During the Civil War, newspaper and magazine sales soared, as intense public interest demanded more. “Harper’s Monthly” quickly became “Harper’s Weekly,” and stories of the war dominated. Despite a high literacy rate of 80% for the Confederate states and 90% for the Union¹, the customers wanted images.
The newspapers and magazines didn’t have a mechanism to publish the early photographs. That “halftone” process wasn’t invented until 1880.² Publishers occasionally used engravers to render photos into a reproducible format, but mostly, they relied on artists in the field. Artists could quickly move, set up, and sketch battlefield illustrations and paintings that would be turned into engravings.
The most recognizable name of the Civil War artists was Winslow Homer, who became a famous fine artist in subsequent years.
1- Review of James McPherson’s What They Fought For – http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/mcp1-m19.shtml
2- The History of Photography Timeline – http://photo.net/history/timeline
