Cobb's Hill, Lookout in Distance 1864

Timothy O'Sullivan's "Cobb's Hill, Lookout in Distance" from 1864 offers a stark, almost melancholic view of the American Civil War. The photograph, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, captures a scene of quiet desolation. Bare trees frame a placid body of water, with a distant lookout tower barely visible in the background. The lone figure in the foreground, silhouetted against the water, underscores the sense of solitude and the pervasiveness of the conflict. O'Sullivan, known for his evocative landscapes and his documentation of the war, captures the beauty and the destruction that characterized the conflict.