Students today are used to a rich visual dimension of living. Students carry with them to school each day devices that allow them to capture their lives in real time. This is possible because of the hard labor of men who toiled for hours to capture for time immemorial images that have become engrained in the American narrative. When teaching the Civil War, this author urges educators to align their instruction with their students' interests by taking full advantage of high-resolution 3-D photographs and images. Cutting edge digital techniques that add richer perspective to nineteenth-century Civil War photographs will challenge students' preconceived ideas about the war and enrich classroom instruction.