behind AotW

This photograph of Thomas Pearson, mortally wounded at Antietam, comes from the amazing collection of Civil War Biographies compiled by volunteers on behalf of the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.

This fine carte-de-visite (CDV) has just been offered for sale by Hindman Auctions. It’s of Major James Lyman Van Buren, and accompanies his saber and belt, insignia, and other photographs, all from the Collection of Bruce B. Hermann.

The Major was on General Burnside’s staff at Antietam and had distinguished staff service through the war, ending at the brevet rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers. He died soon after mustering out in 1866 of a bacterial infection of his liver, just 28 years old. He was a cousin of President Martin Van Buren.

First Lieutenant Lyman Munson Shorey‘s military career with the 7th Maine Infantry ended with a serious wound to his foot in an ill-fated charge on the Piper Farm at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

Afterward he returned to school, graduating from Harvard with a law degree in 1864 and studying in the Divinity School there for a year to 1867. He went into the baggage express (delivery) business in New York City with his sister Elvira’s husband Hiram Studley and he took over the company after Hiram retired in 1872. Here’s his impressive letterhead on a customer’s receipt from January 1886.

________________

His picture here from an engraving after a photograph in William C Hatch’s A History of the Town of Industry (1893), online from the Internet Archive. The receipt is among the Thomas A Edison Papers, Digital Edition, at Rutgers University.