The Photographic Reality of the Battle of Antietam
The American Civil War has long been one of the most fascinating conflicts in history. The idea of brother fighting brother, one in order to preserve the Union and the other standing up for their rights, has captivated the interests of scholars for nearly 140 years. The direct relation of today’s population to those who risked and gave their lives fighting for the intangible ideals that they believed in is a largely influential factor for the ultimate popularity of ceaseless Civil War studies. The literature of the Civil War also provides a way of bringing the battlefield to life. In the absence of modern technology, literature and writings provide vivid details of Civil War life and events in which one must use the imagination to decipher. However, the photography of Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and others present to us a new facet of Civil War reality. An article in the New York Times on October 20, 1862 said, “We recognize the battlefield as a reality, but it stands as a remote one. It is like a funeral next door…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 door-yards and along streets, he has done something very like it.” This text will delve into the role of reality and understanding of the scenes recorded by the cameramen at the Battle of Antietam, as well as a more realistic appreciation for photography’s innovative new role in its documentation, as opposed to ordinary literature.
Prior to the Battle of Antietam, the population failed to realize the startling effects of the war. Antietam marked General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the north on September 17, 1862. Known as the bloodiest single day of battle, the conflict claimed 23,000 men. Previously, the public received all their account of battles via local news journals and word of mouth. The American public had minimal exposure to war photography, although Roger Fenton captured personalities and groups of soldiers in the Crimean War of 1854 and 1855. Alexander Gardner of Scotland, who was responsible for the photography at Antietam, examined these. Photography, up to Antietam, was quite common for the time, but was essentially limited to portraits that were used to reinforce newspaper articles. Therefore, the emergence of a set of photographs that depicted the scene of battle merely hours after the final shot was fired is considered revolutionary for the time. The images were the first photographs ever published that depicted the ghastly corpses in the positions which they fell. These images were displayed first in New York in October of 1862 under the title of “The Dead of Antietam.” An unknown reporter for the New York Times was bothered that these scenes should have been repulsive but were instead terribly fascinating. He goes on to say that, “Each of these little names that the printer struck off so lightly last night, whistling over his work, and that we speak with a clip of the tongue, represents a bleeding, mangled corpse. It is a thunderbolt that will crash into some brain- a dull, dead, remorseless weight that will fall upon some heart, straining it to the breaking. There is nothing very terrible to us, however, in the list, though our sensations might be different if the newspaper carrier left the names on the battlefield and the bodies at our doors instead.” These photographs grew in popularity as Mathew Brady sent them on a tour of the north, informing those during that time of the complete reality of the death and destruction of war.
