Pontoon bridge across the Potomac River in Maryland.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
This pontoon bridge across the Potomac River at Berlin (now Brunswick), Maryland, was the way into Virginia when Major General George McClellan finally decided to move the Army of the Potomac off the Antietam battlefield in late October 1862. McClellan was joined by Major General Ambrose Burnside and photographer Mathew Brady when they crossed here on their way to Warrenton, according to Brady assistant David Woodbury. This large-plate photograph by Alexander Gardner, who worked for Brady in 1862, is crammed with fascinating details, including train cars, C&O Canal boats, a supply cache, a Union encampment, a signal station, the remains of the bridge destroyed by Confederates in June 1861, and a long line of wagons making their way through town toward the makeshift crossing. On November 5, before he could reach Warrenton, McClellan was fired by President Abraham Lincoln and replaced by Burnside.
Bob Zeller is president of the nonprofit Center for Civil War Photography, which is devoted to collecting, preserving, and digitizing Civil War images.
