Proof

A Civil War Novel

February 1869. Washington D.C. The 40th Congress is about to adjourn. One final year remains in the most tumultuous decade in United States history. A shattered nation tries to forge ahead, yet devastating memories of a civil war and the turmoil it caused still haunt those left in its wake.

Mathew Brady knows a thing about that war, as does Alexander Gardner. The two pioneering cameramen set out to bring the war home to America’s doorstep as had never been done before. They paid witness, from the heady days on the summer fields at Bull Run to the horrors of Antietam and Gettysburg, following their beleaguered Commander-In-Chief as he led the Union on to Richmond. During these short remaining winter days of Congress,

Brady and Gardner have just submitted competing petitions asking the government to purchase their own collection of war negatives. They are driven to preserve their work for posterity, lest the restless country forget its painful past or the cameramen who preserved it.