THE NEW YORK TIMES, Oct. 20, 1862  Page 5 contains one of the more moving articles on the horrors of war, brought home to the residents of New York through an exhibition of "Pictures of the Dead at Antietam" in Matthew Brady's Manhattan Gallery.
The article is headed: "'Brady's Photographs" and a website chronicles the exhibition comparing the brutality & reality of war, to the callousness of New York's residents who read the daily papers but did not relate to the horrors they reported.
The article is extremely well-written & is shown in its entirely in the photos, but a few bits are worthy of noting here: "The living that throng Broadway care little perhaps for the dead at Antietam, but...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 payment...We see the list in the morning papers...but dismiss its recollection with the coffee. There is a confused mass of names, but they are all strangers...We recognize the battle-field as a reality, but it stands as a remote one..." with more.
Then: "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. At the door of his gallery hangs a little placard, 'The Dead of Antietam'...There is one side of the picture that the sun did not catch...It is the background of widows and orphans, torn from the bosom of their natural protectors by the red remorseless hand of Battle, and thrown upon the fatherhood of God. Homes have been made desolate & the light of life in thousands of hearts has been quenched forever. All of this desolation imagination must paint--broken hearts cannot be photographed..." and much more.
As history would come to document, the battle of Antietam has the dubious distinction of being the deadliest one-day battle in American history, with over 22,700 casualties.
In 50 years of selling early newspapers, this issue best brings home the grief, sorrows, tragedies, realities, and unanswered questions that war inflicts upon a nation.
There is much reporting on the war elsewhere in this issue, but it all pales in comparison to the lengthy page 5 report.
Eight pages, never bound nor trimmed (preferred), there are 11 very tiny worm holes within the reports in this issue (and a few more in the margins), but fortunately, none are in the mentioned page 5 article. Otherwise in good condition.