(PHOTOGRAPHY) The Scourged Back

Sale 2105 - Lot 75

Price Realized: $ 8,400

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

Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000

(PHOTOGRAPHY.) "The Scourged Back." Carte-de-visite of Private Gordon, whose back was horribly disfigured with keloid scars from repeated whippings. Some slight darkening, inked caption on the bottom of the front mount, "Uncle Tom." Philadelphia: McAllister & Brothers, Opticians, 1863

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A notorious image, shown here on a carte-de-visite. The printed caption on the reverse reads "Extract from a letter from S. K. Towne, surgeon 30th Regiments, Massachusetts Volunteers, addressed to W. J. Dale, Surgeon General of the State of Massachusetts, dated Baton Rouge, Louisiana, April 16, 1863 'I enclose a picture taken by an artist here, from life, of a Negro's back . . .'" Gordon, an escaped slave who enlisted in the Union army, was captured by Confederate soldiers and whipped mercilessly on Christmas day, 1863. See Gladstone, "Men of Color," pages 78-79. This image appeared in the July 4, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly.