6 Moving Civil War Photos

A family loaded their livelihoods onto a mule-drawn cart and set off for the North, hoping to reach Union lines for their permanent freedom. Such a sight was common after President Abraham Lincoln put the Emancipation Proclamation into effect on January 1, 1863, which declared that over three and a half million slaves in the Confederacy were free. Of course, they would have to escape the Confederacy to feel the effects of their newly-gained freedom. 

This could be achieved through the extensive Underground Railroad system, liberation from Union soldiers, or braving the road in hopes of reaching the North. Many didn’t survive the journey; here is a moment where a family thankfully does.

Three women solemnly walk through the endless rows of the dead, a common sight in the aftermath of the war. Many graveyards were filled with hundreds of rows of tombstones from those that died in the Civil War, a stark visual of the staggering loss of life during the conflict, which doesn’t even include the countless bodies buried in unmarked battlefield graves. 

In fact, the volume of dead soldiers was so great that Lincoln passed legislation to create the first national cemeteries to provide the fallen soldiers with their final resting place. While this only applied to Union soldiers, many Southern cities have separate graveyards for Confederate soldiers.

For those who were fortunate enough to never witness a battlefield, Civil War photography brought a tangible tragedy to the masses. The sight of fields and trenches strewn with the bodies of men and boys resonated with the public in ways previously not possible. The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major engagement in the war, during which Confederate General Robert E. Lee made a risky decision to split his already inferior army in order to flank Union General Joseph Hooker. 

The gambit initially paid off brilliantly and the Rebel army was victorious, but at great cost. General “Stonewall” Jackson was wounded by friendly fire, and the Confederates had over 12,000 casualties. Lee would follow Chancellorsville with an overeager attack that led to the decisive Confederate loss at Gettysburg.

Perhaps the most important, iconic, and infamous battle of the entire Civil War, and arguably in all of American history, was the Battle of Gettysburg. Fought over the first three days of July 1863, the Union victory in Pennsylvania is widely considered the turning point of the war. Over 150,000 soldiers with over 500 pieces of artillery collided in the battle, as the Union forces held out against the aggressive Confederate attacks. 

By the battle’s end, there were over 50,000 casualties, and the fields around Gettysburg were littered with the bodies of thousands of soldiers and horses. It was the deadliest battle in American history to date, and a third of the Confederacy’s generals were wiped out. Though there was only one direct civilian casualty, the town of Gettysburg with a population of under 3,000 suddenly had to care for over 20,000 Union wounded soldiers and Confederate prisoners.

Reverend Henry Brown was born into slavery and freed at the age of 20. Three years later, he was ordained as a minister, preaching at many locations around the Midwest. On the brink of the Civil War, Brown became a prominent leader and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, as well as an active advocate for African American rights. He also worked as an assistant to Abraham Lincoln and they maintained a friendship when Lincoln moved to the White House to serve as president. 

After Lincoln’s assassination, Brown received a telegram that he had been invited to the funeral to lead Lincoln’s beloved horse Old Bob directly behind the hearse. Brown lived to the age of 83 and was buried near the Lincoln Tomb in Springfield, Illinois.

While the bloodshed and loss of life was felt in the immediate aftermath of combat, battlefields could hold the scars of war for months and years afterward. In 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant led Union troops into Virginia for some opportunistic attacks while Confederate General Robert E. Lee focused on defending the capital of Richmond. Two battles at Cold Harbor and Gaines’ Mill left over 40,000 casualties, and many of the dead were left to rot in the forests and fields. 

A year later, African Americans were called upon to clean up the battlefields and pick through bones and remains. Though they were free in the North, Black people were often given the more menial and undesirable tasks. The remains were collected to give fallen Union soldiers a proper burial, and the care for Civil War graveyards would go on to inspire the implementation of Memorial Day.