Historic and scarce CDV of Union Gen. Lorenzo Thomas giving his orders for the raising of African American regiments. Thomas, an older and easily disagreeable Mexican War veteran who had rankled his peers in Washington, was famously sent to the Mississippi Valley on what was thought could be a quixotic quest to organize the thousands of runaway slaves who flocked to Ulysses Grant's lines into fighting men, a first for the United States. Despite somewhat unfair low expectations, he succeeded - much to Lincoln's delight. A candid scene struck by Van Stavoren of Nashville in mid-1863, each officer in the photo with Thomas signed the carte with his name and rank at the time in ink to the verso. These officers are: Maj. Septimus Carncross, A.A.G. and Gen. Thomas's Aide-de-Camp, Maj. Evan Thomas, 4th US Art.; B.Webster Sargent, 2nd Miss. (Colored) AD.; and Capt. Reuben D. Mussey, 19th US Inf. and Colonel of the 100th USCT. Major Thomas received brevets for Fredericksburg and Gettysburg and was later killed in action in the Lava Beds fight against the Modocs on April 26, 1873. The carte is housed in an original CDV album page. 

[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] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [USCT, United States Colored Troops, Glory, 54th Massachusetts, Buffalo Soldiers, Black Soldiers] [Civil War, Union, Confederate]