Interior View of Fort Sumpter 1866

George N. Barnard made this albumen print, "Interior View of Fort Sumter," sometime during or after the American Civil War. Barnard's photograph allows us to look unflinchingly at the damage wrought by war, even as it subtly perpetuates a heroic narrative. Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, was the site of the first shots fired in the Civil War in 1861, and became a symbolic location for the duration of the conflict, and after. Barnard worked for the Union Army, and his photographs documented the war effort from the victors' perspective, helping to shape collective memory of the war in the North. Yet, as historians, we recognize that this imagery is not neutral. It silently glosses over the terrible human costs of the conflict. Exploring Barnard’s Civil War photographs with the tools of social and cultural history helps us to understand the complex and contested legacies of this transformative period in American history.