Tag: Gibson (James F.)

Wikipedia says: James F. Gibson (1828/29–?), perhaps the least recognized of the war’s most significant photographers was also one of the least known. In 1860, Scotsman Gibson’s name appeared with that of his wife Elizabeth in the Washington D.C. census, and the city directory showed that Mathew Brady employed him. Gibson may have emigrated to America with Alexander Gardner, who was also from Scotland. Gibson’s first documented trip into the field was when he accompanied George N. Barnard to the Bull Run battlefield in March 1862. He worked with Gardner at Gettysburg and partnered with him at Sharpsburg, but Gibson’s own greatest legacy was the wide array of photographs he took while on the Virginia peninsula, in particular his poignant, landmark photo of the wounded at Savage Station, Virginia. Several years after the war, before a court could rule on Gibson’s 1868 civil suit against business partner, Mathew Brady (Gibson also sued Gardner), he heavily mortgaged Brady’s failing Washington Gallery, which he partly owned (50%) and managed from Sept. 1864, left for Kansas with the cash, and was never heard from again.