Quarter plate full-length studio portrait ambrotype. [Virginia (?)], circa 1858-1861. Full thermoplastic case, with rare "Union & Constitution" design with a Federal shield, eagle, cannons and panoplies of arms.

PORTRAIT OF ROBERT W. BAYLOR, MILITIA COMMANDER WHO DEFEATED AND CAPTURED JOHN BROWN AT HARPER’S FERRY IN 1859

A rare, historically significant view of Robert W. Baylor (1813 - 1883) of Jefferson County, Virginia (now West Virginia), the militia officer who commanded the Virginia detachment that confronted John Brown’s raiders during the Harper’s Ferry crisis in October 1859. The portrait shows Baylor in a field-grade militia uniform, definitively dating the ambrotype to the period of Baylor's brief pre-war service as a Virginia militia colonel. 

On the night of 16 October, 1859, John Brown and a small band seized the U.S. armory and rifle works at Harper’s Ferry, halted the B&O train, and took prominent townsmen (including Col. Lewis Washington) hostage in a bid to spark a slave insurrection. Local militia converged quickly, and Robert W. Baylor, commanding a Virginia detachment from Jefferson County, helped throw a cordon over the bridges and streets, trading fire with Brown’s pickets and squeezing the raiders back into the brick engine house. Through tense hours, Baylor's militia held the perimeter and blocked escape until U.S. Marines smashed the engine‑house doors and ended the standoff in minutes. 

Baylor briefly held the rank of colonel of Virginia troops in 1861 before raising a local cavalry company that entered Confederate service as Company B, 12th Virginia Cavalry. The unit, known as the “Baylor's Light Horse,” was composed of men from Jefferson County and was initially attached to Turner Ashby’s command. In an engagement at McGaheysville on 27 April 1862, Baylor was severely wounded, captured, and held as a prisoner until late 1864. He was tried by a Federal court-martial and condemned to execution for his role in the Confederate cause, but the sentence was overturned. Upon exchange, his wounds prevented further active service.

Baylor was a member of a long-established Virginia family, descended from John Baylor (immigrated c. 1694). Three of Robert Baylor’s sons also served during the Civil War: Richard C. Baylor, killed at Parker’s Store in 1863; Robert W. Baylor Jr., killed near Charlestown in 1864; and George Baylor, who assumed command of company B after his father’s capture. Robert W. Baylor himself lived until 1883, engaging in agriculture and local affairs in Jefferson County after the war.

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