Photographic Views of the Sherman Campaign (41cm x 51cm) is a collection of 57 photographic prints published in New York by Wynkoop & Hallenbeck in 1866. An abbreviated title is stamped in gold on the album's brown leather cover and the full title is printed on the first page. Clements Library's copy is imperfect: four plates lacking; one missing plate, acquired separately, is shelved at: Photo Div F.20.1. Inscriptions indicate that this copy was presented by Edward Hoffmire to John M. Hoffmire, his brother, in 1868, and John M. Hoffmire later gave it to his daughter Emma on April 15, 1916.
Each print is labeled with the location of the photograph, often including the names of natural and manmade landmarks. Some areas are represented in multiple images, though each item provides a unique view of landscapes and urbanized areas in Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. Many show evidence of military activity, including soldiers, tents and camps, earthworks and trenches, blasted trees, destroyed railroads and buildings. One item is a group portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman and seven other Union generals. See the list of photographs in Additional Descriptive Data for more information about specific locales pictured.
George N. Barnard was born in Coventry, Connecticut, on December 23, 1819, the son of Norman Barnard and Grace Badger. His siblings included Mary and Pauline. The family moved to Bridgewater, New York, after Mary's marriage to Samuel Hale in 1828, and Grace Barnard, a widow since Norman Barnard's death in 1826, married Zimri Howland in 1831. After his mother's remarriage, George Barnard may have lived with his sister Pauline and her husband, David C. Gaskill, in Nashville, Tennessee. On January 24, 1843, he married Sarah Jane Hodges in Sauquoit, New York, where he had returned before 1842.
In 1846, George Barnard opened a photography studio in Oswego, New York, where he specialized in daguerreotype portraits. In 1854, he and Alonzo C. Nichols opened an additional studio in Syracuse, New York, which soon thereafter became their sole location; Barnard sold the premises in 1857. During the early years of the Civil War, he worked for Matthew Brady in New York City and Washington, D.C., and photographed soldiers and scenes around Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. The United States Army's Department of Engineers hired Barnard to work with the Army of the Cumberland in Nashville, Tennessee, in December 1863, and he took pictures of scenes in Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina during Sherman's March to the Sea. In 1866, he published Photographic Views of the Sherman Campaign, which included images captured during and after the war. Barnard later lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and Chicago, Illinois, where he continued to work in photography. He died on February 4, 1902.
