Interior of Breastworks on Round Top, Gettysburg
July 1863
Medium
Albumen print, pl. 38 from the album "Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, vol. 1" (1866)
Dimensions
Image/paper: 17.7 × 22.9 cm (7 × 9 1/16 in.); Album page: 31.1 × 44.6 cm (12 1/4 × 17 9/16 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
196194
Art Historical Context
Step into the scarred landscape of the Civil War with *Interior of Breastworks on Round, Gettysburg*, a poignant albumen print captured by Timothy O'Sullivan in July 3. Just days after the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg—one of the war's bloodiest clashes—this image peers into the makeshift fortifications on Little Round Top, where Union soldiers hastily piled rocks and logs to repel Confederate advances. O'Sullivan, a pioneering photographer who documented the conflict for the Union Army, immortalized the raw aftermath, revealing the ingenuity and desperation of battlefield engineering. As plat...
About the Artist
Timothy O'Sullivan · 1840–1882
Timothy H. O'Sullivan (c. 1840–1882) emerged as one of America's pioneering photographers during a transformative era. His early life remains sparsely documented, with records suggesting he was born either in New York City or Ireland before immigrating young, possibly growing up on Staten Island. As a teenager, he apprenticed under Mathew Brady at his Fulton Street gallery in New York, mastering w...