Historical Indulgences

ca. 1861-65, [tintype portrait of two Union soldiers playing cards]

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photography Collection

ca. 1870, [tintype portrait of Francis Jefferson Coates]

Coates enlisted on August 29, 1861, and served as a Corporal and Sergeant in the 7th Wisconsin Infantry, Company H. He was wounded at South Mountain (September 14, 1862) and lost both eyes at Gettysburg in 1863. He was awarded the rank of Brevet Captain and the Medal of Honor for gallantry in action at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. He was mustered out on September 1, 1864 at the expiration of his term of service.

via the Wisconsin Historical Society, Small Formats Special Storage Lot

ca. 1861-65, [tintype portrait of a Union soldier in uniform with a young man whittling]

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

ca. 1860-1880’s, [tintype portrait of a smokey, wooded campsite, possibly a Union or Confederate encampment]

via Ebay

ca. 1860’s, [tintype portrait of a Union infantryman with regulation uniform]

via Heritage Auctions

ca. 1860’s, [carte de visite portrait of Union solider in uniform]

via Cowan’s Auctions

ca. 1860’s, [post mortem ambrotype portait of a Union officer in his coffin]

via Cowan’s Auction

It was not until the Civil War when embalming became commonplace in America. With soldiers fighting and dying sometimes hundreds of miles from home, the sanitary and aesthetic issues arising from transporting a body over several days, sometimes weeks on trains, was quickly resolved through a mortician’s hand and embalming procedures.

ca. 1861-65, [hand-tinted tintype portrait of a pensive Union soldier in a captain’s uniform, resting his arm on the table]

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

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 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, [carte de visite portrait of Henry O. Nightingale], JNO Holyland Metropolitan Gallery

An abolitionist, Nightingale joined the Northern army at the start of the Civil War in 1861. In 1862 he joined the 108th New York Infantry Regiment. He fought in a dozen battles, including Gettysburg, and was promoted to corporal on March 1, 1864.

via the Online Archives of California, UC Merced Special Collections Library, Henry O. Nightingale Diaries