Circumstances alter photographs: Captain James Peters and the war of 1885

On Friday April 24th, 1885, Captain James Peters took the world’s first battlefield photographs under fire at the battle of Fish Creek in the Canadian Northwest territory of Saskatchewan. As Captain of the Royal Canadian Artillery’s “A” Battery—part of the North West Field Force—that consisted of two nine pound cannons, he successfully exposed over seventy glass plates. In addition to his photographic documentation he also was a war correspondent for the Quebec Morning Chronicle. His regular dispatches together with his images serve as an important addition to “Rebellion narratives” and are presented here for the first time in their entirety. I have also written an introduction that places his work in its historical context and outlines a photogrammatology that adds to this overlooked work while placing it in the continuum of historical images.