Full-length albumen CDV studio portrait of Susan Brownlow Boynton. [Cincinnati, Ohio?]: Chas. H. Perry, n.d. Photographer's imprint to verso, alongside pencil inscription reading: “Heroine / Brownlows / Daughter.”

This full-length portrait of Susan Brownlow Boynton beautifully captures her pride, defiance, and fortitude. Standing on a diamond-checkered floor, Boynton is smartly styled in an elegant dark dress, a hat perched atop her head, and holding a riding whip in her white gloved right hand. Boynton’s left hand, also clad in a white glove, gathers part of her skirt, creating a dramatic contrast of colors and folds of fabric. 

Susan Brownlow Boynton was born on 23 July 1837 in Kingsport, Tennessee, the oldest child of minister, newspaper publisher, and politician “Parson” William Gannaway Brownlow (1805-1877) and Elizabeth O’Brien Brownlow (1819-1914). In October 1856, at the age of nineteen, Boynton married a Knoxville physician, Dr. James Houston Sawyers (1832-1858). In May 1858, Dr. Sawyers passed away from an infectious illness he contracted from a patient; at the time, Boynton was six months pregnant with their child. Boynton returned to her family home, giving birth to Lillie Brownlow Sawyers (1858-1897) on 9 September 1858.

In the years prior to the Civil War, “Parson” Brownlow was both pro-slavery and a pro-Unionist; a staunch opponent of Southern secession, he continued to publish his newspaper, Whig, until the fall of 1861, when he fled to the Great Smoky Mountains to escape the threat of arrest by Confederate forces. Granted permission to leave the state by Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of War, Brownlow returned to Knoxville. Despite Benjamin’s authorization allowing Brownlow to leave Tennessee, he was arrested and charged with treason on 6 December 1861. After being released, he traveled to Union-controlled Nashville. At this point, Brownlow was a well-known Southern Unionist, and he traveled through the United States on a speaking tour, visiting cities that included Cincinnati, Dayton, Indianapolis, Chicago, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. In 1865, Brownlow was nominated by Tennessee Unionists to serve as the state's governor, a position he successfully attained and then held from 5 April 1865 to 25 February 1869.

During Brownlow’s 1861 absence from his Knoxville home, local secessionists threatened his family due to their Unionist beliefs and their continued display of the American flag. Published in Harper’s Weekly on 21 December 1861, it was reported that Susan Brownlow Boynton refused to be intimidated: “When a mob of secessionists attacked her father’s house in his absence and insisted on the Union flag being hauled down from where it floated, this young lady seized a rifle and told them she would defend it with her life. The first who approached would be shot. They threatened her for some time and tried in every way to frighten her. But she was firm, and after a time the ruffians withdrew, leaving the flag still flying.” 

Following the Harper’s Weekly article, Boynton joined her father on his book tour, during which she was presented with a Colt revolver in Connecticut and a silk flag in Philadelphia. The story of her actions in the face of angry secessionists was retold by Major William Reynolds in his 1863 book, Miss Martha Brownlow, or the Heroine of Tennessee. Some have speculated that Reynolds changed Susan’s name to Martha in order to avoid paying her royalties from the sale of his book, or possibly for security reasons, though her identity was well known by this point in the war.

In 1865, Susan married the Knoxville physician and Union Army veteran, Dr. Daniel Tucker Boynton (1837-1888). Born in Maine, Dr. Boynton served during the war as an Assistant Surgeon in the 104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry; after the war's end, he moved to Knoxville to serve as a federal pension agent. Together, the couple welcomed five children; four survived into adulthood. Susan was widowed for a second time on 7 January 1888 when her husband died following a prolonged illness.

On 12 March 1913, Susan Brownlow Boynton died from uremia in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, in the home of her son, Dr. Emerson Boynton. She is buried in her family plot in Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee.

[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] [Women, Women’s History, Suffragettes, Women’s Movement, Suffrage]