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.

#53 A pathologist uncovers one of the 4.000 bags inside of giant refrigerator in Tuzla. The remains of the bodies of Muslim men and boys massacred in eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995.

Rows of metal shelving recede into a cold, fluorescent corridor, each level stacked with sealed white bags that turn the room into an archive of absence. At the far end, a pathologist in protective clothing leans over a table, the careful posture suggesting procedure, patience, and the weight of what must be documented. The setting…
#16 Photographers Paul Lowe and David Turnley run for cover beside the Holiday Inn hotel which was home to the media during the war, July 1992.

Along the battered frontage of the Holiday Inn, two photographers sprint for cover with cameras still in hand, moving fast beside a wall of shattered glass. The broken windowpanes and scattered debris on the pavement turn an ordinary hotel exterior into a stark reminder of how quickly a civilian space can be transformed by violence.…
#32 Mothers and children sit talking outside an apartment block during a break in shelling, July 1992.

July 1992 hangs over this scene like a held breath: mothers and children gathered outside an apartment block, using a brief lull in shelling to talk, wait, and steady one another. The foreground woman’s clenched hand and distant gaze carry the fatigue of long uncertainty, while the worn concrete wall behind her hints at a…
#48 Porters from Kosovo Hospital rush a man wounded by a shell to the emergency room, during the Siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia, July 1992.

Urgency drives every line of this scene as two hospital porters push a stretcher at speed across a bare stretch of roadway, the wounded man’s body jolting with each step. Their coats flare with motion, heads angled forward, intent on shaving seconds off the trip to the emergency room. Behind them, stark hospital blocks and…
#64 A frightened woman collects water at a stand pipe during an exchange of gunfire between Bosnian and Serbian fighters, July 1992.

Pressed against a scarred wall, a woman leans out from cover with a look that mixes urgency and dread, as if listening for the next burst of gunfire. Around her feet, a jumble of plastic jerrycans and buckets crowds the ground, the everyday tools of survival in a city where the simple act of getting…
#3 Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand; at the main eastern theater of the war, Battle of Antietam, Sept.-Oct., 1862.

Under a canvas field tent in the Union camp, three figures stand in a quiet pause amid the Civil War’s most demanding season. Abraham Lincoln’s unmistakable stovepipe hat and long coat anchor the scene, while the men beside him—identified in the title as Allan Pinkerton and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand—frame the president as both…
#19 Lewis Payne, a conspirator in the assassination of President Lincoln, in the Washington Navy Yard, April-July 1865.

Leaning back against a rough, riveted wall, Lewis Payne stares past the camera with an unnerving calm, his posture slack yet controlled. The plain work shirt and the hard industrial backdrop strip away any sense of ceremony, leaving only the stark reality of confinement. Even without dramatic props, the image carries a heavy weight—one man…
#7 Nurse Mary A.E. Keen of Seminary Hospital, Washington, D.C., and Chesapeake Hospital, Fort Monroe, Virginia who worked from 1861 to 1865 under the jurisdiction of Dorothea Dix and later married Milton Woodworth

Framed by an ornate oval mat, Nurse Mary A.E. Keen meets the camera with a steady, unsentimental gaze that feels unmistakably of the Civil War era. Her center-parted hair is drawn back in smooth, sculpted rolls, and her dark dress is relieved by a narrow line of light fabric at the collar—small details that speak…
#23 Katharine Prescott Wormeley, Civil War relief worker, U.S. Sanitary Commission nurse, and director of Lovell Hospital, Portsmouth, Rhode Island

Poised in a quiet studio setting, Katharine Prescott Wormeley sits with calm composure, her gaze direct and thoughtful. The soft backdrop and gathered drapery frame a restrained portrait: a high-collared blouse, full skirt, and bonnet resting in her hands lend the scene a sense of everyday formality rather than battlefield drama. The simplicity of the…
#8 Sailors on the deck of a Monitor-class gunboat, 1864.

A low, open deck stretches across the frame, crowded with sailors in work clothes and caps, some squatting close to the camera while others lean and stand in loose ranks. Behind them rises the ironclad’s distinctive circular turret, its riveted plates and narrow fittings emphasizing how much Civil War naval power depended on industrial muscle…