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.