A Harvest of Death

photograph by O’Sullivan

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June 29, 2026

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"A Harvest of Death" is a photograph taken by Timothy O'Sullivan in 1863 during the American Civil War. It depicts the grim reality of armed warfare by showing the Confederate dead at Gettysburg. Unlike traditional war images that often focused on armies at rest, O'Sullivan's work captured the gruesome aftermath of combat. The photograph was taken using the wet-collodion process, a complex method that made action shots impossible, thus most battlefield photographs, including this one, are of scenes before or after battle. O'Sullivan worked for Mathew Brady and later Alexander Gardner, who published this photograph.12

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Timothy O’Sullivan
In works such as A Harvest of Death (1863), which shows the Confederate dead at Gettysburg, O’Sullivan moved beyond traditional war images, which usually portrayed armies at rest, to capture instead the grim and gruesome realities of armed warfare.
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In works such as A Harvest of Death (1863), which shows the Confederate dead at Gettysburg, O’Sullivan moved beyond traditional war images, which usually portrayed armies at rest, to capture instead the grim and gruesome realities of armed warfare.
Read More