The Richmond palladium., 1862-12-19
THE DEAD AT ANrlErAM.

We have already published quite a mum
Der of accounts of the great battle a, An.
tietam but the following. from the New
York Times, will. nevertheless, be read with
intense interest:
The living that throng Broadway care
little, perhaps, for the dead at Antetam. but
we fancy they would jostle less carlessly
down the great thoroughfore, sauuter less
at their ease. were a few dripping bodies,
fresh from the field. laid along the pave.
ment. There would be q gathering up of
skirts and careful picking Of the way con-
/ versation would be less lively, and the gen.
eral air of pedestrians more subduel. As
it is, the dead Of the battle field come up to
us very rarely, even in dreams. We see
the list in the morning paper at breakfast,
There is q confused mass of names, but they
are all strangers we forget the horrible
significance that dwells amid the tumble of
type. The roll we read is being called over
10 eternity, and pale, trembling lips are an
swering to il. Shadowy fingers point from
the page to q field where even imagination
is 10th to follow. Each of these little names
that the printer struck off so lightly last
night, whis,ling over his work, and that we
speak with clip Of the tongue. represents
a bleeding, msngled corpse. 1t is thuu-
derbolt that will crash into some braiu-a
dull, dead. remorseless weight that will fall
upon some heart, straiaing it TO breaking
There is nothing very terrible to US, how
ever, in the list. though our sensations nigh
be different if the newspaper carrier left the
names on the battle field and the bodies at
our doors instead.
We recognize the battle field as a reality,
but it stands as a remote one. 1t is like a
funeral next door. The Grape on the bell
pull tells there is death in the house, and in
the close carriage that rolls away with
mufflei wheels, you know there rides a wo.
man to whom the world is very dark now.
But you only sea the mourners in the last
OF the long line of carriages-they ride very
iollly and at their ease, smoking cigars in
furtiye aud discursive manner, perhaps,
and, were it rot for the black gloves they
wear. which the deceased was wise and
liberal enough to furnish. it might be a
wedding for all the world would know. Il
attr .cts your attention, but does not enlist
your sympathy. Bat it is very different
when the hearse stops At your own door.
and the corpse is carried out over your own
know whether it is funeral
or a wedding then, without boxing at the
color of the gloves worn. Those who lose
friends in battle know what battle fields are,
and our Marylsnders, with their door-yards
strewn with th. dead and dying, and their
houses turned into hospitals for the wound
ed, know what battle fields are.
Mr. Brady has done something to bring
home to US the terrible reality and earnest
ness of war. II he has not brought bodies
and laid them in our door-yards, and along
the streets, ne has done something very like
it, AT the door of his gallery hangs little
placard, " The dead of Antietan.' Crowds
of people are constantly going up stairs
follow them, aud you will see them bending
over Photographic views of that fearful bat
lie, taken Immediately after the action. OF
ali objects Of horror one would think the
battle field should stand pre-eminent, that it
should bear away the palm of repulsive-
ness. But, on the contrary, there is terri
BILE fascination about it that draws one near
these pictures, and makes him 10Th to leave
them. You will see hushed, reverend
groups standing around these weird copies
Of carnage, bending down to look into the
pale faces Of the dead, chained by the
strange spell that dwells in dead mems
syes. 1t seems somewhat singular that the
same sun that looked down on the faces Of
the slain, blistering them, blottiny out from
The bodies all seinblsnce to humanity. and
fastening corruption, should have thus
caught their features upon canvas and given
hem perpetuity forever. But 81 it is.
These poor subjects could not give the
sun sittings. and they are taken as they fell.
heir poor hands clutching the grass around
hem in spasms Of pain. or reaching out for
4 help which none gave. Union soldier
md Confederate side by side. here they lie.
he red light Of battle faded from their eyes.
but their lips set as when they met in their
asst fierce charge which loosed their souls
and sent them graphing with each other
md battling to the very gates of heaven
The ground whereon they lie is torn by shot
md smell, the grass is tramplej down By
he tread of hot. hurrying feet, and little
-ivulets ihft can scarcely be water, are
ricklipg along the earth like tears over a
mothers face.
1t is a bleak, barren plain. and above it
bends an ashen, sullen sky /; there is no
riendly shade or shelter from the MONDAY
sun or the midnight dews; coldly and un-
,ityingly the stars will look down oD them,
md darkness will come with night to shut
hem in. But there is q poetry in the scene
hat no green fields or smiling landscapes
,an possess. Here lie men who have not
,esitated to seal aud stamp their convictions
With their blood-men who have flung
themselves into the great gulf of the un-
known to teach the world that there are
rurhs dearer than life. wrongs and shames
more to be dreaded than death. AID il
here be on earth one spot where The grass
will grow greener than on another. when
he next Summer comes, where tire leaves
II Autumn will drop more lightly when
hey fall like a beneiic,ion upon a work
completed and q promise fulfilled, it is these
'oldier's graves.
There is one side of the picture that the
'un did not catch. one phase that has escap-
"a Photographic skill. Ii is the background
If widows aud orphans, torn from the
BOSOM Of their natural protectors by the red.
hand Of battle, and thrown
1pon the fatherhood of God. Home. have
been made desolate, and the light oil life in