Meri's Play Place

There's a Robert Redford film out now  about the trial of Mary Surratt  before a military tribunal for conspiracy  in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln..  That film inspired today's SEPIA SATURDAY post. (Click on the link to visit Alan and the other Sepia Saturday participants). Mary Surratt (nee Mary Elizabeth Jenkins)  was born in Waterloo, Maryland in 1823.  She was educated in Alexandria, Virginia  by the Sisters of Charity at the school  for girls run by St. Mary's Catholic Church. Mary Surratt photo from the Surratt.org website In 1840, at 17, she married John Harrison Surratt  of the District of Columbia. They lived  on a small farm in Oxon Hill where they reared  three children : Isaac, Anna, and John Jr. John H. Surratt bought 287 acres of farmland  in Prince Georges County, Maryland (near present-day Andrews Air Force Base) in 1852. On the land,  he built a two-story frame building that be...

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Liljenquist Family Collection LC-DIG- ppmsca-27248 ] This portrait shows brothers William and Phillip J. Letsinger of Company D, 14th Indiana Regiment, posing with rifles in front of Camp Michigan painted backdrop. They enlisted together on June 7, 1861 while living in Putnam County, Indiana. They both were inducted at the rank of private. William was discharged as a private on October 29, 1862.  His brother Phillip, who had been promoted to Corporal, was one of 3252 men killed at Antietam on September 17, 1862. Antietam,  also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, was the first Civil War battle fought on northern territory.  Sepia Saturday.

I love Civil War photographs and images from that era.  TheY speak of such a time of upheaval, of unspeakable loss arising because men believed that war was the answer even when they weren't sure what the question was. I love the images even more when I can learn a little bit about the subject of the photograph.  Photo from Library of Congress Civil War Collection. This is Father Thomas Quinn in his military uniform. He was a chaplain with the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery for a brief period of time, during which this photograph was captured. He mustered into the unit on November 8. 1861 and was discharged by special order effective January 3, 1861. Prior to his tenure in the 1st R.I. Light Artillery, he had been chaplain to the Ist Rhode Island Infantry, serving with them at the first Battle of Manassas. After their service commitment ended, he joined the 3rd Rhode Island Infantry Regiment.  Several Irish Catholics enlisted in this unit and two of them were awarde...

Not that I'm endorsing spying, you understand, but somehow I think of spying in wartime as a guy thing. So it was intriguing to find these old images of Belle Boyd, Confederate Spy, in the Library of Congress Photo Collection (images from the Brady-Handy Studio in Washington, D.C.). She gathered intelligence for the South from her father's hotel in Front Royal, Virginia. Her information proved so valuable  to General "Stonewall" Jackson during the campaign in the Shenandoah Valley that he commissioned her as a Captain and aide-de-camp on his staff. She was eventually betrayed by her lover in summer 1862 and imprisoned for a month in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. She was then part of a prisoner exchange and was released. She, undaunted, continued her spy career. She was arrested again in June 1863. She was released from prison on December 1, 1863 suffering from typhoid and went to Europe to regain her health. While in England, she had a career on t...