Existing comment:
Brady's Gallery in 1862: A New View of Death in Battle:
In October of 1862, Brady showed the patrons of his gallery something completely different.
"At the door of his gallery hangs a little placard, 'The Dead of Antietam.' Crowds of people are constantly going up the stairs; follow them, and you find them bending over photographic views of that fearful battlefield, taken immediately after the action."
Mathew Brady's photographer Alexander Gardner had arrived on the Antietam Battlefield two days after the battle had ended on September 17th, 1862. Over the next few days he did something never done before in America. He chronicled the human carnage of battle. The Battle of Antietam is, even to this day, the single worst day in American military history. Over 23,000 soldiers were killed or wounded out of a population of about 30 million, which was only one-tenth of today's population.
These photos were very different from the 'Beautiful Death' that 19th Century people had imagined was the reality of death in battle. |