Original Photographs Taken on the Battlefields during the Civil War of the United States
John Stuart Mill · en
THE turning point of the Civil War is the Battle of Gettysburg. From
that day the Confederate cause began to wane. Few battles of modern
times show such great percentage of loss. Out of the one hundred and
sixty thousand men engaged on both sides, forty-four thousand were
killed or wounded. Brady's cameras reached the field of battle in time
to perpetuate some of its scenes. The ghastliness of the pictures is
such that it is with some hesitation that any of them are presented in
these pages. It is on the horrors of war, however, that all pleas of
peace are based. Only by depicting its gruesomeness can the age of
arbitration be hastened. It is with this in mind that this photograph is
here revealed. There is probably not another in existence that witnesses
more fearful tragedy. The photograph is taken on the field of Gettysburg
about nineteen hours after the last day's battle. It shows a Union
soldier terribly mutilated by a shell of a Confederate gun. His arm is
torn off and may be seen on the ground near his musket. The shell that
killed this soldier disemboweled him in its fiendishness. This picture
is as wonderful as it is horrible and should do more in the interest of
peace than any possible argument. Something of the bloodshed on the
battlefield of Gettysburg may be understood when it is considered that
the battlefield, which covered nearly twenty-five square miles, was
literally strewn with dead bodies, many of them mutilated even worse
than the one in this picture. The surviving veterans of Gettysburg have
seen war's most horrible aspects. Gallant and daring commanders led
those brave men in that three days' inferno, from the first to the third
of July, in 1863.
[Illustration: BOROUGH OF GETTYSBURG IN 1863--SCENE OF ONE OF WORLD'S
GREATEST CONFLICTS]
[Illustration: MEADE'S HEADQUARTERS ON CEMETERY RIDGE]
GETTYSBURG witnessed some of the hardest fighting that the world has
ever seen. This photograph was taken a short time after the battle in
1863. This little borough became a field of carnage. In the surrounding
hills occurred the terrific conflict of Big Round Top and Little Round
Top, Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge, and Culp's Hill, the Bloody
Wheatfield and Peach Orchard. A view is given of the little house in
which General Meade made his headquarters. On the first day of battle
this house was in direct range of the artillery fire rained by the
Confederates on the Union lines just before Pickett's great charge. The
horses of General Meade's aides were hitched to the fence and trees near
the house. Sixteen of these horses were killed during the artillery
fire, and their dead bodies are seen in the road.
[Illustration: LEE'S HEADQUARTERS ON SEMINARY RIDGE]
[Illustration: DEAD ARTILLERY HORSES AFTER FIGHT AT TROSTLE'S HOUSE AND
BARN IN GETTYSBURG]
[Illustration: CONFEDERATE DEAD ON GETTYSBURG "WHEATFIELD"]