"Strike up the drums, and let the tongue of war Plead for our int'rest."
When the deliberations of the senators were "war estimates," arming of troops, and hurrying them to the "front" with all possible despatch. When the city of Washington presented all the appearance of a place threatened with a siege. When every unoccupied building was turned into barracks, and every piece of unoccupied land was made a "camp ground." When the inhabitants were in terror and dismay, dreading the approach of an invading host. When hasty earth-works were thrown up in front of the city, and the heights were bristling with cannon. When the woods and peach orchards on the opposite side of the Potomac were red with the glare of the camp fires at night, and the flashing of bayonets was almost blinding in the hot sun at noon. When the vessels sailing on the river were laden with armed men, shot, shell, and "villainous saltpetre." When the incessant roll of drums and rattle of musketry deadened almost every other sound. When sentinels guarded every road and access to the capital, and passports were required from the military authorities to enable you to move from one place to another. In short, when the whole atmosphere was filled with sounds of martial strife, and everything took the form of desolating war.
In spite of all these untoward events, I found photography actively engaged in the city, in the camp, and on the field, fulfilling a mission of mercy and consolation in the midst of carnage and tumult--fulfilling such a mission of holy work as never before fell to the lot of any art or art-science to perform. For what aspect of life is photography not called upon to witness?--what phase of this world's weal or woe is photography not required to depict? Photography has become a handmaiden to the present generation--a ministering angel to all conditions of life, from the cradle to the grave. An _aide-de-camp_ of the loveliest character to the great "light of the world," humanizing and elevating the minds of all, administering consolation to the sorrowing, increasing the joy of the joyous, lessening the pangs of separation caused by distance or death, strengthening the ties of immediate fellowship, helping the world to know its benefactors, and the world's benefactors to know the world. When grim death stalks into the gilded palaces of the great and powerful, or into the thatched cottages and miserable dwellings of the poor, photography is the assuager of the griefs of the sorrowing survivors, and the ameliorator of their miseries, by preserving to them so faithful a resemblance of the lost one. When the bride, in her youth and loveliness, is attired for the bridal, photography is the recorder of her trustful looks and April smiles, the fashion of her dress, the wreath and jewels that she wore; and, come what change in her appearance that may, the husband can look upon his bride whene'er he likes in after years, as vividly and as distinctly as on that day, connecting the present with the past with a kind of running chord of happy recollections. Photography is now the historian of earth and animated nature, the biographer of man, the registrar of his growth from childhood to "man's estate," the delineator of his physical, moral, and social progress, the book of fashion, and the mirror of the times. The uses and applications of photography are almost indescribable; scarcely an art, or a science, or a trade or profession that does not enlist photography into its service. Photography does not merely pander to the gratification of earthly vanity, but is an alleviator of human misery. Photography enters our hospitals and registers faithfully the progress of disease, its growth and change from day to day, until it is cured, or ripe for the knife of the surgeon; its pictures are lessons to the professor, and a book of study for the students, charts for their guidance through the painful and tedious cases of others similarly afflicted, teaching them what to do and what to avoid, to relieve the suffering of other patients. Photography is dragged into our criminal law courts, and sits on the right hand of Justice, giving evidence of the most undeniable character, without being under oath, and free from the suspicion of perjury, convicting murderers and felons, and acquitting the innocent without prejudice; and in our courts of equity, cases are frequently decided by the truth-telling evidence of photography.