A photograph of Johnston County resident Amy Harper is included in a Civil War photography exhibit traveling around Wake County Libraries.

The collection depicts those involved in the war and includes images of artifacts and official documents. Harper is just one of the women featured in the exhibit, including some who exemplify the hardships of women and families during the period..Harper’s Johnston County home became a field hospital during the Battle of Bentonville March 19-21, 1865. More than 500 wounded soldiers received care in her home. Today the Harper House still stands and can be visited at the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site near Four Oaks.

Destruction was felt around homes and communities in North Carolina as backyards were turned into battlefields during the Civil War (1861-1865). Widespread suffering impacted all North Carolinians regardless of race, class and gender.

The involvement of Confederate soldiers, African Americans and women is depicted in the Freedom, Sacrifice, Memory: Civil War Sesquicentennial Photography Exhibit, which will visit the Cameron Village Branch of the Wake County Public Library system through March 29 in Raleigh.

“The Civil War occurred when photography was just becoming popular and became the first conflict to be widely recorded in this manner,” explains N.C. State Historic Sites Division Director Keith Hardison. “Battlefield images fascinated the public and acquainted them, in a dramatic way, with the horrors of war. The ‘Freedom, Sacrifice, Memory’ exhibit presents images that compare and contrast the conditions of war, then and now.”

The exhibit honors North Carolinians and their dedication throughout the Civil War with images gathered from the State Archives, the N.C. Museum of History, and State Historic Sites (www.nchistoricsites.org). A total of 24 images will be displayed by the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources in 50 libraries and four museums throughout the state through May 2013. A notebook will accompany the exhibit with further information and also seeking viewer comments.

For information call the Wake library at 919-856-6710. For tour information call the Department of Cultural Resources at 919-807-7389.