American Historical Ephemera & Photography

Sixth plate hand-tinted tintype. (Slight bend in plate). Housed in full pressed paper case (split at hinge, small loss to corner).

Two young privates are seated next to one another. The left subject wears a belt and shoulder belt with belt plates. Their cheeks are deftly hand-tinted. The subjects are tentatively identified as Thomas Benton Seward and William Wesley Seward, presumably brothers. The two men served in the 57th Infantry together. They both enlisted on 18 December 1861 as privates and mustered into Company F the same day. Wesley was killed in action on 31 December 1862 at Stones River, TN, and is buried at Stones River National Cemetery. Thomas was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps on 14 January 1864. Though his date of mustering out is not recorded, he survived the war and would go on to be a farmer in Indiana.

[With:] Ninth plate tintype full-length studio portrait of three men seated in a group. 

Ninth plate hand-tinted tintype. (A few fleabites). Housed in full pressed paper case with geometric motif (hinge separated with rebacking, wear to extremities).