Witness to a Civil War

The year was 1863, and the Civil War raged on, its battles carving deep scars into the American landscape and psyche. It was a time of extraordinary sacrifice, of men in blue and gray marching into the unknown, and of those who remained behind, tending to the wounded, ensuring that the nation would endure. In Washington, D.C., the C.M. Bell Studio bore witness to this defining moment in history, capturing the solemn faces of soldiers and nurses whose work and sacrifices would become part of the great American story.

Among those preserved in Bell’s meticulous portraits is Private John A. Pepperman, of Company A, 34th Regiment—a soldier whose steady gaze and formal pose speak to the discipline and quiet determination that defined the Union Army. Beside him stands Robert G. McKay, of Company H, 1st Michigan, a man who, like so many others, had left home, family, and safety behind in the name of an uncertain cause. The nurses, their names lost to time, offer a different but equally powerful testament to the war’s human cost. Their calm expressions belie the unimaginable suffering they must have witnessed—their hands having dressed wounds, held fevered foreheads, and comforted the dying. Through these portraits, we see not just individuals, but the collective effort of a divided nation struggling toward reconciliation, its fate resting on the shoulders of those willing to give all.

The C.M. Bell Studio, in its quiet, methodical work, provided more than a service. It created a record, a legacy of faces that remind us that history is not merely made on battlefields, but in the acts of everyday courage—of soldiers who marched, of nurses who healed, of a country finding its way forward, one sacrifice at a time.