(MILITARY CIVIL WAR) Carte de visite portrait of Benjamin S

Sale 2598 - Lot 321

Price Realized: $ 938

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Carte-de-visite portrait of "Benjamin Sears servant in the army." Albumen photograph, 3 1/2 x 2 inches, on original mount with photographer's backmark; pencil caption in image, moderate foxing. Oneida, NY, circa 1865

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Additional Details

This card came from an album relating to the 117th New York Infantry, a white regiment. Benjamin F. Sears (1847-1882) enlisted as a private in the 117th on 6 March 1865, a month before the end of the fighting. The regiment spent those final weeks advancing on Goldsboro, NC and occupying Raleigh, then remained on duty in North Carolina until their discharge in June. If we read this caption as lacking an apostrophe, it seems likely that the young man in this photograph was "Benjamin Sears' servant in the army," a North Carolina refugee from slavery who was hired by Private Sears, and then came north with him after the war. This portrait was taken by O.A. Hollenbeck of Oneida, NY.