The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

2 CDVs by Mathew Brady, each 4 x 2 1/4 in.; sixth plate tintype printed by Abbott & Co., Nassau, NY, in gilt frame, overall 1 3/4 x 1 1/4 in.

Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth was a United States Army officer and close friend of President Abraham Lincoln, who initially made his acquaintance in 1860 after moving to Springfield to work as a clerk at the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices. Following Lincoln winning the Republican nomination for president, Ellsworth became an invaluable member of Lincoln's campaign staff, with Lincoln jovially describing the 5'6" Ellsworth as "the greatest little man I ever met." Following Lincoln's victory, he accompanied the president to Washington, and after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, raised the 11th Volunteer New York Infantry Regiment.

The first casualty of the Civil War, Ellsworth was killed on 24 May 1861 while removing a large Confederate flag from the roof of the Marshall House in Alexandria, Virginia. The inn's owner, James W. Jackson, had raised the flag following the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, and it was known that President Lincoln and members of his cabinet had observed the flag flying through field glasses from Washington. Accompanied by Private Francis E. Brownell, Ellsworth rushed into the Marshall House during the Union Army's takeover of Alexandria and cut down the flag. While coming back downstairs with the flag in his arms, James Jackson jumped from a dark passage with a double-barreled shotgun and discharged one into Ellsworth's chest. He attempted to fire the second at Brownell but missed, and was killed himself a second later when Brownell shot him in the face; before he fell, Brownell repeatedly stabbed him with his bayonet. Considered to be the first martyr to the Union cause, "Remember Ellsworth" became a popular rallying cry for the Union Army. Devastated by his death, Lincoln had his body returned to the White House, where he lay in state in the East Room for several days before being transported to New York for burial. He kept the flag that Ellsworth had died retrieving, which Tad Lincoln was said to have run up and down the White House halls. It was eventually given to Brownell, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.