Civil War Era Photographic Portraiture

I am currently making my way through the American Civil War with material that I have gathered over the last 15 or so years—diary and journal entries, news articles, letters, photos and images, day-by-day stepping through the war.  I am sharing the material 160 years after the events that these snippets of peoples lives and the news recorded in a blog called American Civil War Chronicles.

Today, for instance, most of the material is from July 20, 1861, two days before the first major battle of the war, Bull Run—also called, by the South, Manassas.

Forces are moving and colliding already in the days before the battle.

The blog does not and will not dwell on the battles and the conflict itself.  There are other resources that do that very well.

The blog conveys some of what individuals and the media of the day saw and recorded for posterity, such as

• the Woolsey family and their letters,
• a diary recording the experiences of Battery A, First Regiment, Rhode Island Light Artillery,
• the diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut.
• a US patent clerk’s diary
• the war letters of William T. Lusk,
• the diary of a refugee in the south, Judith McGuire
• a daily diary of events for that day compiled in the 186s by Frank Moore
• diary and letters of Union officer Rutherford B. Hayes
• the diary of a high level clerk in the War Office of the Confederacy
• Extracts from the diary of Rafael Semmes, commanding CSS Sumter
• Letters of the Adams family—the US Minister to the UK and his sons
• Letters of General Samuel Ryan Curtis
• Letters and journal of Louise Wigfall
• War Diary of a Union Woman in the South

and more. There are currently 23,802 total posts that will be published over a period of a little over 5 years.  3,867 have already been published, 9,445 are scheduled, and 10,490 are in draft, having been previously published and requiring minor editing, mostly changing the date from the previously published date to a date five years later, which will put them in the schedule 160 years after original writing date or occurrence.

The following is the information for this image.

Title
[Jesse Sharpe Barnes, later captain of Co. F, 4th North Carolina Infantry, in South Carolina militia uniform with sword and pistols]

Summary
Photograph shows identified soldier, Jesse S. Barnes, a Confederate captain who was killed on May 31, 1862, at Seven Pines, Virginia. Captain Barnes probably fought in a South Carolina militia unit before organizing the Wilson Light Infantry which became Company F, 4th North Carolina Infantry and began enlisting on April 18, 1861. (Source: Katharina Schlichtherle, 2015)
Created / Published
[between 1861]

Subject Headings
– Barnes, Jesse Sharpe,–1838-1862
– Confederate States of America.–Army.–North Carolina Infantry Regiment, 4th.–Company F–People–1860-1870
– Soldiers–Confederate–1860-1870
– Military uniforms–Confederate–1860-1870
– Handguns–1860-1870
– Daggers & swords–1860-1870
– United States–History–Civil War, 1861-1865–Military personnel–Confederate

Headings
Ambrotypes–Hand-colored–1860-1870.
Portrait photographs–1860-1870.

Genre
Portrait photographs–1860-1870
Ambrotypes–Hand-colored–1860-1870

Notes
– Identification based on an almost identical photograph of Jesse S. Barnes published in Histories of the several regiments and battalions from North Carolina, in the great war 1861-’65 … Ed. by Walter Clark. Raleigh : E.M. Uzzell, printer, 1901, vol. 1, bet. pp. 256-257. The uniform depicted in the book shows has been painted over to change it to a North Carolina uniform.
– Title devised by Library staff.
– Case: Leather; floral and scroll design.
– Jesse Sharpe Barnes was brother to William Sharpe Barnes who is depicted in AMB/TIN no. 2697 and cousin to Thomas A. Martin who is tentatively identified as being depicted in AMB/TIN no. 2696.
– Palmetto tree insignia on cap.
– Vintage mat supplied by donor.
– Gift; Tom Liljenquist; 2011; (DLC/PP-2012:127).
– More information about this collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.lilj
– Purchased from: Bryan Watson, Civil War Images, Torrington, Wyoming, 2011, who obtained this photograph with two others, one of William Sharpe Barnes (AMB/TIN no. 2697) and the second one tentatively identified as Thomas A. Martin (AMB/TIN no. 2696), from an estate in Florida.
– Forms part of: Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs (Library of Congress).

Medium
1 photograph : quarter-plate ambrotype, hand-colored ; 11.9 x 9.3 cm (case)

Call Number/Physical Location
AMB/TIN no. 2730 [P&P]

Source Collection
Ambrotype/Tintype filing series (Library of Congress) Liljenquist Family collection (Library of Congress)

Repository
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Digital Id
ppmsca 31657 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.31657

Library of Congress Control Number
2011648526

Reproduction Number
LC-DIG-ppmsca-31657 (digital file from original item)

Library of Congress permalink

___________

Mike’s notes:

Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
– fade correction,
– color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
– selected spot and/or scratch removal
– cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject

Royalty-free images by Mike¹ — No. 146 of over 1200 images

Purple iris in the evening sun, west-central Arkansas, April 28, 2018 (Pentax K-3 II)

Iris

Iris is a genus of 260–300 species of flowering plants with showy flowers. It takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow, which is also the name for the Greek goddess of the rainbow, Iris. Some authors state that the name refers to the wide variety of flower colors found among the many species. As well as being the scientific name, iris is also widely used as a common name for all Iris species, as well as some belonging to other closely related genera. A common name for some species is ‘flags’, while the plants of the subgenus Scorpiris are widely known as ‘junos’, particularly in horticulture. It is a popular garden flower.  (see much, much more at Wikipedia)

Post Endnotes

1. I am sharing some of my public domain images in periodic blog posts.

Series Notes:

• This image is also shared as public domain on Pixabay,  Flickr, and Pinterest.
• Images are being shared in the sequence they were accepted by Pixabay, a royalty-free image sharing site.
• Only images specifically identified as such are public domain or creative commons on our pages.
• All other images are copyright protected by me, creative commons, or used under the provisions of fair use.

I’m not a particular fan of eggs.

I eat eggs on occasion, usually hardboiled, scrambled, or even more rarely an egg sandwich where the egg is “over-hard”—well-done, with nothing raw.

In the last few weeks, we’ve had the occasion to eat out for breakfast when we were staying in a hotel.  In Hays, Kansas, we went to IHOP and, a couple of weeks later, a Cracker Barrel in Bentonville, Arkansas.

In most of their menu options for breakfast meals, they included eggs, which I wasn’t interested in.

In both places, I basically ordered the same thing—three pancakes, with sides of hash brown potatoes and sausage patties.  On the rare times I do eat out for breakfast, that’s my standard fare.

At home, though, I do fairly regularly have eggs, a little less than half of the time, for breakfast—two hard-boiled eggs, two buttered pieces of toast, and several turkey sausage links.  The rest of the time I usually have brown sugar and maple oatmeal with some honey, walnuts, and raisins added in. On occasion, Karen will fix breakfast for both of us and then we might have pancakes, waffles, or french toast—or, sometimes, scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage.

Any time I do have eggs, though, they gotta be thoroughly cooked—no over-easy, sunny-side-up, or soft-boiled eggs for me.

I do like deviled eggs at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas, though.

Our daughter, Jessica, has a blog called A Pressure Cooker featuring recipes for the Instant Pot pressure cooker.

A few days ago, one of her recipes, Easy Instant Apple Cobbler was included in Ridiculously easy dump-and-bake desserts on MSN.

Jessica say’s:

If you are looking for an easy apple cobbler recipe, look no further. Here you have a super easy recipe. If you are minimal on groceries, raid your pantry and whip up this super easy dump and bake dish.

I love recipes using Apple Pie Filling, it makes it so easy, and you still get that cinnamon-spiced tender apples in each bite.

See her recipe, Easy Instant Apple Cobbler, and more on her blog.

The photography for her food recipes is all her own.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign (originally posted September 2016)

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?

• All of the images and video segments are public domain from Pixabay.com, the US National Archives, or the US Library of Congress.
• The main audio track, of course is “Sounds” by Five Man Electrical Band. It is used here under the current policies set by the copyright holder which means this video will be viewable everywhere except Germany.
• The intro thunder sound track was recorded by Grant Evans License: Attribution 3.0 obtained from http://soundbible.com/2053-Thunder-So… soundbible.com
• The crowd sound audio track is https://www.freesound.org/people/yott…” more random people.wav by https://www.freesound.org/people/yott… yottasounds | License: Creative Commons 0
• Category Music
• License: Standard YouTube License

I received this text a couple of days ago.  I don’t trust unsolicited phone calls or messages from numbers I don’t recognize and I certainly am highly skeptical of any too-good-to-be-true call or message saying that I won something.  Needless to say, I didn’t respond.

I checked the number on Hiya, a call blocker, fraud detection and caller ID app that’s available from the apple and google app stores.  It said – no surprise – that it was suspected spam.  I don’t know why it didn’t flag it to tell me it was suspect, but it doesn’t seem to catch everything.

I also searched Google for “walmart.yourcards.”

The first hit was from scam detector. It says:

“Is walmart.yourcards.us legit? Nope. It has the lowest trust rating on our chart. Let’s take a look at it and its industry. We put to work 53 powerful factors to expose high-risk activity and see if walmart.yourcards.us is a scam.”

Scam detector gave them a score of 0.4/100 and said, “It signals that the business could be defined by the following tags: High-Risk. Phishing. Beware.”

0.4/100 is  about as low as you can go.

It gives Exit78 a score of 75.4/100 and says, “This rating means the business is Standard. Valid. Common.” I can live with that.

Other hits on the search had to do with gift and other cards from Walmart.  The 4th hit, though, was Fraud Alerts – Walmart Corporate. It has several pages of different kinds of frauds and scams as well as guidelines and resources for dealing with them.  The first page deals with gift card scams.

It’s a shame that there are people out there who have to prey on others for financial gain.  Many who might fall victim to a scam like this are those who can least afford it.

I don’t, of course, know any details of this scam past the text that I received. It may be a fraudster trying to pose as a brand you trust over email to try to trick you into sharing personal information like your account password or financial details.

[Note: This post was originally published on August 13, 2020.  Unfortunately, what we feared then is today’s reality.  Only 35% of eligible Arkansans are fully vaccinated.  Eleven months ago when I wrote this, the delta variant wasn’t a consideration.  Today, the majority of new cases are from the delta variant.  There were 1476 new cases yesterday, the most in a single day since February.  Just 2.4% of the state’s positive cases since January 18th have been fully vaccinated. Only 1.6% of Covid-related hospitalizations and 0.4% of Covid-related deaths since that same date have been individuals who were fully vaccinated. That means that, by far, the number of positive cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been people who were either not vaccinated or who have not had their second injection.]

I’ve been quite surprised—and disappointed—to read about how many people there are in the US who say they will not take the vaccine when, and if, it becomes available. I suppose they have all sorts of reasons for it, but, there would have to be a really convincing argument against getting vaccinated to sway my opinion.

If a vaccine becomes available, winning the fight against COVID-19 won’t happen if a significant number of people refuse to be vaccinated.  Unfortunately, COVID-19 conspiracy theorists seem to be joining forces with anti-vaccine theorists in a misinformation war against vaccines, with as many as a quarter of the US population threatening to refuse to be vaccinated.

Six common misconceptions about immunization (World Health Organization)

• Diseases had already begun to disappear before vaccines were introduced, because of better hygiene and sanitation.
• The majority of people who get disease have been vaccinated.
• There are “hot lots” of vaccine that have been associated with more adverse events and deaths than others. Parents should find the numbers of these lots and not allow their children to receive vaccines from them.
• Vaccines cause many harmful side effects, illnesses, and even death – not to mention possible long-term effects we don’t even know about.
• Vaccine-preventable diseases have been virtually eliminated from my country, so there is no need for my child to be vaccinated.
• Giving a child multiple vaccinations for different diseases at the same time increases the risk of harmful side effects and can overload the immune system

We plan to get the vaccine as soon as it is available to us.

2020kickstart#10

It’s been two years and eight months since the voters in Arkansas approved a constitutional amendment  that authorized Las Vegas style casinos in four counties.  Three of those casinos are now in operation.  In Pope County, however, ground has yet to be broken as issues over that county’s casino have been tied up with disputes and litigation.

One of the court cases has finally reached the Arkansas Supreme Court.  This case, when decided, may make other pending litigation moot.

In May 2019, the state body assigned authority over casino gaming by the amendment—the Arkansas Racing Commission (ARC)—opened a limited period for interested parties to submit applications to operate a casino in two of the four counties, Pope and Jefferson.  The other two licenses were to be issued to the Franchise holders of the existing greyhound racing track and gaming facility in Crittenden County and the horse racing track and gaming facility in Garland County. Five parties submitted applications in Pope County and one submitted an application in Jefferson County.  All of the Pope County applications were denied as incomplete on June 13, 2019, while the Jefferson County application was approved.

The court case hinges on one issue, support documents from county officials.

From the amendment:

The Arkansas Racing Commission shall require all casino applicants for a casino license in Pope County and Jefferson County to submit either a letter of support from the county judge or a resolution from the quorum court in the county where the proposed casino is to be located…

Amendment 100 was adopted by voters on November 6, 2018 and became effective on November 14, 2018.

On December 26, 2018, the ARC adopted for publication several draft  rules, including one that stated, “Letters of support and resolutions by the Quorum Court, required by these Rules and the Amendment, shall be dated after the effective date of the Amendment.”

On January 3, 2019, a revised draft  of the Casino Gaming Rules was published for comment which said, “All letters of support or resolutions by the Quorum Court, required by these Rules and the Amendment, shall be dated and signed by the County Judge, Quorum Court members, or Mayor holding office at the time of the submission of an application for a casino gaming license.”  The final rules adopted on February 21, 2019 were as published on January 3.

Act 371 of 2019 passed by the General Assembly on March 5, 2019, also requires that support documents from local officials for a casino be signed and dated by officials holding office at the time of the submission of an application for a casino license.

On December 28, 2018, Gulfside Casino Partnership provided the ARC a copy of Pope County Judge Jim Ed Gibson’s letter of December 21, 2018, which, in its entirety says, “If a license is issued for a casino in Pope County, Arkansas I give my support for Gulfside Casino Partnership.” Judge Gibson retired on December 31, 2018.  Gulfside was not yet an applicant for a casino license as, indeed, the rules for casino gaming had not yet been established and approved.

In a December 31, 2018 article by River Valley Now, Jim Ed Gibson was asked, “I think that’s why there was some debate about it, because people have said, well he’s saying “if”, so it’s not the letter that’s needed. So, I just wanted to get your perspective on what the intent was. So, it wasn’t necessarily meant as THE letter of support?“

Gibson replied, “No, it wasn’t.“

On March 26, the ARC issued a public notice establishing a casino application period from May 1 to May 30, 2019.

Gulfside submitted an application on May 17 that included the one-line letter of support from then retired Judge Gibson. The other four applicants applicants had no letters of support with their application.

The ARC denied all five applications on June 13 because none had the required letters of support.  Gulfside requested a hearing before the ARC which was held July 18, 2019.  On August 15, 2019, the ARC denied Gulfside’s appeal.  Gulfside filed a suit that same day in Pulaski County Circuit Court, appealing the decision under the Arkansas Administrative Procedures Act, challenging as unconstitutional the gaming rule and law that requires the support documents be from officials currently in office.  Circuit Judge Tim Fox ruled in favor of Gulfside on March 24, 2020 and again, after the Arkansas Supreme Court sent the case back to him, on May 21, 2021.

The latter ruling has been appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court by the Arkansas Racing Commission and Cherokee Nation Businesses (CNB) both of whom submitted appellant briefs yesterday, July 12.

CNB has standing in this case because in August of 2019 they received a resolution of support from the Pope County quorum court and, later, a letter of support from the current Pope County Judge, Ben Cross.  CNB filed a motion to intervene on August 23, 2019.  Judge Fox denied CNB’s motion to intervene, which was unopposed by any of the parties to the case, on January 2, 2020.  CNB appealed the denial and, on February 4, 2021, the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed Fox’s denial, vacating his March 24, 2020 orders in the case because CNB’s positions were not considered in his decision.

The appellant briefs submitted by the ARC and CNB hold that Gulfside is not a qualified applicant because they never have had a supporting document from Pope County officials holding office at the time of the application, as required by state law and casino gaming rules.  Judge Fox’s order declaring the law and rule unconstitutional was among those vacated in the Arkansas Supreme Court’s February 4th ruling.

Ignoring the state law and casino gaming rule on support documents from current officials, plain reading of Amendment 100 alone disqualifies Gulfside from having a license.

The amendment requires that all applicants for a casino license submit documents of support from the county judge or the quorum court.  Until it submitted it’s application, Gulfside was only a prospective applicant. Gulfside became an applicant only when, on May 17, it submitted its application, including the one-line letter from Judge Jim Ed Gibson, who had been out of office for four months and seventeen days.  Clearly, Judge Gibson was not the Pope County Judge when Gulfside officially became an applicant.

According to Amendment 100, “’Casino applicant’” is defined as any individual, corporation, partnership, association, trust, or other entity applying for a license to conduct casino gaming at a casino.”  Prior to May 17, 2019, Gulfside was not an applicant.

Gulfside’s case depends upon Judge Gibson’s letter, whether the state law and gaming rule are constitutional and the December 26, 2018, draft rule that said “Letters of support and resolutions by the Quorum Court, required by these Rules and the Amendment, shall be dated after the effective date of the Amendment.”

I don’t see how the Supreme Court can rule in any way that favors Gulfside.

Then, again, I didn’t see any way that Gulfside could be awarded a license to build and operate a casino in Pope County.  But, through a comedy of inept commission meetings and decisions where they didn’t follow their own gaming rules, a license was awarded to Gulfside and denied to CNB.

CNB’s appeal of the ARC’s license denial is one of several litigations that may be made moot by this Supreme Court case.

We got vaccinated because it was the right thing to do to get back to a new normal closer to what the old normal was.

Saturday, we were able to safely attend a large family gathering for the first time since the beginning of COVID. Last month, we took a trip to Colorado.

Things that used to be normal.
⁠
The vaccinations are FREE & SAFE.
⁠
COVID isn’t.

Besides the pain, misery, and grief associated with you and/or your family members getting the virus and getting sick,—and possibly being hospitalized and/or dying—for many there are going to be long term financial complications—bills beyond what insurance will pay, lost jobs from being sick so long, inability to work because of lingering COVID complications. COVID isn’t just about getting sick.
⁠
We were vaccinated as soon as we could get an appointment after seniors became eligible. We didn’t wait around, so the delta variant wasn’t even a thing yet.

After self-isolating, social distancing, and masks for over a year, the cost for being able to get some normalcy was the just gas it took to drive, twice, to a nearby town—a round-trip distance of about 35 miles.  Considering all the gas we didn’t use that year of mostly staying home, the cost of the vaccinations was actually less than nothing.

Free & safe.

The people who are not getting vaccinated are a threat to that.  They provide the virus more opportunities for infection.  The more people who are infected, the more opportunities for the virus to mutate into strains that the current vaccines may not protect against.

Our state, Arkansas, has been making the COVID headlines nationally—in a less than positive way—in recent days.

• Arkansas reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases for the third straight day on Friday – The Hill
• Arkansas’s death march: The daily COVID-19 roundup – Arkansas Times
• Covid-19 cases surge in state with one of the lowest vaccination rates – CNN Health
• Arkansas, Nevada Among the States With Rising COVID, Delta Variant Cases – Newsweek

Vaccination—it’s the right thing to do.

It’s free.

…and, it’s safe!