USS Commodore Barney by [Brady, Mathew] - 1862

[Washington DC]: [Brady and Company], 1862. Albumen photograph [17 cm x 22 cm] / [6.5" x 8.5"] Unmounted. Nice condiotion with strong contrasts. Striking view of a Union sailor in a tied-off rowboat with the USS Commodore Barney in the background. Sailors are visible on the deck and on the roof top. The USS Barney was built in 1859 and originally called the Ethan Allen, it was acquired by Union Forces in 1861 and was mostly stationed at Hampton Roads and patrolled the rivers of Virginia. This image was taken by Mathew Brady and Company.

Mathew B. Brady (1822-1896) was an American photographer, one of the earliest and most famous in American history. Best known for his scenes of the Civil War, he studied under inventor Samuel Morse, who pioneered the daguerreotype technique in America. Brady opened his own studio in New York City in 1844, and went on to photograph U.S. presidents John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Van Buren, among other public figures. When the Civil War began, Brady's use of a mobile studio and darkroom enabled thousands of vivid battlefield photographs to bring home the reality of war to the public.