The living that throng Broadway care little perhaps for the Dead at Antietam, but we fancy they would jostle less carelessly down the great thoroughfare, saunter less at their ease, were a few dripping bodies, fresh from the field, laid along the pavement. Mr. BRADY has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it. Of all objects of horror one would think the battlefield should stand preeminent, that it should bear away the palm of repulsiveness. But, on the contrary, there is a terrible fascination about it that draws one near these pictures, and makes him loath to leave them. You will see hushed, reverend groups standing around these weird copies of carnage, bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men's eyes.

It is a block, barren plain and above it bends an ashen sullen sky; there is no friendly shade or shelter from the noonday sun, or the midnight dews: coldly and unpityingly the stars will look down them and darkness will come with night to shut them in.

These pictures have a terrible distinctiveness. By the aid of the magnifying glass, the very features of the slain may be distinguished. We would scarce choose to be in the gallery, when one of the women bending over them should recognize a husband, a son, or a brother in the still, lifeless lines of bodies, that lie ready for the gaping trenches. For these trenches have a terror for a woman's heart, that goes far to outweigh all the others that hover over the battle-field. Have heart poor mother; grieve not without hope; mourn not without consolation. This is not the last of your boy. With pealing of trumpets and beating of drums, These trenches shall open -- the Son of Man comes. And then is reserved for him the crown which only heroes and martyrs are permitted to wear -- a crown brighter than bays, greener and more lasting than laurel.

Many people would not look at this series. Many, having seen it and dreamed of its horrors, would lock it up in some secret drawer, that it might not thrill or revolt those whose soul sickens at such sights. It was so nearly like visiting the battlefield to look over these views, that all the emotions excited by the actual sight of the stained and sordid scene, stewed with rags and wrecks, came back to us, and we buried them in recesses of our cabinet as we would have buried the mutilated remains of the dead they too vividly represented.

Yet through such martyrdom must come our redemption. War is the surgery of crime. Bad as it is in itself, it always implies that something worse has gone before. Where is the American, worthy of his privileges, who does not now recognize the fact, if never until now, that the disease of our nation was organic, not functional, calling for the knife, and not for washes and anodynes?

14. Media will not be prohibited from viewing or filming casualties; however, casualty photographs showing recognizable face, name tag or other identifying feature or item will not be published. In respect to our family members, names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without the service member's prior written consent. If the service members died of his wounds, next-of-kin reporting rules then apply. Media should contact the PAO for release advice.

Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this images of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right -- but judgement and common decency. Photographer Julie Jacobson and AP had followed the embed rules in place at the time, something Secretary Gates did not dispute. The AP responded to Secretary Gates that the picture was run because it "... conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it." A Los Angeles Times study of photos published during six months of the Iraqi conflict in 2005 showed one effect of this policy. US publications ran numerous photos of dead Iraqis but virtually none of Americans.

CBMSOD_140228_074.JPG: Non Media 21st Century Battleground Information Sources Because of the worldwide restrictions on accredited journalists, much current battleground information is being produced by non-media individuals. This recalls that Alexander Gardner was not an accredited journalist when he went to Antietam. He was an employee of a commercial gallery using a new technology, stereoscopic photography, to take photos for commercial sale. The Internet and low-cost digital cameras have provided individuals the opportunity to create video or photographic reports of firefights and the aftermath of battles, often from their own neighborhoods. These reports by "citizen journalists," available on You Tube and other websites, have at their best given the public an eyewitness account of conflicts where accredited journalists are barred. However, since many of these videos [are] not verified, there is always the possibility that images projected as objective news may in fact be produced as propaganda. Another source of current battle zone information is the photographs and videos taken by the combatants themselves. The photos published in 2004 showing prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison were taken by a [sic] US military stationed at the prison. The "Collateral Murder" video released by Wikileaks in 2010 of a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that resulted in the death of eleven individuals, including two Reuter news service employees, was a US army video. The distribution of this video, which was classified at the time, resulted in the detention of Army PFC Chelsea Manning by the US military for allegedly releasing it along with thousands of additional documents to Wikileaks. She was charged under terms of the 1916 Espionage Act. Manning's defense before a military court was that her action did not aid the enemy but was a legitimate case of whistleblowing.

I'm a "transparency advocate." I feel that the public cannot decide what actions and policies are or are not justified if they don't even know the most rudimentary details about them and their effects.

-- Chelsea Manning, October 7, 2013 While convicted of 20 counts of stealing government documents, Manning was acquitted of the most serious Espionage Act charge -- Aiding the Enemy. "Collateral Murder" is still available to the public. Since 1862, when Alexander Gardner and Mathew Brady first showed the public what the human cost of war looked like, there has been a debate over what the public should be allowed to see. Those who argue that the release of such images is necessary are not limited to journalists, politicians, or Constitutional lawyers.

"That is not an image you want to see like that," said Hernandez, still shedding tears of fury and sadness six months after her son's death. "Your kid is lying like that and there is no way you can get their to help them." "I do think it's an important thing, for people to see what goes on over there," Hernandez said in a phone interview. "It throws reality more in your face. And sometimes we can't help reality."

-- Kathy Hernandez, mother of Army Spc. Travis Babbitt, on the published photo of her mortally wounded son. PORTRAITS OF WAR, Unseen Pictures, Untold Stories Los Angeles Times, James Rainey, May 31, 2005.

CBMSOD_140228_078.JPG: Legacy of Gardner's Photographs: 20th Century Wars "Every war begins as one war and becomes two, that watched by civilians and that fought by soldiers." -- Gerald E. Linderman, Embattled Courage, 1987 20th Century changes in US mass media technology and government philosophies meant images of war were to be handled differently. The power of battlefield photos to build or reduce support for a war was seen as something that had to be controlled. World War I: Press Censorship and Propaganda: Rotogravure printing technology, allowing high quality photographs to be published, emerged in the early 20th Century. Instead of woodcuts lacking details, newspaper readers would see the same details that [the] photographer saw. The United States entered WWI in April 1917 -- three years after it began. Casualty rate[s] were higher than the Civil War. A ban on publishing photos of US dead was immediately put in place and lasted for the duration of the war. World War II: Using Images for Persuasion, not Coercion: The United States government, like all combatants in World War II, understood how battlefield images could be used to manipulate public support. Over 8,000 workers were employed in the Office of War Information (OWI) and similar agencies. Instead of a continual drum-beat of a single message, the US government tried to administer "doses" of information based on specific government goals. This changed on September 20, 1943. Life Magazine published a photo held up for publication for seven months by the Office of War Information. Life Magazine explained why:

Here lie three Americans. What shall we say of them? Shall we say that this is a fine thing, that they should give their lives for their country? Why print this picture anyway of three American boys, dead on an alien shore? The reason is that words are never enough. The eye sees.

Buna Beach, New Guinea: February 1943, George Strock. Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images. For the first twenty-one months of the war photos of US dead were banned for publication. Patriotic propaganda, as well as a succession of censorship laws beginning with the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, went into full swing. Photographs in the rotogravure sections showed scores of young men registering for the draft -- the American flag visible in more than half the images. As stated by the Library Congress: September 23, 1917, New York Times, Sunday Rotagravure Section.

CBMSOD_140228_080.JPG: [World War II continued] The press suspected this policy change was a result of the government's efforts to prepare the public for increased casualties in both the Pacific and Europe. As a Washington Post editorial in September 1943 put it, they could not: "wholly avoid the suspicion that the government is now letting us see something of the grimmer side of war because it considers us overoptimistic." The US government was concerned about reaction to this photo. It turned out the US public wanted realism in their war news. An OWI poll after the photo was published showed favorable results. OWI Poll after Buna Beach Photo: Realism in war coverage? Yes: 45% Yes with qualifications: 8% No: 42% No Opinion: 5% According to the historian James Kimble, US Treasury staffers also notes the effectiveness of these images: "the only way to sell more bonds -- indeed to speed the entire war effort -- [is] to get the facts of the war to the American people honestly and brutally ... [and] without gloves on." After the Buna Beach photo, the US government took a course of action such as what the Washington Post September 1943 editorial called for:

An overdose of such photographs would be unhealthy. But in proper proportion they can help us to understand something of what has been sacrificed for the victories we have won... If we are to behave as adults in meeting our civilian responsibilities, we must be treated as adults. This means simply that we must be given the truth without regard to fears about how me may react to it.

Vietnam: The Uncensored War: Tehre was confusion about press censorship ruiles during the Korean War. General MacArthur removed press censorship but later instituted it after Allied defeats. In Vietnam, the US instituted a policy of no censorship. To obtain Vietnam War accreditation, journalists has to agree to volunteer guidelines. Violation of the guidelines would result in losing accreditation. To maintain accreditation while telling the story, journalists in the field and editors in the US in [sic] had to push the limits without exceeding them -- a form of self-censorship. The approach was seen as successful at the time. In his memoir General William Westmoreland, commander of US forces until 1968 said the policy worked. "The MACV [Military Assistance Command Vietnam] information officer had to impose that penalty only a few times in the four years I was in Vietnam." Vietnam -- c 1966: Marines recovering dead comrade while under fire near the DMZ, photographer Catherine LeRoy in rear. Larry Burrows, Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images Did the Uncensored Press Cause Public Support for the War to Collapse? After the war, a "conventional wisdom" that the uncensored media was instrumental in turning the US public against the Vietnam War came to be accepted by many Americans of all political persuasions. The bloody images and grim reports on the high number of Marines and soldiers killed and wounded during the 1968 Tet battles were thought to have turned Americans against the war. Based upon polling result analyses and news transcripts, historians such as Daniel C. Hallin ("The Uncensored War," 1986) argue this did not happen. On the contrary they attest that a plurality of the US public continued to support US Vietnam war policy. This support allowed both the Johnson and Nixon Administrations to keep fighting in Vietnam until the 1973 peace agreement was ratified. Could the reality be that photos by Larry Burrows and others help American decide if the cost of war is worth it? As the Washington Post editorial said:

If we are to behave as adults in meeting our civilian responsibilities, we must be treated as adults. This means simply that we must be given the truth without regard to fears about how we may react to it.

CBMSOD_140228_086.JPG: October 18th, 1862, Harper's Weekly Woodcuts The Version of Gardner's Photographs Most People Saw [Text entered later]

CBMSOD_140228_092.JPG: October 18th, 1862, Harper's Weekly Woodcuts The Version of Gardner's Photographs Most People Saw A relatively small number of people actually saw Gardner's photographs at Brady's Gallery in New York City or purchased the photos at Brady's and other galleries in the autumn of 1862. The majority of people, both North and South, who saw versions of Harper's Weekly. That weekly magazine reported a subscription of over 150,000 (equivalent to about 1.5 million today) during the Civil War. In the October 18, 1862 issue, woodcuts based on the photos were published in a two-page centerfold. While the commentary published with the photographs called them: "these wonderfully lifelike pictures," the published woodcuts left out the details of the dead:; [sic] open mouths, stiff fingers, bare skin, and the detritus of battle around them. The looks of the living whose task it was [sic] would be to bury the dead were also excluded. In addition, the woodcut artist set the mood of each image by sketching in his idea of the sky since the wet-plate photo technology ique [sic] of the 1860s was normally unable to capture anything but a blank sky. [sic] realistically capture the look of the sky. Rather than the images Oliver Wendell Holmes described:

Let him who wishes to know what war is look at this series of illustrations... It was so nearly like visiting the battle-field to look over these views, that all the emotions excited by the actual sight of the stained and sordid scene, strewed with rags and wrecks...

Harper's Weekly readers saw a more pastoral landscape where the dead looked like they were only sleeping and might could [sic] soon arise from their slumbers. These were images that had more in common with earlier "Beautiful Death" drawings than the actual Gardner photographs. One wonders what reactions people had when they may have later seen the actual photographs?

In the fore-ground of which are a number of dead bodies grouped in every imaginal [sic] position, the stiffened limbs preserving the same attitude as that maintained by the sufferers in their last agonies. Minute as are the features of the dead, and unrecognizable by the naked eye, you can, by bringing a magnifying glass to bear on them, identify not merely their general outline, but actual expression.

-- Harper's Weekly