Alexander Gardner Civil War Picture.

To see our full collection of
Alexander Gardner's Civil War era photos,

Alexander Gardner is best remembered for the work he did with Matthew Brady as a photographer of the American Civil War.  Yet, photography was not his first endeavor, nor was America his home country.  Gardner was born in Scotland, and his family settled in Glasgow when he was a young boy.  It was there that he attended school until the age of fourteen. At that time he left his studies behind and apprenticed himself to a jeweler. In fact, he would become quite successful as a jeweler; however, influenced by the socialist ideas of Robert Owen, Gardner longed for something different. Inspired by the New Harmony community established by Robert Dale Owen in Indiana, Gardner turned his efforts toward the Clydesdale Joint Stock Agricultural and Commercial Company.  With this company he hoped to raise enough money to purchase land in the United States.   

In 1850, Alexander’s brother James, along with Alexander and seven others, traveled to the United States and bought land in Monona, Iowa where the group established a cooperative community.  The brothers then returned to Scotland to recruit new members and to garner more funds. While in Glasgow, Alexander used some of their money to purchase The Glasgow Sentinel, a weekly newspaper that reported both national and international news.  As the owner, Gardner utilized his periodical as a forum to publish editorials that advocated social reform in order to benefit the working class.  Under his control, the newspaper quickly became the second best-selling paper in Glasgow.  Along with his editorials, Gardner began writing reviews of photography exhibitions after he viewed the Great Exhibition in May of 1851.  It was at this international exhibition that Alexander Gardner first saw the work of photographer Matthew Brady.   

It wasn’t until 1856 that the Gardners decided to return to their property in Iowa, but upon their arrival they found the community had fallen prey to tuberculosis.  Unfortunately, their sister was one of the victims, and because of this they decided to leave Iowa for New York.  Once there, Gardner quickly began working under Matthew Brady as a photographer.  Importantly, Gardner was well educated in the art of the new collodion or wet-plate process; this process was fast replacing the daguerreotype. Furthermore, it was during this time that Matthew Brady’s eyesight began to deteriorate, and he relied upon Gardner to run things around the studio.  Soon Gardner was running Brady’s studio in Washington, D.C. and developing quite a reputation for excellence; he was also training a young apprentice, Timothy O’Sullivan.   

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Gardner was in high demand; almost every soldier wanted his portrait taken in uniform before he left to fight. In July of 1861, Matthew Brady and another photographer traveled to the front-line of the Union effort. There they photographed the battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the American Civil War and also the first Union loss. Brady himself came very close to becoming a confederate captive, but made it back to Washington, D.C.  Once there he felt a calling to photograph the Civil War in order to make a record of the people and the loss of lives that characterized the war.  He dispatched Alexander and James Gardner, Timothy O’Sullivan, William Pywell, George Barnard, and eighteen other men to travel about the country and document the war.

Because of his travels and his work to create a photographic record of the Civil War, Gardner was appointed to the staff of General George McClellan in 1861. Given the honorary rank of Captain, Alexander Gardner was able to photograph the battle of Antietam, where he famously captured the image of Abraham Lincoln upon the battlefield, the battle of Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and also the siege of Petersburg.

After the war, Gardner returned to Washington, where he opened his own gallery and published a book of his collection of civil war pictures; he did, however, continue documenting life with photography. He became the official photographer of the Union Pacific Railroad, and was able to capture the laying down of track for the railroad in Kansas and also photographed the Native Americans living in that locale. After many years of successful work, Alexander Gardner passed away in Washington in 1882. His work continues to live on as a testament to both his immeasurable talent and also his selfless drive to document history for the ages.

Margaret McGuire, 2004