corduory overshirt

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: corduory overshirt

Hi,

Under neath the picture in the book I have it says he was bayoneted and that he was 14 when he was killed. I guess the wound is the darker area on the shirt. I do agree with Ryan that this photo is very sad one because he is so long, and two it is so near to the end of the Civil War.

Andrew Kasmar

4th Missouri Company E

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: corduory overshirt

Hi,

To answer Mr. Cooper's question, the picture just had a caption. I did not know that Fort Mahone was part of Petersburg, I will have to remember that.

Andrew Kasmar

4th Missouri Company E

[Mike Willey]

Re: corduory overshirt

Just a caveat: Most of the photos in Gardner's sketchbook and in similar works have "embellished" captions, not unlike the "dead confederate sharpshooter at G-burg", etc.

Do you really think that a photographer would take time to find out how a particular soldier died? And how would he find out the soldier's age? Why not his name?

The photographers were busy moving their gear around and taking the best photos that they could, partially to document what they saw, but they also wanted to make money on their work.

Mike Willey
late of the 49th Ohio and Coffee-coolers

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: corduory overshirt

Hi,

I agree that it is impossible to knew for sure what the age or the cause of death of this soldier, I was just giving the information that I found in my book. Know I think you would be able to tell the wound type, but the age would be harder to tell.

Andrew Kasmar

[GWagner]

Re: corduory overshirt

Is one shoe much narrower than the other? The right shoe appears very tapered, while the left is rounded.

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: corduory overshirt

Hi,

It does look like he is wearing two different shoes.

Andrew Kasmar

[OleMissRebel]

Re: corduory overshirt

Just a caveat: Most of the photos in Gardner's sketchbook and in similar works have "embellished" captions, not unlike the "dead confederate sharpshooter at G-burg", etc.

The sharpshooter one isn't misleading though. Not sure if it was posted on here or not, but some guy recently did an ungodly amount of research on that photo and came up with a very convincing argument that the "dead sharpshooter" truly was a sharpshooter because of the existence of a leather rifle case in the photo and a piece of a broken scope, among other things. The photo of the sharpshooter that is taken down the hill was the second photo, not the first.

I used to be strongly in the camp that the photo was staged by Gardner, but after reading this guy's essay about it, I'm THOROUGHLY convinced that they found him like that.

[With All Due Respect]

Re: corduory overshirt

Now that Ryan Burns has posted this second photo (the "14 year old"), it seems it gives us more possible corduroy to speculate about. This boy appears to be wearing two jackets, the innner one being a corduroy or a similar verticle stripe. The inner jacket has a collar much like common Confederate shells/roundabouts, and may have dished wooden buttons -- the collar and buttons do not look typical of a vest. What do you think?

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: corduory overshirt

Hi,

The collar would be strange for a civilian vest, so it might be a jacket. but I can only see three buttons, and they are on the lower half of the vest or jacket which would also be strange. Maybe it is a vest with it's collar turned up. The wood buttons do look like Confederate issue.

Andrew Kasmar

4th Missouri Company E

[ContinentalMorganGuard]

Re: corduory overshirt

In the second photo is the one pant leg bloused in the sock or is it cuffed? Looks bloused to me.

[BobbyHughes]

Re: corduory overshirt

The poor young lads trouser leg does look like it is bloused. One can only speculate what happened to his shoes, and why someone would pull off one sock, and leave it there....

[mslaird]

Re: corduory overshirt

I found another photo that has the young man in the original photo in question for this thread at http://old-picture.com

If anyone can get a more detailed image of this. It appears as though he may have some head trauma. You can also see the surrounding terrain.

[Thomas Alleman]

Re: corduory overshirt

What I find strange is where is all his gear? Weapon, belt, box, could it be posed? I mean the dead guy below him is buried almost. It is a strange pic and yeah there are allot of staged pics done by photographers, there even is a book on it on the ones done after Gettyburg. Just my $.02.

[OleMissRebel]

Re: corduory overshirt

Still no sign of trauma:

[ContinentalMorganGuard]

Re: corduory overshirt

Could he have been killed by concussion?