The 50 Most Powerful Images From the Civil War

Photography came of age around the same time President Abraham Lincoln came to Washington. Abolitionists demonstrated the power of the new medium when they circulated a photo of a former slave with his head posed in dignified profile, welts covering his naked back. The New York Independent wrote, "This Card Photograph should be multiplied by the 100,000 and scattered over the states. It tells the story in a way that even Mrs. [Harriet Beecher] Stowe cannot approach, because it tells the story to the eye."