American Historical Ephemera and Photography Featuring the Civil War and American Militaria Collection of Bruce B. Hermann

2 7/8 x 4 in. albumen photographs, all on cardstock mounts (toning, some fading to prints), matted and framed, 19 1/2 x 21 in. Recto with printed identification/caption and copyright for Louis Herman Heller, a German-born photographer active in California in the early 1860s. By the early 1870s, he had opened a photography gallery in Ft. Jones, CA, and sought to capture scenes from the Modoc War, 1872-1873. He sold these negatives to Carleton Watkins, who then reissued the images under his own imprint, which these photographs all bear on verso. 

Subjects include Captain Jack and family, Bogus Charley and family, Schonchin, Boston Charley, Black Jim, Curly-Headed Doctor, Steamboat Frank, a view of Shacknasty Jim, Hooka Jim, Steamboat Frank, and Fairchild, a view of Interpreters for Peace Com. Arteni Chokus, Posey, and One-Eyed Dixie, and the "Lost River Murderers," including Curly-Headed Jack, Wheum, and Buckskin Doctor, all taken as prisoners during the war. Each photograph includes the following caption on recto: "I certify that L. HELLER has this day taken the Photographs of the above Modoc Indians, prisoners under my charge. / Capt. B.C. THROCKMORTON, 4th US Artillery, Officer of the Day. I am cognizant of the above fact. / GEN. JEFF. C. DAVIS, USA."