Robert Gray
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2012
Alexander Gardner identified this image as "War, effect of a shell on a Confederate soldier." He produced both a stereo view and an 8x10 version of the scene. The rifle, shell and canteen are obvious plants added by the photographer. William Frassanito in his excellent book, GETTYSBURG: A JOURNEY IN TIME, suggests that the soldier possibly belonged to General Paul Semmes's Georgia brigade and may have been in either the 51st or 53rd regiment. As he so ably put it:
Somewhere down in Georgia, at the very moment
Gardner' s negative was being exposed, a family anxiously
awaited news of this soldier's fate, hoping he had survived
yet another battle unscathed. For that family, the true
horror of war would never be forgotten.
Somewhere down in Georgia, at the very moment
Gardner' s negative was being exposed, a family anxiously
awaited news of this soldier's fate, hoping he had survived
yet another battle unscathed. For that family, the true
horror of war would never be forgotten.