Private James Nagle is the man at the far right in this photograph who appears to be washing clothing. He enlisted as a Private in Company L of the First Texas Infantry in August 1861 and was wounded at Sharpsburg in September 1862 and at Chickamauga, GA almost exactly one year later.
This group photograph was taken in camp at Dumphries, VA in the winter of 1861-62, probably by Company L Private “Tom” Blessing. Colonel Simpson identified the men in the picture as (l-r) Pvt. Charles McCarty, Pvt. Joseph Nagle, Sgt. James Joseph W. Southwick (kia Gettysburg), and Pvt. James Nagle; all Company L, 1st Texas. A copy is in the Lawrence T. Jones III collection at SMU.
Photographer Blessing is seen below, in a self portrait in his studio in Houston, TX in about 1870. It’s online from The Photography of Solomon Thomas Blessing.
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January 5th, 2023 at 8:13 am
This is great stuff, however I need to correct the soldier who is second from right in this image, it is my cousin JW Southwick, he is listed as James W Southwick in the caption above but his name was Joseph W Southwick (not James).
Interestingly, he was a Northerner!
Our Southwick family for a long time Massachusetts people from back in the 1600s, and Joseph’s family had migrated by the early 1800s to Poughkeepsie, New York.
The terrible economic downturn of 1837 sent Joseph’s father as well as Joseph’s brother and himself to Galveston, Texas, thus making him a Northerner who fought for the South.
He was killed on July 2, 1863 at Gettysburg soon after telling a fellow 1st Texas comrade “They (Union soldiers) couldn’t hit him.”
January 5th, 2023 at 11:00 am
Thanks for this, Clay – great details! I’ve fixed his name above.