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conquest of England, the Hundred Years’ or Thirty Years’ Wars, even our own seven-year struggle for liberty, without any first-hand picture-aids to start the imagination? Take the comparatively modern Napoleonic wars where, moreover, there is an exceptional wealth of paintings, drawings, prints, and lithographs by contemporary men: in most cases the effect is simply one of’ keen disappointment at the painfully evident fact that most of these worthy artists never saw a battle or a camp.
So the statement that there have been gathered together thousands of photographs of scenes on land and water during those momentous years of 1861 to 1865 means that for our generation and all succeeding ones, the Civil War is on a basis different from all others, is practically an open book to old and young. For when man achieved the photograph he took almost as important a step forward as when he discovered how to make fire: he made scenes and events and personalities immortal. The greatest literary genius might write a volume without giving SO intimate a comprehension of the struggles before Petersburg as do these exact records, made by adventurous camera-men under incredible difficulties, and holding calmly before your eves the very Reality itself.
To apply this pictorial principle, let us look at one remarkable photograph,  Cooper’s Battery in front of the Avery house, during the siege of Petersburg, of which we have, by a lucky chance, an account from one of the men in the scene. The lifelikeness of the picture is beyond praise: one cannot help living through this tense moment with these men of long ago, and one’s eyes instinctively follow their fixed gaze toward the lines of the foe. This picture was shown to Lieutenant James A. Gardner (of Battery B, First Pennsylvania Light Artillery), who immediately named half a dozen of the figures, adding details of the most intimate interest (return to photo of Cooper's Battery)
I am, even at this late day, able to pick out and recognize a very large number of the members of our battery, as shown in this photograph. Our battery (familiarly known as Cooper’s Battery) belonged to the Fifth Corps, then commanded by Gen. G. K. Warren.
Our corps arrived in front of Petersburg on June 17, 1864, was put into position on the evening of that day, and engaged the Confederate batteries on their line near the Avery House. The enemy at that time
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