The Civil War in Depth

Bob Zeller

This book is the first 3-D photographic history of the Civil War. This is amazing given the sheer number of 3-D photos shot during the war, and the fact that most 19th century Americans had ready access to 3-D imaging devices (stereoscopic viewers) and dozens of stereo views. Just as we might say that today we experience the world through television, to Americans living from 1850 to 1930, the world was experienced through black and white pictures viewed through a stereoscopic viewer.

We perceive depth because the brain interprets images from two eyes about three inches apart. Relative paralax between the images is interpreted by the brain as depth. Early photographers realized that if two pictures were taken at that same distance apart, the brain would recombine them into one image with all the same depth cues as we have in real life. Stereo images are created using a camera with two lenses, spaced about the same distance apart as human eyes. The resulting images can be free-viewed with training (that is, viewed without an artificial aid) or can be viewed using a stereoscopic viewing device that helps the eyes and the brain work together to recreate the stereo image.

Only 130 different pictures of Abraham Lincoln are known to exist (though there are thousands of copies of each, and millions of copies of one photo that became the Lincoln cent). One fourth of these images were originally shot in 3-D, yet this book contains many 3-D views of Lincoln that have never been published before. I find this amazing.

This book is not a complete story of the war, but it is a history of the photographers who covered the war on both sides. It is also a history of photojournalism. It includes over 100 views of the war, many of which you may have seen in history books but only in two dimensions -- one or the other of the images was left out. The book includes a simple viewer that you can fold and assemble for aid in viewing the images. With training, however, you can see the 3-D effect without the viewer.

One note -- the image on the top of page 32 is reversed. You'll have to set the viewer aside and cross-eye view this one to get the effect.