54th Massachusetts Officer, KIA Fort Wagner

Oversize albumen studio half-length portrait. N.p., n.d. Oval image approx. ## x ## in. on original cardstock mount and in early frame.

Captain Cabot Jackson Russell (1844-1863) was raised on the east coast and began attending Harvard in 1861. He left without completing his studies, however, to pursue a western research trip to Wyoming the next year. The passionate young man was an ardent abolitionist who kept a portrait of John Brown and felt called to return east and enlist in the Union Army. He began his enlistment as a private in the 44th Massachusetts Infantry, but soon thereafter took a commission in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first Black regiment raised in the North. After training at Camp Meigs near Boston, the regiment shipped to Beaufort, South Carolina and joined the X Corps. They took part in operations against Charleston, South Carolina, fighting at the Battle of Grimball's Landing and most famously the Second Battle of Fort Wagner. The bloody assault claimed the lives of nearly half the regiment, including those of commander Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and Captain Russell. Those who fell, white and Black, were buried together in a mass grave.

Condition: minor even toning.

[African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation, Enslavement, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Union, Confederate, Historic Photography, Daguerreotype, Ambrotype, Tintype, Albumen Photography, CDV, Carte de Visite, Carte-de-visite, Oversized Albumen, Cabinet card.]