Half-plate studio portrait daguerreotype. The lower left corner of the mat bears the stamped studio imprint: "GERMON / 702 CHEST. ST. / PHILA." Housed in a full leatherett case.

Provenance: Ex. Jackie Eubanks Collection, Sold at Freeman's Auctions (November 15th, 2021, lot 482). 

A striking, pre-War three-quarter length portrait of aspiring actress and future Union spy, Pauline Cushman (1833 - 1893). Posed standing facing three-quarters to the right with arms crossed resolutely over her midsection, Cushman gazes directly and confidently into the camera. Her distinctive dark, coiled curls frame her face. She wears a tailored dark dress accented with a pointed white turned-down collar and a small oval brooch at the throat.

Born Harriet Wood in New Orleans, Cushman pursued an acting career in New York and the Midwest before the outbreak of the Civil War. While performing in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1863, she was offered money by Confederate sympathizers to toast Jefferson Davis from the stage; instead, she reported the proposition to Union provost marshals, who instructed her to make the toast to solidify her bona fides as an operative. Recruited as a scout and spy for the Army of the Cumberland, she tracked Confederate movements and troop strengths in Tennessee. Captured behind enemy lines with concealed military sketches, she was tried, convicted of espionage, and sentenced to hang, escaping execution only when advancing Federal forces seized Shelbyville, Tennessee, where she was imprisoned.

Commended by General Rosecrans and awarded an honorary major's commission by Abraham Lincoln, Cushman spent the remainder of the war touring the country in uniform, lecturing on her espionage exploits and popularizing her narrative through P.T. Barnum's lecture circuits and cartes de visite.

[Daguerreotype, Half Plate, Pauline Cushman, Harriet Wood, Union Spy, Espionage, Secret Service, Secret Agent, Civil War, Major Pauline Cushman, Army of the Cumberland, Shelbyville, Actress, Theater, Washington L. Germon, Germon, Philadelphia, Chestnut Street, Jackie Eubanks, Cased Image, 1850s Photography, Militaria]

Good condition overall. Despite widespread fine circular wiping abrasions and hairline scratches across the silvered plate from an early cleaning, the underlying photographic image retains strong focal sharpness, tones, and unmistakable presence.