Civil War POW Photo

Within a couple of months of starting research for the book, I found a third version of the Civil War POW photo at the National Archives. By now, I was calling it “The Photograph“. One thing became apparent, all of the photos were “copy photos”. Two of the photos were copied from the same original photograph. This led to a lot of questions. Where was that original photograph today – Did the fragile albumen print still survive more than 150 years later? And, was it common thing for successful POW escapee groups to have their photo made once they crossed Union lines?

Two of the three copy photographs are similar

The Civil War POW photo held by the Library of Congress displayed similar traits to the one held by the Chicago Historical Museum. Specifically they both shared what appeared to be identical flaws in the emulsion in the upper right of the photo. They also share creases or cracks above the two individual’s heads in the upper row, far right. This indicates that each are “copy photos” made from the same single original photograph.

Detail from the Library of Congress (left) and Chicago Historical Society (right)
Slide arrow left or right to compare the two versions of the image

So was taking a Civil War POW Photo of returning soldiers a common thing?

It turned out it was. Or at least one other group had done it first. While researching the escaped POWs route into the North Carolina mountains, I came across a diary and photographs of another group of soldiers who had escaped in October 1864, more than a month before the nine men in “The Photograph”. Five of the men jumped from the train moving the POWs from Charleston, SC to Columbia, SC. The others were some of the first Union POWs to escape Camp Sorghum.

These men blazed a similar route until they reached North Carolina. Different Union sympathizers affiliated to the same underground network assisted their escape. They reached Knoxville in mid-November 1864. But they waited until they arrived in Nashville on Wednesday, November 16, 1864 to have their photograph taken. They even donned their old rags to have the photograph taken reported Captain George H. Starr in his diary. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History – GLC02748.01)

The image on the left identifies all of the officers, Here is the identification for “The other five escapees“:

(L to R) Lt William C. Davidson 101st PA;
Lt Isaiah Conley 101st PA.; Lt DeForest Marsters 2nd NC Infantry;
Capt Thomas B. Dawson; 101st PA and Capt Aaron Lester Cady; 24th NY.
(Identification of these five men was assisted by
Ronn Palm of the Museum of Civil War Images at Gettysburg)

Library of Congress offers a clue to the Civil War POW Photo

Mrs. Louise Sloan Ernst donated he LOC copy of the image on August 17,1944. I dug through genealogical records to find who Mrs. Ernst was, which led me to an interesting find. Ernst and her family were living in Tacoma, Washington at the time she donated several items including the photograph to the LOC. She was originally from Peoria, IL. Peoria is an important clue. The man in the lower left of the photograph, with the glum look, is Lieutenant Mark M. Bassett; 53rd Illinois (Promoted to Captain at the end of the war, not mustered). After the war, Bassett lived in Peoria for most of his life.

Mrs. Ernst’s father was Matthew Morrison Sloan, a grocer in Peoria. Another Peoria relative of was Dr. William T. Sloan. He turned out to be Mark Bassett’s doctor. Bassett’s Soldier’s Pension Application records Dr. Sloan as his physician and, at the time of Bassett’s death, Dr. Sloan signed Bassett’s Death Certificate. The doctor practiced medicine in Peoria from 1877 until his death in 1929. Matthew Morrison Sloan, Dr. William T. Sloan, and Mark M. Bassett are all buried in Springdale cemetery in Peoria, IL. So it seems to point to Bassett giving his physician a copy of “The Photograph”. Perhaps the good doctor enjoyed looking at the original print sitting on the mantle above Bassett’s fireplace in the parlor of his home.

Could Mark M. Bassett be the source of the copies of the Civil War POW photo found in Chicago. Washington, DC and perhaps others?

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