9–43. Mathew Brady, “Dunker Church and the Dead”

Made in the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, this photograph shows how visual documentation took on a new level of supposed authenticity with photography. Because of technical limitations of the medium, photographers such as Brady could only photograph the results of battles, not the actual fighting. This has led to speculation by scholars that scenes captured by photographs were “staged” or otherwise altered. For example, scholars have suggested that the bodies of the dead may have been moved to enhance the effectiveness of the image.