Oval Daguerreotype Portrait of Maj. Gen. James Birdseye McPherson

Oval Daguerreotype Portrait of Maj. Gen. James Birdseye McPherson - Inventory Number: HAR 230

The fresh-faced McPherson wears his crisp Lieutenant's uniform, lined with "eagle and fort"-motif brass buttons to designate his service with the US Army's Corps of Engineers. This image dates to just after his graduation from West Point, where he ranked first in a class that produced several notable Civil War generals. As an Engineer he spent his pre-War years leading projects on both coasts, from New York Harbor to Alcatraz Island. During the War he initially served as his mentor Gen. Grant's trusted Chief Engineer and played a prominent role in major Union victories in the Western Theater including Ft. Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, and Vicksburg. He rapidly rose from Brigadier General to Major General and eventually assumed command of Gen.

Sherman's Army of the Tennessee. He was killed at the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864, the second highest ranking Union officer to be killed in the war and the only commander of a Union army to die in the field.          

Grant memorialized McPherson as one of the army's "ablest, purest, and best generals." Sherman wept openly when he learned of his death and called him "a man who, had he survived [the War], was qualified to heal national strife.' Even John Bell Hood, his West Point classmate and the General who opposed him at Atlanta, marked his passing with friendship, admiration, and gratitude.        

This daguerreotype is the only known daguerreotype (or other "hard" format image) of McPherson in existence. Struck in the mid-late 1850s, it is of a somewhat unique shape and presentation that is associated with a romantic gift, particularly its delicate velvet case. For this reason it is likely McPherson presented it to his long-time fiancée, Emily Hoffman.

McPherson and Hoffman met in California while he was working at Alcatraz and began an intense romance interrupted by the Civil War. Unable to marry while McPherson was in the field, Hoffman spent the time at her family's home in Baltimore. Famously, Sherman denied leave to McPherson to get married due to the impending Atlanta campaign; this is the same campaign in which McPherson was killed.

Sherman wrote to Hoffman just after McPherson's death. "I yield to none on Earth but yourself the right to excel me in lamentations for our Dead Hero," he sympathized. "Better the Bride of McPherson dead, than the wife of the richest Merchant of Baltimore." Devastated, she never loved another. One wonders how often she looked at this daguerreotype and considered what could have been.

Comes housed in 8 x 14 riker display case with blue velvet and descriptive card.

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Inventory Number: HAR 230