398
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(MILITARY—CIVIL WAR—PHOTOGRAPHY.) BEALS, CHARLES EMERY
The Beals family photograph album.
78 cartes-de-visites and 6 tintypes, all in excel-
lent condition, housed in a classic oblong 4to 19th century album, with deeply embossed
covers, elaborately stamped in gilt and blind; original brass clasps intact; all edges gilt; some
of the early family portraits are identified.
New England, 1860’s-1870’s
[15,000/25,000]
AN EXCEPTIONAL CIVIL WAR PERIOD FAMILY ALBUM
,
WITH A NUMBER OF VERY IMPORTANT
SLAVERY
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RELATED CARTE
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DE
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VISITES IMAGES
.
From the Beals family of Stoughton Massachusetts.
The album begins as one might expect with a number of images of identified family members, begin-
ning with Jedediah Beals (1787-1880) and wife Phebe, and sons Jedediah Beals Jr. (1813-1880)
and Charles Emery Beals (1843-1869), an ordinary New England family that quite possibly held
anti-slavery views. Included with all of the family photos are cartes de visites of Abraham Lincoln,
Mary Todd Lincoln, Schuyler Colfax, Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson (later vice president under
Grant) and the notorious “Scourged Back” image of Private Gordon. Gordon is shown displaying the
terrible scars on his back which he received from repeated floggings after attempting an escape.