AP offers Civil War photograph package on anniversary

From the Battle of Antietam to the "Devil's Den" at Gettysburg, photos taken during the Civil War depict the visual history of the War Between the States. They show the forts, encampments, battlefields and burned cities of the American South. They also capture the howitzers and gunboats, the slave plantations and the gallows, and the men and women who fought on the front lines.

The Associated Press has obtained scores of images of the Civil War from the Library of Congress. An edited collection of more than 50 images, supplemented with photos from AP's own archives, includes 1864 portraits of Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and photos of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and President Lincoln's 1865 funeral.

The war started on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. It ended four years later, when Robert E. Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House.

As you plan your special sections, commemorative tabs, historical timelines, interactives and photo galleries for your websites over the next four years, we urge you to include historical photos that will bring the history of the Civil War to life.

This special collection is available to newspapers for $75. To purchase the collection, e-mail the AP here.

Click here to preview the collection.