American Historical Ephemera & Photography

2 3/16 x 3 11/16 in. CDV on cardstock mount (light toning; minor soiling and edge/corner wear to mount). Smith's pictorial imprint to verso. Howell stands before a painted backdrop, wearing an arm sling suggesting an injury or wound, and his full military uniform including a private purchase regulation single-breasted officer's nine button frock coat with captain's epaulettes, a stylishly blocked slouch hat having embroidered crossed cannons with the numeral "3," a belt rig with officer's rectangular plate and part of a holster visible, and expensive knee-high leather boots and spurs with large rowels. He is armed with a loaded M1851 Colt Navy revolver and a non-regulation (for artillery) enlisted M1860 cavalry saber. Curiously, his coat bears a small lozenge-shaped pin, suggesting III Corps, though Howell never served in that corps. Howell would have been serving with the XVIII Corps at the time this image was taken, and later the XXIV Corps in the last year of the war. 

An Ohio native, John Henry Howell enlisted at Utica, NY as a first sergeant on 10 August 1861, and was mustered into Battery A of the New York 1st Light Artillery the following month. He was promoted to first lieutenant as of Battery H in February of 1862, and was soon after promoted to captain, in command of Battery M of the 3rd New York Light Artillery that November.