The American Civil War Battle of Antietam, 17th September 1862, was the bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. The photographer Alexander Gardner arrived there two days later and set up his stereo wet-plate camera and made dozens of images of the body-strewn countryside. Back in New York Matthew Brady arranged an exhibition of the work. Visitors were greeted with what are believed to be the first recorded images of war casualties. The photographs are so sharp that people could make out faces. In the fields lay not faceless strangers, but ‘real people, sons, brothers, fathers, cousins and friends’.