Carried into Battle: Images that came under fire—and survived

Port Hudson: Taken from the Body of a Confederate

One day in mid-1863, a Confederate soldier died—one of many who fell in defense of Port Hudson, La., the fortress city along the Mississippi River. The soldier carried a photograph of a woman holding an infant, likely his wife and child.

Where he fell and his name are lost in time.

Union soldier Curtis S. Arnold, a peacetime shoemaker, found the body and the photograph. He and his comrades in the 12th Connecticut Infantry had arrived in the vicinity of the Confederate defenses on May 25, 1863. During the weeks that followed, the regiment endured the hardships of trench warfare, and participated in three major assaults against the city.

The first attack occurred on May 27; only two days after the Connecticut Yankees arrived on the scene. According to a history of the 12th, the regiment succeeded in “driving the enemy from its front into their last line of entrenchments, silencing four pieces of artillery, and reaching the parapet of the enemy’s earthworks, when the brigade was withdrawn and replaced by another. The regiment falling back, took position about 150 yards from the earthworks of the enemy.”

It is possible that Arnold discovered the body of the fallen Confederate during this attack, due to the proximity of his regiment to the Confederate lines. No known record of the position of the dead man and the location of the photograph—in his hands, tucked in a coat pocket, jammed into a haversack—has yet been found. If the photo was visible, Arnold might simply have picked it up and carried away. But if it was not visible, he most assuredly rifled the contents of the dead man’s body looking for anything, whether ammunition, food or personal items.

The body might have been discovered during one of the other assaults, on June 10 and 14. At the latter action, Arnold suffered a wound that was not serious enough for him to leave the ranks any longer than it took to patch him up. He and the rest of the 12th remained under fire from sharpshooters until Confederate forces surrendered the city on July 9, 1863.

Arnold’s service at Port Hudson might be considered redemption for an earlier indiscretion. His muster report for the months of March and April 1863 includes a damning reference. During this period, before the regiment arrived at Port Hudson, charges were preferred against him on grounds of “misbehavior before the enemy,” or cowardice.

Two months after the surrender, Arnold fell ill with a cough that turned out to be tuberculosis. By early 1864, his condition had worsened, and he received a furlough to recuperate. On April 27, 1864, he died at home in Portland, Conn. He was about 30. His wife, Nellie, and two daughters survived him. She filed for and received a government pension. Times must have been tough. By 1870, Nellie’s teen daughters had married, and she had fallen into prostitution and moved into a brothel. She died in 1907.

At some point, the photograph passed to the local Grand Army of the Republic post. The image eventually made its way to the collections of the Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown, Conn., where it remains today.

The Wilderness: Found by W.A.S.

The barebones inscription on the back of this carte de visite creates an aura of mystery. An examination of the image offers possible clues, and an understanding of what happened at The Wilderness provides potentially valuable context.

First: the clues.

The relatively pristine condition of the image suggests its discovery soon after it was lost.

On the front, the clean-shaven soldier is a Union enlisted man or non-commissioned officer who probably served in an infantry regiment.

On the back, the period inscription denotes a time and a place, and bears the initials of the individual who found it. The inclusion of the words “Name unknown” establishes that the finder did not know the sitter. The person who found and inscribed it, W.A.S., may have been Reb or Yank, soldier or civilian. The name of the photographer is almost entirely scratched out. This willful erasing of key information is curious. The fragmentary letters that remain indicate the photograph originated in the studio of John Holyland on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Now, for the context.

On May 6, 1864, the second day of the Battle of The Wilderness, the opposing sides hit each other with devastating attacks and counterattacks. On the Union side, Maj. Gen, Winfield Scott Hancock’s 2nd Corps attacked a Confederate corps commanded by Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill, and drove it back. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet arrived on the scene and drove back the attackers, and averted a Confederate disaster. Longstreet suffered a wound from friendly fire in the midst of another attack that petered out. Meanwhile, the Union 9th Corps, led by Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, suffered a repulse in another attack. At the end of the day, the fight resulted in a tactical draw.

Further sleuthing may lead to the identification of this man.