behind AotW

This is the packet ship Saranak of the Cope Line entering port with a steam tug at Philadelphia, PA in a brilliant watercolor by David Johnson Kennedy of August 1851.

Irish-born Antietam veteran Colwell Carr of the First Pennsylvania Reserves was a passenger on that ship from Liverpool to Philadelphia in May 1849. He settled in Media just west of the city and was a wool dyer at the start of the Civil War.

The tenth of Colwell and Mary Waugh Carr’s eleven children was Richard Isaac Downey Carr (1876-1963). I’d love to hear from anyone who knows about his Downey namesake.

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The original of this painting is in the collection of the Historical Society of Philadelphia, and is online in their Digital Library.

See a little more about Thomas P Cope and his ships also online from the HSP.

Here’s a lovely photograph of 3 couples taken by Le Rue Lemer in Harrisburg, PA, probably in late 1866 or early 1867.

That’s Captain Marcus Albert Reno, First United States Cavalry, left front, and his wife Mary Hanna Ross (1843-1874; m. 1863), behind him. Reno commanded a detachment of the First Cavalry at Antietam at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, but is much better known for his role at Little Big Horn in 1874.

Back right is Edwin Vose Sumner, Jr. (1835-1912), also Captain in the First Cavalry. He was not at Antietam, though his father certainly was. That’s probably his wife Margaret Snodgrass Foster (1844-1910) to his right; they married in Harrisburg in January 1866.

The third man is identified as Harrisburg attorney Lyman DeHuff Gilbert (1845-1914, Yale ’65), who 13 years later, in 1879, successfully defended then-Major Reno before an Army court of inquiry into his actions at Little Big Horn. The third woman is not identified. Gilbert was unmarried and living with his wealthy parents at the 1870 US Census, so probably no wife in 1866.
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This photograph was sold by Heritage Auctions in 2007.

The Heritage cataloger identified Captain E.V. Sumner as son of Senator Charles Sumner, which is perhaps obviously incorrect. Not least because Senator Sumner didn’t marry until 1866, fathered no children, and was divorced in 1874.

A new project: to identify the men in this Alexander Gardner photograph taken at Harrison’s Landing, VA in August 1862. Of special interest to me are those officers who were on the Maryland Campaign a month later (touch picture to enlarge).

#1 – Lt. James Harrison Wilson
#2 – Lt. Charles Edward Hazlett (’61)*
#4 – Lt. Nicholas Bowen?
#6 – Capt. William Graham Jones
#7 – Lt. Alexander Cummings McWhorter Pennington, Jr.
#9 – Lt. John Moulder Wilson
#10 – Lt. Alanson Merwin Randol
#11 – Capt. Josiah Holcomb Kellogg

There is obviously more work to do here.

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This image is part of the left half of a stereo photograph, displayed online by the Library of Congress, from their Civil War Photographs collection.

Other men of the Class of 1860 who may be in the picture above and were at Antietam, are:

– John Newman Andrews
– Daniel Darius Lynn
– James Porter Martin

Members of the Class of 1860 who were at/near Harrison’s Landing in August 1862, but perhaps not on the Maryland Campaign, are also candidates to be in the photograph:

– Lt. Horace Porter
– Lt. Sam A. Foster
– Lt. Alfred T. Smith

Math is not my strength, but if these six men are in the photograph, we’ve got names for 13 14. Unfortunately, I have not yet found wartime photographs to identify the six five remaining. Please let me know if you can help.