Outdoor view photo postcard. N.p., n.d. 

A standing outdoor portrait of Mark Thrash, a formerly enslaved African-American who was said to be aged more than 114 in the photo. Thrash carries a large walking stick and is seen wearing a military jacket that was said to have been gifted by General Ulysses S. Grant. Caption on the photo reads: "Mark Thrash - Chickamauga, GA / 114 years old / Married five times - 29 children". 

There is not much known about Mark Thrash's early life, although he claimed to have been born on Christmas Day 1820. He was enslaved in Georgia prior to the Civil War by a man named Christoper Thrash. Mark claimed that during the war, he had served both Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and declared that he had met President Abraham Lincoln. By the 1930s, he had retired to a small cabin on the site of the Chickamauga Battlefield and become affectionately known as "Uncle Mark" to nearby locals, and would share the many fantastical stories of his life. Thrash lived until December 1943, just days before his assumed 123rd birthday. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Photography, Early Photography] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation]