Sepetember 1862. Antietam, Maryland. "Confederate soldier who after being wounded had evidently dragged himself to a little ravine on the hillside where he died." Wet plate glass negative by Alexander Gardner. View full size.
"Why is it,that whenever you see a Dead Soldier from the Civil War, just about 95% of the time it is always a Confederate soldier?"
Dave gives one explanation - that the photographers were traveling with the Union Army. But there is a secondary explanation. As I understand it photographers in the Confederacy had considerable difficulty in acquiring the chemicals they needed. Many of those chemicals would need to be imported on blockade runners (or smuggled in from the North) and obviously the South had more pressing needs (like medicine), and the blockade runners were more likely to want to bring in higher value and more compact goods. That, combined with the demand for portraits, kept most Confederate photographers in the studios.
Why is it,that whenever you see a Dead Soldier from the Civil War, just about 95% of the time it is always a Confederate soldier??
[Because the photographers are traveling with the Union Army, on ground taken by the North. Whose dead are more likely to have been cleared from the field. And I'd say it's more like 70-30. - Dave]
Submitted by ScarlettSun on Wed, 07/09/2008 - 6:06pm.
There are no words to describe how this picture made me feel- I will say, I wonder if/when someone will be struck dumb by a picture of a dead soldier from our current war...it's incredibly sad.
Apparently there were so many photos taken during the Civil War that the demand for them lowered considerably, especially those of dead soldiers. The glass plates found other uses such as windowpanes for greenhouses. I always find it rather amazing that any were left for producing later.
