John Sherman

Senator John Sherman, pictured between 1861 and 1865. Sherman mainly concerned himself with financial matters throughout his political career, but two finance Acts were particularly significant in the Civil War. The Confiscation Act of 1861 allowed the government to confiscate any property, including slaves, that were being used to support the Confederate war effort. The Second Confiscation Act of 1862 clarified that slaves "confiscated" under the 1861 Act were freed.
He also supported the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery, in 1864.

Original daguerreotype from the Brady studio.

Clara Louise Kellogg

Clara Louise Kellogg was an American opera singer, the first U.S.-born prima donna and the first American singer to achieve success in Europe.
This photo is from the Mathew Brady collection, and dates from sometime during the American Civil War. Kellogg wasn't directly involved in the war, but gave an account from the point of view of a civilian in New York, in her "Memoirs of an American Prima Donna", in 1913.


Original B&W photo.

George W. Melville

Rear Admiral George Wallace Melville, US Navy, probably in 1904 or shortly before. (See painting below), entered the U.S. Navy in 1861 and became an officer of the Engineer Corps, and took part in the capture of CSS Florida in 1864.

As well as being an engineer, Arctic exploration and author, Melville reformed the Navy, making it more efficient and more professional.


Original B&W photo.


The 1904 painting by Thomas Eakins from which I took the colours.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, around 1874. Born a slave, he first escaped to the north then, while on a lecture tour of Britain and Ireland, he was able to buy his freedom in America, using donations from British supporters. He was also given money for several abolitionist publications back in America. In one, he published a scathing letter to his former owner, Thomas Auld. A few years after this photo was taken, in 1877, Douglass visited Thomas Auld on his deathbed, and the two men were reconciled.

As important as he was in the story of the abolition of slavery, he was also a staunch campaigner for women's rights.


Copy of the original daguerreotype.

Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson, the first American president to be impeached, though he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.



Original B&W photo.

Ambrose Burnside

Ambrose Burnside, seen here around 1880, was, by his own frequent admission, an indifferent military commander, at best, and his successes in the American Civil War were matched by his defeats.
His main legacy is the name given to the spectacular whiskers he sported, burnsides, at first, then sideburns. The syllables were transposed, it is sometimes claimed, as a reference to his tactical ineptitude, as he supposedly didn't know which way he was supposed to send his troops, but it is more likely that his name had been largely forgotten, and the word just evolved to make some kind of sense, as the "side" part clearly referred to the position of the whiskers on the head, especially when fashions changed and the moustache was dispensed with. The word evolved further, becoming sideboard, with "board" simply meaning "border" or "edge".


Original B&W photo.

 

Cassius Marcellus Clay

Not the boxer, Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, who became Muhammad Ali upon his conversion to Islam, nor his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr, but the Kentucky state representative who fought for the abolition of slavery, often at the risk of his life, and despite coming from a family of slave-owners.



Original B&W photo.

 

Dr. Mary E. Walker

Mary Edwards Walker was the first female surgeon ever employed by the U.S. Army Surgeon.  and the only woman, so far, ever to receive the Medal of Honor. This photo from 1865 was taken at the presentation of that medal.


Original B&W photo.

Mathew B. Brady

Often cited as "the father of photojournalism", Mathew Brady took many of the photographs that exist of the American Civil War and, through his paid assistants, was responsible for many more. He began his career as a painter, then a portrait photographer. After the war he returned to portraits, as with this one of himself, taken around 1875, but he never recovered his wartime success, and died penniless in 1896.


Original B&W photo.

John Brown

John Brown, the abolitionist who, some people think, sparked the American Civil War, here in 1856.


Original daguerreotype.

Robert E. Lee & Son

General Robert E. Lee (centre) with his son, Major General George Washington Custis Lee (left), and his aide-de-camp, Colonel Walter Taylor, on the back porch of the Lee home at Richmond, Virginia, April 1865


Original B&W photo.

USS Monitor

The USS Monitor, after her fight with the CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) on 9 March 1862.
When I put this picture on Facebook, John Winner kindly supplied more information:

View on deck looking forward on the starboard side, while the ship was in the James River, Virginia, 9 July 1862. The turret, with the muzzle of one of Monitor's two XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns showing, is at left. Note crewmembers atop the turret, and dents in turret armor from hits by Confederate heavy guns.
Dents from the battle with the CSS Virginia are visible. Officers at right are (left to right): Third Assistant Engineer Robinson W. Hands, Acting Master Louis N. Stodder, Second Assistant Engineer Albert B. Campbell (seated) and Acting Volunteer Lieutenant William Flye (with binoculars).

Original B&W photo.

George Armstrong Custer

George Armstrong Custer, sometime during the Civil War, wearing his temporary (brevet) Major General uniform. He reverted to Captain for a time after the war, before rising again in rank.


Original B&W photo.

General Joseph Reid Anderson

General Joseph Reid Anderson, whose Tredegar Iron Company was at the industrial heart of the Confederate States of America.
Anderson resigned his army commission on July 19, 1862, so this photo was almost certainly taken before then, unless he donned it again just for the portrait.


Original B&W photo.