Mathew Brady who, with a large team of photographers, photographed the American Civil War. One member of his team, Timothy O'Sullivan, whose picture "Harvest of Death", taken at Gettysburg on 4th July 1863 ranks amongst the most famous of early, historical, battle field photographs.

Oliver Wendell Holmes described how photography injected a feeling of grim reality into the situation, as he surveyed pictures taken by Brady's team:

"Let him who wishes to know what war is look at this series of illustrations. These wrecks of manhood thrown together in careless heaps or ranged in ghastly rows for burial were alive but yesterday... Many people would not look through this series. Many, having seen it and dreamed of its horrors, would lock it up..that it might not thrill or revolt those whose souls sickens at such sights. It was so nearly like visiting the battlefield...that all the emotions excited by the actual sight..came back to us. (It) gives us....some conception of what a repulsive, brutal, sickening, hideous thing it is, this dashing together of two frantic mobs to which we give the name of armies..."

T:AP member, George Lottermoser, edits this category.

If you would like to join T:AP and submit your photographic work, contact George.

Between the American Civil War and the current battles being waged around the world millions of photographs have been created, and distributed, illustrating the horror and folly of humans inflicting hideous brutality upon their brothers, sisters and children. And yet some among us continue to believe it is an answer to a problem.