of the 34
:13:51. > :13:58.states were named in the union. A month later, in Charleston Harbour,
:13:58. > :14:06.the union stronghold of Fort Sumter was captured by rebel forces. The
:14:06. > :14:11.first flag of the Confederates, the stars and bars, flew above the
:14:11. > :14:16.battled fort. A civil war had begun. Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000
:14:16. > :14:20.troops to put down the rebellion, that many and more come to
:14:20. > :14:26.Washington DC, all the soldiers want a picture of themselves in
:14:26. > :14:33.uniform before this war is over. They all think it's a short war
:14:33. > :14:38.before that time. Taking pictures of soldiers in a studio is
:14:38. > :14:47.straight-forward. Taking pictures in the field of the approaching war
:14:48. > :14:54.was much more difficult. An English photographer, Roger Fenton had
:14:54. > :14:57.pointedlet -- pointed the way. Five years earlier in the Crimea he
:14:58. > :15:01.photographed British soldiers, empty battlefields. Brady and
:15:01. > :15:11.Gardner were determined to get closer still. To photograph all the
:15:11. > :15:22.
:15:22. > :15:32.The United States is still gripped by the civil war. All across the
:15:32. > :15:34.
:15:34. > :15:41.continent, 21st cent Americans reenact 19th century battles.
:15:41. > :15:47.Behind the lines, Robert Szabo takes on the role as civil war
:15:48. > :15:53.photographer. I will try and get a picture of you here. He uses the
:15:53. > :15:56.same process as Alexander Gardner. Do a right shoulder shift for us.
:15:56. > :16:03.That is beautiful. Look up. Maybe that way. I think we have it. Let
:16:03. > :16:08.me see what it looks like at the camera. Taking photography out of
:16:08. > :16:11.the studio, and on to the battlefield, was a technical and
:16:11. > :16:17.logistical challenge. It was very difficult to take pictures during
:16:17. > :16:27.the civil war period shall for many different reasons. On the technical
:16:27. > :16:28.
:16:28. > :16:33.level, we have the glass that is clean we will pour some collodion
:16:33. > :16:37.on it now. Pour a nice puddle in the middle. Work it around from
:16:37. > :16:43.corner and corner. Everyone has their own technique. This happens
:16:43. > :16:47.to be mine. Keep your position, guys. I will get the camera focused
:16:47. > :16:52.and we will take it in a few minutes. There was a war going on.
:16:52. > :16:57.Alexander Gardner had to get from point a to point b at any moment.
:16:57. > :17:02.Cho have run into Confederate forces. He wanted to make sure
:17:02. > :17:05.there was good intelligence to tell him he could go to point a and
:17:05. > :17:12.point b without being in danger. Stand very still for me. Do not
:17:12. > :17:20.move at all. When I tell you, it should be four second exposure. All
:17:20. > :17:25.right, here we go. Do not move at all for me. Right, now. Very good.
:17:25. > :17:29.I got it. Thanks guys, you can relax. I will develop this.
:17:29. > :17:34.Alexander Gardner only had minutes to develop the plates. If there was
:17:34. > :17:38.a problem where they wanted to take a shot and the dark room was way
:17:38. > :17:42.off, you are having to run back- and-forth to the dark room to get
:17:42. > :17:47.the plates developed in time. We are working in the dark room here
:17:47. > :17:51.under red safe light. It's red glass, basically, filtering the sun
:17:51. > :17:56.light. The reason we are able to do that, the collodion is only
:17:56. > :18:01.sensitive to blue light, which is why you don't see clouds in the old
:18:01. > :18:07.pictures. I will take the developer and pour it over this plate so it
:18:07. > :18:12.flows clean and evenly over the plate. We move it back-and-forth a
:18:12. > :18:16.little bit. OK it has developed now. We will just rinse it and put it in
:18:16. > :18:21.a tray here and pour nice clean water over it. We will do that a
:18:21. > :18:26.couple of times before we take it outside to fix. It Gardner's base
:18:26. > :18:29.would have been in Washington. If he ran out of supplies he would
:18:29. > :18:39.have to wire back to Washington DC to get plates out there or
:18:39. > :18:44.
:18:44. > :18:49.chemicals if he needed them. We I will pour some fixer on this
:18:49. > :18:52.plate. We have a little bit of stuff on the surface here. That
:18:52. > :19:02.will wipe off for me though. Very difficult doing this stuff in the
:19:02. > :19:06.field. It's coming up. It's not the best plate. OK. So we got a plate.
:19:06. > :19:10.The guys don't look too bad. I will admit. I would throw this plate
:19:10. > :19:20.away. I'm a perfection with this stuff. This would be a reject to me.
:19:20. > :19:26.
:19:26. > :19:31.We have an image. We have guys on there. It looks pretty good.
:19:31. > :19:38.first test for the new war photographers game in July 1861,
:19:38. > :19:46.four months into the war. Confederate troops were camped at
:19:46. > :19:54.the railway junction of Manassas, just west of Washington. On July
:19:54. > :20:03.21st, the first land battle of the civil war began. The battle of Bull
:20:03. > :20:10.Run. Lincoln's Union Army was overwhelmed. So was America's most
:20:10. > :20:14.famous photographer. Mathew Brady went to the battle of Manassas. He
:20:14. > :20:18.got there as the battle was coming to somewhat of a close. He was in
:20:19. > :20:27.for a big surprise. Everybody came out for a little Sunday jaunt to
:20:27. > :20:31.see the little battle. They were in for a huge surprise. Brady ran into
:20:31. > :20:39.Federal Troops fleeing back to Washington DC. It overturned his
:20:39. > :20:43.wagon. He lost a lot of his stuff. After he came back, the day after
:20:43. > :20:52.the battle, he came back almost certainly to this very room here
:20:53. > :20:58.and had this photo recorded. You can see a sword he acquired during
:20:58. > :21:02.his trip. Proudly saying, Brady returned from Bull Run. He came
:21:02. > :21:07.back proud of what he had done. Just that he went to the
:21:07. > :21:17.battlefield, and came back, and survived the ordeal. He was proud
:21:17. > :21:17.
:21:17. > :21:22.of that particular accomplishment. Brady's adventure showed it was
:21:22. > :21:28.unwise for photographers to act alone. Much better, much safer, to
:21:28. > :21:33.be embedded with the military. Alexander Gardner had no ambition
:21:34. > :21:40.to be a neutral observer. He proclaimed himself as the official
:21:40. > :21:44.photographer of the Union Army of the Potomac. He had a deal worked
:21:44. > :21:48.out with the military that they could go where they pleased and
:21:48. > :21:55.document the war. The military got something back out of. It with
:21:55. > :22:05.Alexander Gardner, those pictures where he copied maps for the
:22:05. > :22:05.
:22:05. > :22:14.engineers. Photography was developing fast. The new fashion
:22:14. > :22:19.was for photographs taken by special twin lens cameras. Two
:22:19. > :22:25.images, a left and a right, were brought together by a viewing
:22:25. > :22:31.device to create an illusion of three dimensions. War photography
:22:31. > :22:38.was also charging forward, driving closer and closer to the action.
:22:38. > :22:45.Alexander Gardner and others were trying to get out on to the
:22:45. > :22:52.battlefield to record journalistic imagery. In June they will record a
:22:52. > :22:59.fresh field hospital. Dead horses, they were looking for that recipe,
:22:59. > :23:06.a Union victory, the proximity to Washington DC where they could get
:23:06. > :23:16.out where what they really wanted. Men dead, on the field where they
:23:16. > :23:17.
:23:17. > :23:27.fell. That chance arrived in September 1862. Confederate General
:23:27. > :23:28.
:23:28. > :23:34.Robert E Lee led his Army north into Maryland to the little town of
:23:34. > :23:43.Sharpsburg on the banks of Antietam Creek. On 17th September, the
:23:43. > :23:53.battle of Antietam began. It ended in a bloody stalemate. By night
:23:53. > :23:53.
:23:53. > :24:03.fall, 23,000 men were dead or injured. No single day since has
:24:03. > :24:05.
:24:05. > :24:09.claimed so many American military For Alexander Gardner, this was the
:24:09. > :24:19.battle that would bring his photographs to the attention of the
:24:19. > :24:20.
:24:20. > :24:24.world. It was the battle that gave birth to photojournalism. This was
:24:24. > :24:27.where Alexander Gardner and his assistant wrifd their cameras first.
:24:27. > :24:34.This is where they saw the first bodies that they were able to
:24:34. > :24:38.photograph with their cameras. Their excitement had to be at a
:24:38. > :24:43.fever pitch. They knew the photographs once seen in New York
:24:43. > :24:49.would Electraify the populous. photographic camera he used was
:24:49. > :24:59.stereo skoptic. These photos were to be seen in 3D. This is the way
:24:59. > :24:59.
:24:59. > :25:42.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 42 seconds
:25:42. > :25:48.Wow! It takes you right to the When I look at Alexander Gardner's
:25:48. > :25:58.pictures that he took here on Bloody Lane, it really makes me
:25:58. > :26:13.
:26:13. > :26:18.It's the only experience that really gave me nightmares. Vietnam
:26:18. > :26:23.War didn't even give me nightmares, Jonestown did. I bet Alexander
:26:23. > :26:26.Gardner must have had nightmare abouts this. It is memorialalised
:26:27. > :26:36.in these incredible photographs that he took. The horrors and the
:26:37. > :26:40.
:26:40. > :26:45.smells had to be the same. These were not professional soldiers,
:26:45. > :26:50.they were young men, young farm boys, 17, 18, 19 years old. They
:26:50. > :26:55.would join up in the same groups so that a single volley, a single
:26:56. > :27:05.deadly volley from Union guns here could wipe out six or seven boys
:27:06. > :27:08.
:27:08. > :27:18.from the same town. After Bloody Lane, Gardner moved on towards the
:27:18. > :27:20.
:27:20. > :27:30.small Dunker Church. He captured the gruesome scene in pictures and
:27:30. > :27:32.
:27:32. > :27:39.later logged the information. Gardner and his team spent four
:27:39. > :27:45.full days at Antietam. Their final pictures were taken along the
:27:45. > :27:49.Hagerstown Pike Road. He found Confederate soldiers lying along
:27:49. > :27:53.this fence line as they had fall none the battle. Here he set up his
:27:53. > :27:57.camera and took at least six different pictures from different
:27:57. > :28:05.angles showing the bodies along this fence line, along Hagerstown
:28:05. > :28:09.Pike. Here is one of his original stereo views. Wow! It's really...
:28:09. > :28:15.It is gruesome. What's going through his mind, as a photographer
:28:15. > :28:19.and and artist, is there is a sense of composition here. I have become
:28:19. > :28:25.a huge fan of Alexander Gardner, both for having the guts to go out
:28:25. > :28:30.and do these kind of photographs, but, as someone who was able to
:28:30. > :28:36.capture the reality of what was happening. You know, it's amazing
:28:36. > :28:41.the artistry of the photographer. I mean, he turns a macabre scene into
:28:41. > :28:48.something that's totally fascinating. On top of it, he was a
:28:48. > :28:55.great documentary photographer. One of the pictures in my Pulitzer
:28:55. > :29:01.prize portfolio showed this lone soldier walking over a devastated
:29:01. > :29:06.hillside. The citation from the pilt zer committee said it shows
:29:06. > :29:10.the loneliness and desolation of war. I think Alexander Gardner's
:29:10. > :29:16.pictures are similar. What you have are trees and all the leaves
:29:16. > :29:24.stripped off by the gunfire and artilery. War hasn't really changed
:29:24. > :29:28.that much, in terms of the ultimate research. The famous shot of the
:29:28. > :29:38.Dunker with the dead in the foreground the original Brady
:29:38. > :29:46.caption on that was printed on the back "completely silenced." What is
:29:46. > :29:50.fascinating, to me, is that these pictures were not gruesome enough.
:29:50. > :29:55.Gardner hired artists who hand tinted these pictures. In one of
:29:55. > :29:59.the copies that I own, taken right here along Hagerstown Pike, he adds
:29:59. > :30:09.blood to these soldiers. In this particular picture the blood starts
:30:09. > :30:16.
:30:16. > :30:22.at his mouth and spreads down Back in New York, at the Brady
:30:22. > :30:25.Gallery, Gardner's pictures of the Antietam dead had created a
:30:25. > :30:30.sensation. They would have been exhibited, not just on the wall, I
:30:30. > :30:34.think they were exhibited flat on tables too because a loft them were
:30:34. > :30:39.small. So people would have been looking and looking and, sort of,
:30:39. > :30:43.walking and looking, one at a time, one at a time. People lined up on
:30:43. > :30:47.the block and on the sidewalk to see these pictures. It was as if
:30:47. > :30:51.the world had turned upside down. No-one had ever seen a battlefield
:30:51. > :30:55.before. They certainly had never seen the way a battlefield looked
:30:55. > :31:05.when the battle was over. No-one had ever seen a dead body on the
:31:05. > :31:19.
:31:20. > :31:25.The room got very crowded. People would come in and they wouldn't
:31:25. > :31:31.leave. So, there were so... There was so much attention. The room was
:31:31. > :31:35.silent because people were just frightened and fascinated. You used
:31:35. > :31:39.to come to Brady's studio to see the faces of people you recognised.
:31:39. > :31:43.You know, but imagine how horrible it would be to come and recognise
:31:43. > :31:47.the face of a dead person? Here you come to the place where you want to
:31:47. > :31:53.recognise people and now you don't want to recognise anyone. You hope
:31:53. > :31:57.that you will never see a face that you know. It really turned
:31:57. > :32:01.photography into something quite different and I think they were
:32:01. > :32:05.really some of the first truly modern pictures we had made.
:32:05. > :32:12.Gardner was using the camera to make picture that is no-one had
:32:12. > :32:20.ever seen before. New York Times journalist described the impact of
:32:20. > :32:24.the pictures. He credited them all to Mathew Brady. Mr Brady has done
:32:24. > :32:29.something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of
:32:29. > :32:37.war. If he is not brought bodies and laid them them in our door
:32:37. > :32:44.yards and along our streets, he has done something very like it.
:32:44. > :32:49.Gardner had taken the pictures. The Brady studio would take the credit.
:32:49. > :32:56.Mitt Nobody excepted Brady to make the pictures that his name on it
:32:56. > :33:00.any more that you expect Henry Forde to make all the Fordes or you
:33:00. > :33:04.expect the conductor at an orchestra to play all the
:33:05. > :33:09.instruments, not true. When Gardner came back from Antietam he had a
:33:09. > :33:13.different idea about how to use the camera. I'm sure Brady never wanted
:33:13. > :33:18.to see another dead body in his studio ever again. That was the
:33:18. > :33:24.kind of thing that Gardner was really excited about doing. The two
:33:24. > :33:31.men went their separate ways. Early in 1863, Gardner established his
:33:31. > :33:41.own Washington studio. The man from Paisley would photograph what
:33:41. > :33:50.
:33:50. > :33:56.remained of the war in his own Only five days after the Battle of
:33:56. > :34:01.Antietam President Lincoln order his most significant order of the
:34:01. > :34:06.war. On the 1st day January all persons held as slaves within any
:34:06. > :34:14.snait rebellion against the United States shall be then thens forward
:34:14. > :34:18.and forever free. Slaves held in rebel states, where Lincoln had
:34:18. > :34:27.absolutely no control, would become free men. In theory, if not yet in
:34:27. > :34:32.fact. To free the slaves, to put down the rebellion, the commander
:34:32. > :34:39.in chief called for a more aggressive military strategy. A
:34:39. > :34:43.message conveyed in person to the hesitant General McLellan.
:34:43. > :34:46.Alexander Gardner photographed the somewhat strained meeting. This is
:34:46. > :34:51.my favourite, the picture of Lincoln meeting with McLellan in
:34:51. > :34:55.the tent. It was an American flag draped over the table. You can see
:34:55. > :34:59.McLellan's clothes hanging on the back in the desk where he is doing
:34:59. > :35:05.all of his plans. Remarkable photograph. This is one of the most
:35:05. > :35:10.exciting pictures out of the civil war to me. Sure. Of course,
:35:10. > :35:13.traditionally portraits were done in a studio in a highly controlled
:35:13. > :35:18.environment. In this particular view, as you rightly point out,
:35:18. > :35:22.Gardner is documenting a meeting between the President and the
:35:22. > :35:27.commanding General of the Union armies. You have the tent. I guess
:35:27. > :35:32.that is his bed there maybe. Obviously, because of photographic
:35:32. > :35:37.limitations the exposure would have been five or 10 seconds long. That
:35:37. > :35:45.wouldn't have been a problem for McLellan as Lincoln said he had a
:35:45. > :35:50.case of the slows. They are looking at each other. This is an
:35:50. > :35:58.aastonishing piece of history. McLellan was sacked. His successors
:35:58. > :36:03.faired no better. Defeat at Fredericksburg was followed by
:36:03. > :36:08.defeat at Chancellorsvile. With no Union victories Gardner had no
:36:08. > :36:13.battlefields to photograph. On 3rd July, word arrived in Washington of
:36:13. > :36:20.a major battle. It had begun two- days earlier in a small
:36:20. > :36:25.Pennsylvania town, Gettysburg. Gardner and his team were flush
:36:25. > :36:28.with the success of the Antietam series. They rushed to the
:36:28. > :36:34.Gettysburg battlefield. They arrived within days of the end of
:36:34. > :36:38.the battle. They wanted to get here in time to shoot pictures of the
:36:38. > :36:43.dead soldiers on the field before they were buried. As he came up the
:36:43. > :36:48.road he could see the smoking ruins from the battlefield. When he found
:36:48. > :36:58.bodies that had not yet been buried, he had to have been excited and he
:36:58. > :36:58.
:36:58. > :37:04.-- elated. Among his most famous photographs at Gettysburg were the
:37:04. > :37:10.first photos he took one of them labelled A Harvest Of Death. They
:37:10. > :37:20.are Union soldiers. The Union soldiers were buried first. These
:37:20. > :37:22.
:37:22. > :37:32.were probably the first photos he Gettysburg was a decisive Union
:37:32. > :37:45.
:37:45. > :37:55.After three days of battle, almost Gardner's pictures of the
:37:55. > :37:59.
:37:59. > :38:09.Gettysburg dead are considered classics of war photography. One
:38:09. > :38:10.
:38:10. > :38:14.image in particular called The Home Of A Rebel Sharp Shooter. Writing
:38:14. > :38:24.some years later, Gardner imagined the final sufferings of the young
:38:24. > :38:25.
:38:25. > :38:30.soldier. Was he Dee leerious with anger? Or did death come slowly to
:38:30. > :38:40.his relief as the field of carnage faded before him. What visions of
:38:40. > :38:43.
:38:43. > :38:50.love loved ones far away may have hovered above him? The composition,
:38:50. > :39:00.the face. In many ways, it's the perfect war photograph. Perhaps, a
:39:00. > :39:03.
:39:03. > :39:13.little too perfect. Alexander Gardner's activities that summer
:39:13. > :39:16.
:39:17. > :39:21.At this location there was a dead Confederate soldier. You are
:39:21. > :39:26.standing literally where his head was. Alexander Gardner and his team
:39:26. > :39:30.found this particular spot to be very interesting because they spent
:39:30. > :39:39.three stereo negatives and one large plate negative taking
:39:39. > :39:44.different angles, different photographs of this body. The work
:39:44. > :39:50.seemingly accomplished, Gardner led his men up the hill to the east.
:39:50. > :39:55.Gardner and his team arrived here and they find these two giant
:39:55. > :39:59.converging bolders and a make-shift breast work made of rocks. They see
:39:59. > :40:02.the dramatic nature of this location. They probably said to
:40:02. > :40:08.themselves, wait, there is something missing here! What
:40:08. > :40:13.happened? Well, they brought the body that they had shot four
:40:13. > :40:18.photographs of, he is laying on a blanket. They either pick it up or
:40:18. > :40:24.drag this soldier, 72 yards to this spot, and lay him here in what they
:40:24. > :40:31.call The Sharp Shooters Nest. The connection between the two
:40:31. > :40:34.photographs was not discovered covered until the 1960s. The
:40:34. > :40:39.photographs show it's the same uniform, the body is not bloated.
:40:39. > :40:44.The same blanket appears in the photographs taken over there and in
:40:44. > :40:49.this location. It made a better picture rather than an empty little
:40:49. > :40:55.spot here. If I or one of my colleagues had done that in this
:40:55. > :40:58.day and age we would be drummed out of the photo corp. It would be
:40:58. > :41:06.highly unethical. Back then, autumn the rules were evolving. There is
:41:06. > :41:13.no question it was a better photo. Moving the body to make this
:41:13. > :41:19.composition, it almost... It takes it out of the news category into an
:41:19. > :41:25.artistic effort. In a way, he was like a painter organising this
:41:25. > :41:33.picture of death. That made it an interesting photograph. There have
:41:33. > :41:40.been some really well-known photographs that have been doctored
:41:40. > :41:48.The fot of the Soviet flag being raised over the Reichstag. He laid
:41:48. > :41:54.smoke over the top. The hammer and sickle was put over the flag. That
:41:54. > :42:02.was doctored up. There is another one called Grief, it was a shot of
:42:02. > :42:11.a field of death, dead bodies asm woman looking over -- a woman
:42:11. > :42:19.looking over leaning in. We don't do that kind of thing these days.
:42:19. > :42:22.Or at least should not. Gettysburg was the turning point of the war.
:42:22. > :42:28.The northern states could now hope for a swift victory over the
:42:28. > :42:38.southern rebels. Hope that the States would soon, once again, be
:42:38. > :42:48.united under one President. Mitt In August 1863, that one President
:42:48. > :42:51.
:42:51. > :42:56.made his way to Gardner's studio. This is a Gardner glass plate
:42:56. > :43:03.negative. In the 19th century they didn't have photographic enlarging
:43:03. > :43:06.quipt. If you wanted a big photograph, you needed a big glass
:43:07. > :43:10.plate negative. He is a very resolute looking figure here, don't
:43:11. > :43:18.you think? Absolutely. He is projecting a certain confidence
:43:18. > :43:22.that the war is going to go forward to victory. I think that Gardner is
:43:22. > :43:28.exploring the creative possibilities of portrait uer of
:43:28. > :43:35.getting away from the false back drops. Getting away from the con
:43:35. > :43:40.troifd studio props. The kind of stiffness that you see in the
:43:41. > :43:44.Mathew Brady Cooper Union picture has all disappeared. He feels
:43:44. > :43:50.remarkably relaxed in front of the camera. Also relaxed in the company
:43:50. > :43:54.of the Alexander Gardner. Lincoln wrote to Gardner soon after that
:43:54. > :44:03.August 1863 session. The only surviving communication between the
:44:03. > :44:07.two men. My dear, sir, allow me to return toy my sincere thanks for
:44:07. > :44:11.the cards and pictures which you have kindly sent me. I think they
:44:11. > :44:18.are generally very successful. The imperial photograph in which the
:44:18. > :44:26.head lanes upon the hand, I regard as the best that I have yet seen. I
:44:26. > :44:30.am very truly your obedient sur vent A Lincoln. Only three months
:44:30. > :44:39.later, Lincoln returned to Gardner's studio, with his him
:44:39. > :44:43.secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. Being in a room photographing
:44:44. > :44:48.powerful people is where it's at for me. When you sit someone down
:44:48. > :44:54.for a formal portrait they have to be relaxed much they can't be
:44:54. > :44:58.uptight it really goes to your personality and your relationship
:44:58. > :45:08.with the subject. Alexander Gardner, apparently, had a good way about
:45:08. > :45:08.
:45:08. > :45:14.him. We don't know that for a fact am you can see it in the pictures.
:45:14. > :45:23.The relationship ended in February 1865. The last time the two men
:45:23. > :45:26.would meet. Lincoln brought his son, Tad, to Gardner's studio. It was
:45:26. > :45:35.the session that produced the masterpiece of presidential
:45:35. > :45:42.photography. This photograph is what we refer to here at the
:45:42. > :45:48.National Portrait Gallery as our Mona Lisa it's a rare photograph by
:45:48. > :45:51.Lincoln taken by Alexander Gardner. It's known as The Crack Plate
:45:51. > :45:57.Portrait of Lincoln. Of course the great crack that you see at the top
:45:57. > :46:03.half of the picture. The glass plate was cracked during process.
:46:03. > :46:08.This streak that goes across here. He made one print of this. Then
:46:08. > :46:13.destroyed the negative. Which is... I'm glad there is a print. As a
:46:13. > :46:18.photographer, I can understand that. It's ruined, that is it. He thought
:46:18. > :46:24.this was a failure. What I love about this picture, Gardner hones
:46:24. > :46:30.in on the subject is the bags under the eyes, the wrinkles here, the
:46:30. > :46:36.grey in the beard. The war has taken extraordinary toll on him.
:46:36. > :46:39.It's reflected here. Here he is, only a few weeks before his second
:46:39. > :46:45.inaugural. It's an optimistic time much he has been re-elected. The
:46:45. > :46:48.war is coming to an end. He sees the second term will be about new
:46:48. > :46:54.beginnings. Some of that explains the smile on his face. What is
:46:54. > :46:58.interesting to me, a lot of the pictures of Lincoln his tie is
:46:58. > :47:03.skewed. I like that about him. He is more concerned about other
:47:03. > :47:08.matters than the way he looks. I worked for President Ford, one of
:47:08. > :47:14.the pictures that I took, I know his wife didn't like, he is wearing
:47:14. > :47:19.striped pee jam yas and a bathrobe. It shows the personality of the man.
:47:19. > :47:25.The way he was dressed. The fact that Lincoln didn't appear to care
:47:25. > :47:28.about how he looked so much. Absolutely. Mary Todd Lincoln was
:47:29. > :47:38.at often times critical of her husband's appearance. He was a man
:47:39. > :47:39.
:47:39. > :47:44.who didn't get caught up in all of those kind of social niceties.
:47:44. > :47:51.month after the cracked plate portrait, Gardner photographed
:47:51. > :47:58.Lincoln's second inauguration. A month after that, the war was
:47:58. > :48:07.essentially over. Gardner travelled south to photograph what little
:48:07. > :48:17.remained of Richmond, the Confederate Capital. Back in
:48:17. > :48:23.
:48:23. > :48:29.Washington, he was woken up with The evening of Good Friday, five
:48:29. > :48:36.days after the official Confederate surrender, Lincoln and his wife had
:48:36. > :48:40.been enjoying a life comedy at Ford's Theatre. The celebrated
:48:40. > :48:50.actor and Confederate sympathieser, John Wilkes Booth made his way into
:48:50. > :48:52.
:48:52. > :49:02.Lincoln's box. A single bullet from his pistol fatally injured the
:49:02. > :49:05.President. He would die the next morning. There is an enormous
:49:05. > :49:10.manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices. You couldn't send
:49:10. > :49:16.a picture around easily. Had you to get people to know what they looked
:49:16. > :49:19.like. What were their names? How could you find them? They
:49:19. > :49:24.reproduced photographs. Alexander Gardner reare reproduced those
:49:24. > :49:30.photos. He had a popular and successful operation behind him
:49:30. > :49:37.that knew how to take it. He had a photo of John Wilkes Booth. He was
:49:37. > :49:41.commissioned to make the wanted pictures which were distributed.
:49:41. > :49:47.Telegraph offices where a buzz with where they were. John Wilkes Booth
:49:47. > :49:50.was kaugd and killed in Virginia. Booth's assassination of Lincoln
:49:50. > :49:59.was only one part of a larger scheme that target the Union
:49:59. > :50:05.leadership. Several of the conspirators were captured alive
:50:05. > :50:15.and held on warp ships in Washington Harbour. More photos
:50:15. > :50:20.were taken of this guy Lewis Payne. 10 photos taken of this gentleman.
:50:20. > :50:27.It is rare to have multiple shots. In different poses. Handcuffs on
:50:27. > :50:30.and off. Hat on and off. He was well covered. It's interesting that
:50:30. > :50:34.Gardner started something that is very common now, recording people
:50:34. > :50:37.who were suspected of crimes head on and in profile. This is
:50:37. > :50:47.something that is either the first or very early version of that
:50:47. > :50:48.
:50:48. > :50:57.actually being done. In the case of Davey Heral, who didn't do much on
:50:57. > :51:01.the night. The man who was supposed to have killed the Vice-President
:51:01. > :51:06.lost his nerve before he could commit the crime. All three men
:51:06. > :51:14.were sentenced to hang along with one woman, Mary Surratt. She had
:51:14. > :51:19.been found guilty of hosting and assisting the conspirators. The
:51:19. > :51:25.execution was to take place at the Washington Arsenal. Gardner's was
:51:25. > :51:31.the only photographic team given permission to attend. The
:51:31. > :51:41.photographs he took on that July afternoon, in 1865, were the most
:51:41. > :51:43.
:51:43. > :51:50.disturbing, the most shocking of his career. On July 7th 165 at 1.00
:51:50. > :51:55.am-200pm some 50 behind us is where the scaffolding was set up to
:51:55. > :52:00.execute the Lincoln conspirators. They had young women selling
:52:00. > :52:05.lemonade, "get your lemonade, watch the traitors hang." It was
:52:05. > :52:10.incredibly hot and incredibly humid. People needed something on their
:52:10. > :52:15.stomachs to settle them down as they were about to watch an
:52:15. > :52:19.execution. Gardner and his colleague, Timothy O'Sullivan,
:52:19. > :52:25.positioned two cameras behind these open windows. One large plate
:52:25. > :52:35.camera, one stereo scopic. This would be the first execution ever
:52:35. > :52:40.
:52:40. > :52:45.The four condemned prisoners walked out under guard, they walked up the
:52:45. > :52:52.13 stairs to the top of the scaffolding. There the order was
:52:52. > :53:02.read for their execution. That was read by the yuen Officer. The
:53:02. > :53:11.nooses were placed around their necks. -- Union. The umbrella was
:53:11. > :53:16.held over Mrs Surratt's head. Then everyone stepped away. The signal
:53:16. > :53:22.was given. The props were taken out from underneath the scaffolding.
:53:22. > :53:26.The four prisoners dropped to their execution and deaths. This is the
:53:26. > :53:30.moment where they pulled them out. It's motion here. It's not just a
:53:30. > :53:34.sequence showing the events that happened. These are the work of a
:53:34. > :53:43.great photographer. Somebody who knew how to tale story with his
:53:43. > :53:48.camera. Even though Gardner was out on the battlefields, everybody was
:53:48. > :53:55.already dead. This is watching somebody really die in front of
:53:55. > :54:00.your eyes. They had the sensabilities to keep shooting away.
:54:00. > :54:03.I give him a lot of credit for. That It take as very dedicated
:54:03. > :54:08.professional. He is capturing a moment in history that no-one else
:54:08. > :54:12.could have captured. He knew that. He had to make the gut decision of
:54:12. > :54:21.just keeping the camera going and going and going, no matter how he
:54:21. > :54:31.felt or how his stomach felt. Gardner's final image was made from
:54:31. > :54:34.
:54:34. > :54:38.two square exposures stitched into one fan rammic photograph. -- pan
:54:38. > :54:47.rammic photograph. This is the one that I find to be exceptional. We
:54:47. > :54:53.have the bodies. Over here are the coffins and the graves are dug to
:54:53. > :54:56.put them down there. They saw the graves dug when they walked out
:54:56. > :55:01.from the building to the scaffolding. That is the most
:55:01. > :55:11.amazing photo to me. I think that picture, to tell the story in one
:55:11. > :55:26.
:55:26. > :55:33.frame is what it's all about, this Gardner's image of the four dead
:55:33. > :55:43.conspirators symbolised an end to the savages of the civil war.
:55:43. > :55:44.
:55:44. > :55:48.Gardner himself was only 43. His career was far from over. He
:55:48. > :55:55.published a collection of his civil war photographs, in it he wrote,
:55:55. > :56:02."Here are the dreadful details. Let them aid in preventing such another
:56:02. > :56:05.calamity falling upon the nation ." After the destruction of the civil
:56:05. > :56:11.war, Gardner turned his camera towards the building of modern
:56:11. > :56:18.America. They he travelled West to photograph the new rail roads, the
:56:18. > :56:23.new cities. I have often thought that he needed to get out of
:56:23. > :56:29.Washington. He needed to leave this war behind. It was a really
:56:29. > :56:36.horrific four years of bloody conflict. I think that, by going
:56:36. > :56:46.West, he was looking to, kind of, turn the page, both in his own life,
:56:46. > :56:56.
:56:56. > :57:06.At the age of 58, Gardner gave up photography. He devoted his time to
:57:06. > :57:06.
:57:06. > :57:15.charitable causes. He died three years later in Washington. In 1 81
:57:15. > :57:21.of 82. He is buried in Glenwood cemetery on Lincoln Road. His
:57:21. > :57:29.unremarkable grave gives no clue to his remarkable life. The great
:57:29. > :57:37.American poet remembered him fondly. Gardner was a mighty good fella,
:57:37. > :57:45.also mightly my friend. Guard guard was a real artist. He saw further
:57:45. > :57:49.than his camera. His coverage, not only of people, certainly he was a
:57:49. > :57:58.good portrait photographer, the photographs that he took on the