Full-length standing studio portrait of Confederate Naval Captain A.L. Myers in uniform. Albumen carte de visite. [Baltimore, Maryland]: Bendann Brothers, n.d. Pencil inscription to verso identifies the subject. Photographer's illustrated imprint to mount verso. 

NOTE: Please see the preceding lot which features a sword presented to Abraham Myers during the Civil War. 

Provenance: Alejandro “Alex” de Quesada Jr. acquired this portrait from the collection of author and historian, Bill Turner (“More Confederate Faces,” etc.)

A professional steamboat master on the Gulf coast before the war, Capt. Abraham (A.) L. Myers (b. 1822) was closely identified with the fast mail and passenger packets between New Orleans and Mobile. With Louisiana’s secession, the side‑wheel steamer Oregon, a Mobile Mail Line vessel then trading between the two cities, was seized for Confederate use and initially employed as a blockade‑runner. Converted to a gunboat later in 1861, Oregon was placed under Captain A. L. Myers, patrolling Lake Pontchartrain, Mississippi Sound, and the approaches to Ship Island. Under Myers the vessel evacuated Confederate stores from Ship Island in September 1861, skirmished repeatedly with USS New London in the Sound and at Pass Christian, and formed part of the small Confederate flotilla attempting to check Union advances along the Gulf coast. Pressed by Federal forces in April 1862, Oregon and consorts were confined to Lake Pontchartrain and sunk as blockships to prevent capture when New Orleans fell. Contemporary naval records further show Myers was appointed Acting Master, C.S. Navy, on 27 February 1863; later Master (Provisional Navy) on 2 June 1864, continuing in Confederate naval service after the loss of Oregon.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Photography, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Union Cases, Albumen Photographs, CDVs, Carte de Visites, Cartes de Visite, Carte-de-visite, CDV, Cabinet Cards, Stereoviews, Stereocards]