American Historical Ephemera and Photography

Vignetted bust portrait of Hamlin wearing major general's frock coat and shoulder straps (spotting to print, mount with spotting and wear/clipping to corners). Bangor, ME: S. W. Sawyer, n.d. Sawyer's pictorial imprint on verso. -- Full standing studio portrait of Hamlin wearing a frock coat with captain's shoulder straps (clipping to mount edges and corners). New York: Charles K. Bill, ca 1862-1863. Bill's pictorial imprint to verso. -- Vignetted bust portrait of Hamlin wearing a coat with black velvet collar (toning, staining to print and mount, with clipped corners). Uncredited. -- Together, 3 CDVs.

Cyrus Hamlin, the third son of Abraham Lincoln's Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin, was working as an attorney in Kittery, Maine before being commissioned as a captain in the Union Army in April of 1862. He served as an aide-de-camp to General John C. Fremont before being promoted to Colonel of the 80th US Colored Troops. Having been a vocal advocate of enlisting African American troops into the army, he was chosen to lead the 80th, and eventually took command of a brigade of African American troops, leading them in the Siege of Port Hudson in the summer of 1863. Hamlin was promoted to the rank of brigadier general on 13 December 1864, commanding the military district of Port Hudson through 1865. He was brevetted a major general to rank from 13 March 1865 for distinguished service, and remained in New Orleans after the war. He returned to practicing law there during the Reconstruction Period, but died of yellow fever shortly thereafter in August of 1867.