The Civil War was the first major conflict to be extensively documented through photography.

The Civil War increased demand for photography dramatically. It was utilized by both the Union and Confederate forces, as well as by normal Americans who desired pictures of their loved ones in peril and of the actual war scenes. Photographing armed war includes capturing its consequences on people, places, and culture. Photographers who work in this field may put themselves in danger and are occasionally killed while attempting to remove their images from the battlefield.

The ambrotype, an image on glass, and the tintype, an image on an iron plate, were both widely used distribution methods for photographs during the American Civil War. The carte de Visita, a portrait adhered to paper stock, was also quite popular. The photographic industry had become extremely professional by the Civil War. The daguerreotype, the first commercially successful type of photography introduced to America by Samuel Morse, was taken up by Mathew Brady early on. He was the first photojournalist when the Civil War broke out.