Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

1865. Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. View from the parapet of Fort Sumter. View full size. Left half of a wet-collodion glass-plate stereograph.
Thanks for posting these Civil War photos. I've seen them reproduced in books many times, but so much detail gets lost when they're reduced down to fit a page. It's great to be able to see them in a format that's better able to showcase the detail these old wet plates have.
Today's Top 5