Customer Reviews

The Civil War Soldier: A Photographic Journey

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Ray Carson's the Civil War Soldier: A Photographic Journey brings a fresh perspective and new treatment to a photographic subject that was defined 135 years ago by renown Civil War photographer, Matthew Brady, whose battlefield photos brought the grisly horrors of the war home to the American public. Ray Carson's photos, although more than a century removed from the subject, have a dynamic, impromptu quality and spontaneous intimacy that Brady, with his long exposure times that required subjects to be perfectly still (or dead), was never able to capture. Carson's photos capture the action and vitality of scenes that Brady couldn't, with a technique that is brilliant in the way it preserves the old daguerreotype quality of the photography of Brady's times with the movement and close-up action of modern photography. Carson's photos put the viewer right into the middle of the action. He did this by photographing re-enactors at the sites of the Civil War's great battles who annually recreate, with painstaking attention to detail and authenticity, those great conflicts which tested the mettle and honored the valor of both sides, North and South alike, and, in the process, forged a stronger, undivided nation. Civil War Soldier is absorbing reading, too, with many first-hand accounts, and the foreword by James Robertson, Jr. of Virginia Tech is a compelling introduction to one of the most dramatic and moving periods in the nation's history. Once I picked up Ray Carson's book, I couldn't put it down. Civil War Soldier belongs on the bookshelf of every Civil War buff, along with Matthew Brady.

Really enjoyed this book. It was easy read and not weighted down with a lot of stradegy. I thought it captured the meaning of brotherly love, when at the end of the war, the Union troops even shared their food with the enemy.The fact that the Confederates were allowed to keep their horses was very moving to me, as these animals is some cases were all they owned. And in the end,it makes no difference which side they fought on, they were finally all together on a common ground, even if it is in eternal rest.

Illustrated with photos of reenactors wearing period uniforms, this book about soldier life during the Civil War is a good introduction for those interested in the War Between the States. The photography is good (some has been photoshopped to look like tinted photos) but the text is very basic and I did find one error in fact (Union regiments were allowed to lapse after enlistment and new regiments formed but Confederate regiments were kept supplied with replacements). Still, a good book.

This book is by a member of the High Springs Art Coop who works as a photographer at the University of Florida. Only limited quantities are available at this time...I am really glad I grabbed one.