New York State Archives - Digital images from our collections. Selected Civil War Photographs Home Page. All images are digitized | All jpegs/tiffs display outside Library of Congress | View All This online collection provides access to about 7,000 different views and portraits made during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and its immediate aftermath.
The images represent the original glass plate negatives made under the supervision of Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner as well as the photographic prints in the Civil War photographs file in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room. The Civil War, Part 1: The Places - In Focus. Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, a milestone commemorated by The Atlantic in a special issue (now available online).
Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. As brother fought brother and the nation's future grew uncertain, the public appetite for information was fed by these images from the trenches, rivers, farms, and cities that became fields of battle. Today's collection is part 1 of 3, covering the places of the Civil War: the battleships, prisons, hospitals, urban centers, and rural pastures where history was made. Tomorrow's installment features some of the people involved in the conflict, and on Friday I'll be sharing some of the amazing three-dimensional stereographs of the war. Use j/k keys or ←/→ to navigate Choose: