15 Chilling Images That Expose the Brutality of the American Civil War

It's hard for Americans today to imagine a war fought on American soil, not to mention a war Americans fought with each other. Battles raged for four years as the fighting devastated the country, demolished southern towns, and caused the loss of life for over 620,000 people, plus millions more injured. (Also see the cities and towns demolished during the Civil War)

24/7 Tempo reviewed historical archives from Getty Images and Wikimedia Commons to assemble a collection of chilling images from the American Civil War. The scope of images ranges from horrifying to those chronicling everyday life during the war. The photographers' work represented here – Matthew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and George Barnard – formed a team to record images of the war. These photographers captured shots

Besides shooting portraits of Union soldiers, President Abraham Lincoln on horseback, and officers weighing strategy in tents, they also photographed the war in all its hellish fury. In an exhibition held in New York just one month after the war, their photos of dead soldiers on the battlefield in the aftermath of the 1862 Battle of Antietam were shown and shocked the public. One image was chosen by Time magazine as one of the most influential images of all time.

Here are chilling images from the American Civil War:

• Date: March 1862
• Location: near Washington, D.C.

Troops of the 96th Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, drill at Camp Northumberland near Washington, D.C. Tasked with defending the nation's capital until March 1862, they would later participate in the major battles of Antietam and Gettysburg, among other engagements.

• Date:1861
• Location:South Carolina

The First National Flag of the Confederacy – as opposed to the familiar X-crossed banner commonly called the Confederate flag – flies over this Union stronghold in Charleston Harbor after it surrendered to the Rebels following bombardment by the South Carolina Militia, in what is considered the first shots of the Civil War.

• Date: circa 1863
• Location:Georgia

Union troops occupied Confederate bunker defenses outside Atlanta, a vital transportation and manufacturing hub for the Rebels.

• Date:1863
• Location:Mississippi

The Union Army in fortified positions on a hillside during the siege of Vicksburg.

• Date:1861
• Location:South Carolina

Confederate soldiers standing guard at Fort Walker on Hilton Head. It was a fort hastily built by slave labor to guard the entrance to Port Royal Sound.

• Date: circa 1864
• Location:Virginia

Black laborers digging a trench in front of a new stockade in Alexandria, possibly formerly enslaved men who'd fled there after the city was occupied by Union troops and found paid work.

• Date: August 5, 1864
• Location:Alabama

The ruins of a lighthouse in the aftermath of the Battle of Mobile Bay. This battle was considered a major victory for the Union since Mobile was the largest Southern port they captured after New Orleans.

• Date: 1865
• Location:Virginia

Burnt-out and demolished buildings in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.

• Date: November 10, 1865
• Location:Georgia

Heinrich (Henry) Wirz commanded the infamous Confederate prison camp in Andersonville, in which nearly 13,000 Union soldiers died under horrific conditions. He was hanged in Washington, D.C. for conspiracy and murder.

• Date: May 1862
• Location:Virginia

The Potomac Creek Bridge in Stafford County was built in nine days by Union troops under the supervision of engineer Herman Haupt. This photograph was taken by legendary photographer Mathew Brady.

• Date: circa 1861
• Location:Washington, D.C.

Washington Arsenal (now Fort Lesley J. McNair) on Greenleaf Point, near the junction of the Anacostia River and the Washington Channel in the nation's capital.

• Date: circa 1861
• Location:Virginia

Two Union soldiers stand beside slave pen cells in Alexandria, a major slave trafficking center before the Civil War and the first Southern city taken by Union troops.

• Date: December 1862
• Location:Virginia

A Union Army battery makes final preparations on the day before the Battle of Fredericksburg, which proved to be one of the most disastrous defeats for the Union during the Civil War.

• Date: Summer 1864
• Location:New York

The one-time Camp Rathbun in Elmira fell into disuse as a training center as the war progressed and became a prison camp for captured Confederates.

• Date: 1863
• Location: Unknown

A broken cartwheel with an abandoned cannon nearby on a battlefield.