Full-length studio portrait albumen CDV. Photographer uncredited, [ca. 1862-3]. Research pencil identifications to mount verso read: "KIA CHANCELLORSVILLE and Elias Peissner / Colonel, 119 NY."

This striking full-length portrait captures Col. Elias Peissner in a dramatic, martial pose. He is shown wearing a slouch hat and an officer's greatcoat with the cape thrown back over his shoulders, revealing his double-breasted frock coat. Holding his foot officer's sword and wearing tall riding boots, Peissner cuts a dashing figure that contrasts with his pre-war life as an intellectual. 

Before the war, Peissner was a highly respected German immigrant, author and professor at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Answering the call to arms, he was instrumental in raising the 119th New York and was commissioned as its colonel. The regiment was attached to the 11th Corps of the Army of the Potomac. On 2 May 1863, at the Battle of Chancellorsville, the 11th Corps was the primary target of Stonewall Jackson's devastating surprise flank attack. Peissner was killed in action while desperately trying to rally his men and hold the line against the overwhelming Confederate assault.

A sharp, full-length portrait of a regiment's founding colonel who was killed during Jackson's legendary flank attack at Chancellorsville is a textbook example of the elite, narrative-driven material that defined the Rick Carlile collection.

[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, Cartes-de-visite, CDV, Cabinet Cards, Stereoviews, Stereocards]

The image is in good condition, exhibiting some surface wear, minor chemical spotting and light horizontal scuffing typical of period album storage.