Death and the Civil War

[Viggen]

Death and the Civil War.

I just watched probably the most touching documentary i have ever seen. Amazing to think that at around the same time the Austro-Prussian War happened and barely any photographs and documents compared to the US civil war survived!

 

2 hours of quality TV you rarely see...

http://www.pbs.org/w...s/death/player/

[Crispina]

I also watched this documentary. What surprised me is learning the government had no provision for burying all the dead. It never occurred to me that bodies would remain for so long unburied, and understand how over whelming it must have been esp. to nearby townspeople. This is a part of the history of the Civil War one never reads about.

 

The program brought back memories of a large, antique book that was kept in the bottom of a trunk belonging to my Father and Mother. It was a large photo book of the Civil War and all I can remember as a kid is that some of the photos were so gruesome we looked at the book very, very seldom. My grandfather's uncle fought in the Civil War. I am saying the book "was" kept, because I just phoned my Mother awhile ago to inquire about the book and if I may have it. She said of course I may, but called me back saying the book was NOT in the bottom of the trunk anymore! She was so sure it had been. Now we are struggling to remember what happened to the book. I am so disappointed because I'm wondering if it could have been an original copy of Matthew Brady's book. My brothers are not into history one bit, so we are certain it is not in their hands.

[caldrail]

There was always a tendency in America to record events for posterity. Before photography, artists used to travel into the wilderness and left us some very evocative renditions of the native American and his day to business. As soon as cameras were available, even those clumsy glass plate jobs, people were taking pictures of everything and anything. It was, after all, proof of all those frontier tales if nothing else, and in terms of news a far better record than the laborious wood cut artwork they used in the victorian era, once they found a method of printing photographs mind you.

 

In fact, the desire to photograph has never really left the American. take WW2. Germany made huge use of propaganda, Russia re-enacted evrything for the newsreels, Britain was full of cheeky chappies and giving the Jerry what for, but America? They filmed evrything. Absolutely everything, live action and usually in colour film.

 

I've said this before but one of the most saddening pictures of the civil war was of a pile of discarded limbs piled against the brick wall of a hospital for disposal. Surreal and real at the same time.