EARLIEST CASUALTIES OF THE CIVIL WAR 

Two studio carte-de-visite portraits of Lt. Colonel Noah Farnham (1829–1861) and Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth (1837–1861).

The lot includes:

1. Indoor studio standing portrait of Noah Farnham in uniform. Farnham is shown leaning against a large column, his expression notably grim. He appears to wear a black mourning band in honor of Elmer Ellsworth, the first conspicuous casualty of the Civil War and the first Union officer to die. New York: Brady / E. Anthony, 1861. Publisher’s imprint on the verso of the mount, with pencil identification.

Noah L. Farnham (1829–1861), a native of New Haven, Connecticut, enlisted on 17 April 1861 in New York City as a first lieutenant and was commissioned into Company B, 7th New York State Militia, on 26 April 1861. Farnham became one of the earliest Civil War casualties to succumb to traumatic brain injury. He was shot in the head at the First Battle of Bull Run on 21 July 1861, and when surgeons initially examined the wound, they believed it to be relatively minor. Their assessment, however, failed to detect the fatal damage to Farnham’s brain. He subsequently died of his wounds on 14 August 1861 at Bull Run, Virginia.

2. Studio three-quarter-length standing portrait of Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth. Ellsworth is shown in full dress uniform, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword as he gazes to the viewer’s left. New York: Brady / Anthony, 1861. Brady’s copyright statement on the lower margin of the recto mount. Publisher’s imprint on the verso, with pencil identification.

Born in New York, Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth (1837–1861) became known posthumously as the first Union officer killed in the Civil War. After taking a position in Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield law office in 1860, Ellsworth developed a friendship with the future president, which led him to relocate to Washington, D.C., in 1861. Shortly thereafter, Ellsworth returned to his home city of New York to raise the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry, nicknamed the “Fire Zouaves” after the Algerian troops whose drill and dress inspired his training methods and uniforms. Ellsworth then returned to Washington with the regiment, and they were soon deployed to Alexandria, Virginia, to occupy the city after Virginia voters ratified secession from the Union.

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