Tag: George S. Cook house (Charleston SC)

The photographer’s home in the South Battery, next to the headquarters of Union Gen. John P. Hatch.

Wikipedia says: George Smith Cook (February 23, 1819 – November 27, 1902) was an early American photographer known as a pioneer in the development of the field. Primarily a studio portrait photographer, he is the first to have taken a photograph of combat during a war: he captured images in 1863 of Union ironclads firing on Fort Moultrie in South Carolina during the Civil War.

For a decade he moved throughout the South and other cities, living for a time in each. He would train students in photography, sell his studio to one, and move on. From 1849, he became skilled in daguerrotype technique after settling in Charleston, South Carolina. He specialized in portrait photography. His first wife died in 1864, and he married again soon after the war.