All indications pointed to a man who live in Peoria, Illinois after the war as the source for the copy photographs found at the Library of Congress, Chicago History Museum and Peoria Public Library. His name was Mark M. Bassett and he was a lieutenant in the 53rd Illinois. Promoted to Captain at the end of the war but never mustered. Bassett’s name is found with either the rank of Captain and Lieutenant attached to it in later years.
Lieutenant Mark M. Bassett – 53rd Illinois
From Original Hoffman photograph
Courtesy of the Charles Hoffman family
Bassett appears in the bottom left of the photograph. He seems to have moved slightly during the 3-4 second long exposure resulting in blurring of his face. It is a face with a serious look of concern on it. For good reason, Bassett had serious problems going on back at home. Of all of the men in “the photograph” Bassett had been a POW the longest, captured in July 1863 at Jackson, Mississippi. He had been a prisoner at Libby Prison shortly after, and in February 1864 had been one of the 107-109 men who escaped through a tunnel at Libby. It was the Great Escape of the Civil War. A couple of days after escaping he was recaptured, Bassett was thrown into the dungeon of Libby for almost two months.
Returns to Illinois After The Civil War
After the war, Bassett would return to Illinois and become a lawyer living in Peoria for the rest of his life. Replying to an earlier letter that T.R. had sent to Bassett in 1884, both he and his wife each wrote to Zachary. T.R. had been just 14-years-old when “the photograph” was taken. They called him Tommy. Now he was in his early-30s with a wife and small kids living in Cashiers Valley, North Carolina.
Thompson Roberts (T.R.) Zachary
Circa 1880 – Courtesy of Jane Gibson Nardy
The letters back and forth with T.R. went on for the rest of Mark Bassett’s life. A few of these letters still survived, thanks to the Zachary family. When I first talked with T.R.’s great-granddaughter Jane Gibson Nardy she told me “We are a family of pack rats”, and then proceeded to share a cache of letters with me. Thank god for that.
A Typewritten Letter from 1884
Bassett’s first letter to T.R. was remarkable in that it was typewritten. The typewriter was just being introduced to the mass-market at the time, and would have been something useful to an attorney in Peoria. At the end of Mark Bassett’s part of the letter, he mentions “the photograph” which is clearly answering to T.R.’s inquiry about the image.
“As to the picture I am going to send you the one I had raised–it is a very good one and I think it shows the parties as well as the original; they look just a little coarser, that is all the difference I can see, I will have it tubed and sent by mail”.
4/28/1884 Mark Bassett Letter to T.R. Zachary – Courtesy of Jane Gibson Nardy
First Mention of Making Copies of the Photograph
So this is the first mention that Mark Bassett had made copies of his original albumen print of “the photograph”. It also established when T.R. Zachary received his copy of the image. An image still owned by the Zachary family today. It would not be the last copy photograph made by Bassett. Besides Bassett’s original albumen print, during the research for Captured Freedom, I determined that there were four copy prints known today that could be attributed to Bassett: T.R. Zachary’s copy, The Library of Congress, Chicago Historical Society and Peoria Public Library.
There are probably several more copies out there waiting to be found. What became of Bassett’s much-valued original albumen print is unknown. It seems to have disappeared after his wife Annie Bassett died on June 4, 1924. Perhaps forever lost to history.
#nonfictionbooks #CapturedFreedom #CivilWar #book #history #SteveProcko
