Prints and Authors in the Time of Manet

Battleground of Resaca, Ga., No. 1

Albumen print, 1866
Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1981.121

In this view of the Civil War battle ground of Resacca, Georgia, George Barnard reveals his great talents as both a landscape photographer and consummate news photographer. A survey of the plates in Barnard’s 1866 portfolio Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign shows this image to be one of his most successful. Barnard captures the sense of terrible devastation through the march of skeletal trees across the wasted landscape—a powerfully composed record of war. This particular photograph is in very fine condition, the rich tones of the landscape fully preserved.