|
|
Asleep in the trenches -
officers of the North-West Field Force resting in the
"zareba" stockade at Fish Creek
1885, by James Peters
This photograph captures the spirit of troops becoming
accustomed to campaigning in the Northwest. In reality,
it is not a photograph taken in the trenches; rather,
it documents a corner of Major-General Middleton's "zareba,"
a term borrowed from northeastern Africa for a shelter
constructed of circled wagons reinforced with boxes,
hay bales, and rifle pits.
[more]
Captain James Peters, originally from St. John,
New Brunswick, was an accomplished Canadian military
figure and amateur photographer affiliated with the
‘A' Battery of the Regiment of Canadian Artillery
in the North West Rebellion. Functioning as Commander
of ‘A' Battery, Peters took his British-made Marion
camera, along with 120 dry plate negatives, with him
to the Northwest in April 1885.
The advent of the gelatin dry-plate negative in the
early-1880s made it possible for Peters to capture
"action" shots of the rebellion. The new
process - silver halide crystals held in a suspension
of "ripened" gelatin - reduced exposure
times to one-tenth of those required by the old wet
collodion process, allowing Peters to take photographs
during actual combat, documenting what military historians
refer to as the "empty battlefield." With
the advance of new military technologies, ground combats
became eclipsed by high-powered rifle bullets and
artillery shells, marking a pronounced shift from
scenes of massed infantry documented in earlier conflicts.
While commanding ‘A' Battery and writing as a military
correspondent for the Quebec Morning Chronicle,
Peters photographed frequently during the conflict,
producing 63 successful images of the North West Rebellion.
|
