Category: Civil Wars

Explore the human side of civil wars through authentic historical photographs. Witness the struggles, courage, and consequences of divided nations.
These images document key events and personal moments that shaped political and social transformations around the world.

#23 On June 18, 1864, a cannon shot took both arms of Alfred Stratton. He was just 19 years old.

Alfred Stratton sits upright for the camera, bare-chested and steady-eyed, his sleeves absent because his arms are gone. The plain studio backdrop offers no distraction from the truth the title already warns about: a cannon shot on June 18, 1864, ended his youth in an instant. Even the simple chair becomes a quiet prop in…
#39 After skin and muscle had been were severed, this amputation saw – made with a steel blade and an ebony wooden handle – cut through bones

Few artifacts evoke the brutal pragmatism of battlefield medicine like an amputation saw, and the one pictured here is all business: a broad steel blade, a stout ebony-colored handle, and a form built for speed rather than elegance. The surface of the metal bears the dull mottling of age and hard use, while the squared-off…
#55 Surviving Limb Loss: The Stories of Civil War Amputee Veterans #55 Civil Wars

Set within an oval studio frame, a wounded soldier stares forward with a swollen, damaged face and a slackened jaw, the clinical stillness of the portrait at odds with the violence that caused it. Handwritten notes along the border and a caption describing a gunshot fracture to the upper jaw give the image a case-file…
#9 Government militiamen killed in the fighting at Badajoz, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, 24th August, 1936

Across an open, sun-bleached field outside Badajoz, the bodies of government militiamen lie scattered in the grass, their stillness broken only by the rough texture of the ground and the stark horizon beyond. The scene is unadorned and distant—no buildings, no crowds, just a wide expanse that makes the human cost feel both intimate and…
#25 Women with their weapons in the streets of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War.

Barcelona’s street life during the Spanish Civil War could turn from ordinary to extraordinary in an instant, and this scene lingers on that uneasy boundary. Two women sit low against a plain wall, rifles resting with the matter-of-fact weight of tools rather than trophies, while others nearby lean back on makeshift bedding. The composition feels…
#41 Evacuation of infant children from Santander, during the Spanish Civil War 1937.

Ropes, bags, and bundled coats crowd the frame as women gather close with small children in their arms, the deck beneath them littered with the hurried traces of travel. An infant in a light outfit sits heavy in a lap, while another child clutches a toy or blanket, faces turned in different directions as if…
#57 Republican fighters take aim behind a barricade of a dead horses in a street in Barcelona 1937, during the Spanish Civil war.

Pressed against a makeshift barricade of fallen horses, Republican fighters steady their rifles in a Barcelona street in 1937, using whatever cover the chaos of battle leaves behind. The tight framing pulls you into the moment: caps and helmets crowded together, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed down the line of fire. Behind them, shuttered storefronts and…
#73 Spain Catalonia Tarragona: Spanish Civil War: after conquering the city members of the 5th division of Navarra are kneeling down in prayer during a thanksgiving service in the streets of Tarragona, 1939

Along a broad street in Tarragona, rows of uniformed men kneel in unison while a dense crowd presses close on both sides, turning the roadway into an improvised sanctuary. The posture is unmistakably devotional—heads bowed, bodies lowered, hands near caps or rifles—suggesting a public thanksgiving service staged amid the city’s stone façades. In the background,…
#89 Young militiamen during the attack on a village by the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, December 28, 1936.

Low to the frozen ground, a young militiaman steadies a bolt‑action rifle and peers down the sights, his cap pulled tight against the winter cold. Snow patches and rough earth frame the scene, while blurred figures in the background hint at a wider skirmish unfolding beyond the camera’s focus. The closeness of the shot makes…
#105 Spanish Civil War Front of Huesca, 1936

On the Huesca front in 1936, a gun crew works in the open on a scrubby hillside, their artillery piece tucked behind hurried camouflage of cut grass and branches. Several soldiers cluster to the left, crouched and watchful, while one man leans forward at the breech as if awaiting the next command. The uneven terrain…