Historical Indulgences

ca. 1860’s, [ambrotype portrait of Union colonel Benjamin Franklin Watson with his servant and a table with an assortment of objects]

via Heritage Auctions

ca. 1863, [ambrotype portrait of a Civil War induction officer with a lottery box]

via the Library of Congress, Civil War Collection

The National Conscription Act of 1863 created a lottery system where men, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, could have been drafted into military service during the Civil War. In New York, outrage over compulsory military service caused riots to break out in the summer of 1863. Both the Union and Confederacy had their own respective conscription acts.

ca. 1860’s, [ambrotype portrait of a Confederate soldier wearing a plaid shirt and a holstered pistol. He carries a large bedroll, a percussion rifle and a kepi with the letters “4 SLG” for the 4th Sumter Light Guards]

via Heritage Auctions

ca. 1861-65, [albumen print of the ruins at the end of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad Bridge], Alexander Gardner

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photographs Collection

ca. 1861-65, [hand-tinted ambrotype portrait of a Confederate soldier in the uniform of the 11th Virginia regiment with knapsack and bedroll]

via the Library of Congress, Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs

ca. 1860’s, [portrait of a Federal fifer]

via Heritage Auctions

ca. 1860-80’s, [tintype portrait of a gentleman with an eye injury, holding his child]

via Ebay Auctions

ca. 1861-65, [albumen portrait of wounded soldiers at Fredericksburg], Timothy O’Sullivan

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photographs Collection

ca. 1861-65, [tintype portrait of Edwin Chamberlain, non-commissioned Union Officer, holding his guitar]

Accompanying the tintype is a piece of paper stating his familial reliations and his death during the Civil War.

via Heritage Auctions

ca. 1861-65, [tintype portrait of a well-armed Union soldier with three Remington revolvers, two Bowie knives, and a Springfield rifle musket]

via the Library of Congress, Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs

ca. 1864-65, [carte de visite of mourners at grave of Gen. T.J. (Stonewall) Jackson. Lexington, VA]

via the Missouri History Museum

ca. 1864, “Capt. Rufus D. Pettit’s Battery, 1st New York Light Artillery: Fort Richardson, at Quarles House, Near Fair Oaks”, Barnard & Gibson

via the George Eastman House Collection, Still Photograph Archive

ca. 1860’s, [Tintype portrait of a barefoot boy holding a revolver]

via Heritage Auctions

ca. 1856, [hand-tinted daguerreotype portrait of twenty-one year old Absalom K. Simonton II]

In May of 1861, Simonton Enrolled as a Captain and Member of the “Iredell Blues” in the 4th North Carolina. Simonton served with the regiment through fierce fighting in 1861 and 1862 and was promoted to Major and transferred to Field & Staff on May 1, 1862. Simonton was killed in action at Seven Pines on May 31, 1862, the date his promotion went into effect.

via Heritage Auctions

ca. 1861, [Tintype portrait of Joseph Smith, with his tenor horn, of Evansville, Wisconsin, member of the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry band]

via the Wisconsin Historical Society, Edwin O. Kimberley: Regimental Band, 3rd Wisconsin Infantry Photographs Collection