Bust length albumen CDV portrait of man with grievous facial wound. Frederick, Maryland: J. Byerly & Son, n.d. Photographer's imprint to mount verso, alongside period pencil inscription: "Unknown wound[ed] soldier of the rebel war." 

One of the most shocking Civil War-era cartes de visite we have ever encountered, the subject is a young Union soldier with a ghastly face wound. Very much alive despite a raw, jagged void that stretches from below his eye to his nose to his upper jaw, it is almost impossible to believe he survived to have a photograph made.

It is generally accepted that images of this genre were made at the direction of surgeons and others in the medical establishment, who would use them as study tools. What makes this example more curious is the backmark of the artists who produced it: J. Byerly & Son, who operated in Frederick, Maryland. This location strongly suggests that this unfortunate soldier received treatment at General Hospital #1 in that city. Originally established early in the Civil War, what began as a relatively modest barracks hospital grew into a sprawling, multi-building complex by 1865. Streams of wounded men like this subject, some 9,000 in all, were placed in one of 13 wards to receive treatment for injuries sustained on nearby battlefields like South Mountain, Antietam, and the many deadly fights in neighboring Virginia through 1865.

Joseph Byerly and his son made some of the most historic and iconic local photos of this period, documenting the Civil War from the first arrival of Confederate troops marching through downtown streets to portraits of the many common soldiers who convalesced there. This CDV certainly ranks among their most powerful and memorable examples. 

[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] [Medical History, Medical Photography]