More practice images.

Here comes trouble...

Just another practice image from Land of Winter, same general setting as some of the other images — a rain-swept village that's the site of a brutal bloodbath. 

This week marked the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. For a country that has not had a peaceful history, it's arresting to think that its most devastating, bloodthirsty conflict was against itself. It was the first industrialized war, with mass produced rifled bullets able to fire a straight shot, but strategies that relied upon bunching men together in easily targeted groups. 

It's also intriguing to note the euphemisms that are still used when referring to the war's motivations. The argument that it wasn't slavery that motivated the conflict, but "states' rights" is somewhat misleading, as the only "right" that was under threat was the right to own and exploit human beings.

The Civil War also has the onerous distinction of containing the single bloodiest day in American history — the Battle of Antietam, in which 23,000 men were killed. From 6:00am to 9:00am, one man was killed every second.

"When we came to that beautiful cornfield... That was when the trouble began... Oh but the bullets did fly. I didn't see them, but I saw their effects. Men were falling all around us. Our bugler was standing near me when a cannonball struck him in the head and cut it from his shoulders. I think I got some of the blood and brains in my face... Brave men on both sides are falling, to rise no more. Thousands of them."
J. Polk Racine, on the Battle of Antietam