He’s Removed His Coat (second view)

The wartime circulation of George Barnard’s photographs is demonstrated by Harper’s Weekly publication of a woodcut engraving. Based on this image in its issue of July 8, 1865, it was one and a half years before Barnard produced a similar view of this scene in his Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaigns (one of only three Charleston photographs out of the 61 in the album). Shown in the distance is the Circular Congregational Church, ruined by the fire of December 1861. Under construction in March 1865, when Barnard took this photograph, the Congregational Church was being rebuilt while St. Philip’s Episcopal, undamaged by the Great Fire, rises behind it. At the center, though, is another of Barnard’s assistants. To show scale and distance, the photographer placed his aide sitting on the brick ruins of a structure also destroyed in the fire. We don’t know who he is, but he was photographed in numerous Barnard images in Charleston. In this view, taken minutes later than the previous photograph, his coat was removed, and pant legs rolled up. Barnard added a seated African American boy for a further perspective.

This is the caption as printed in 100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War. It has not yet been through this site’s research and fact-checking pass.