Id’d Ambrotype of Captain Josiah Moore and His Brother, Thomas Moore Both Ill. Inf. Officers

SOLD

Id’d Ambrotype of Captain Josiah Moore and His Brother, Thomas Moore Both Ill. Inf. Officers – In this pre-war, sixth plate ambrotype, both Josiah and his brother Thomas Moore are depicted in civilian garb, just prior to Josiah’s enlistment in the 17^th Illinois Infantry. The image is in excellent condition; behind the half cased image, written in pencil, in the period, on the paper attached to the interior of the case is the following:

“Capt. Josiah Moore

of the Monmouth

‘Union Guards’ Company

1. 17^th Reg. Ills. Volunteers

Thomas Moore

Monmouth College

Warren County Ills

March 4^th 1861

________   _______   ________ _______

Ambrotype J.P. Thompson

      Monmouth

        Ills”

                                                                  _______     ________   _______   _______

In 1862, Thomas Moore would also join the war effort when he enlisted in the Co. E of the 96^th Illinois Infantry. Both of the Moore brothers would survive the war; in their respective units, both were engaged in significant combat. Josiah’s wartime correspondence between him and his future wife, Jennie Lindsay, has been collected and printed in the book “A Civil War Captain and His Lady: Love, Courtship, and Combat from Fort Donelson through the Vicksburg Campaign”*, edited and interpreted by Gene Barr. We will provide a copy of this interesting and poignant book to the purchaser of this image. The photographer, J.P. Thomson**, was a significant photographer in Illinois, in the 1850s and at the onset of the Civil War; Thompson (misspelled “Thompson” on the paper behind the image). In October of 1858, Thomson would take a photograph of Abraham Lincoln who had come to Monmouth to deliver a speech. By 1862, Thomson closed his photography business.

Josiah Moore

17th IL Infantry
( 3-years )

ILLINOIS
SEVENTEENTH INFANTRY.
(three years)

*A Civil War Captain and His Lady by Gene Barr – A Civil War Captain and His Lady is a true “Cold Mountain” love story from the Northern perspective.

More than 150 years ago, 27-year-old Irish immigrant Josiah Moore met 19-year-old Jennie Lindsay, a member of one of Peoria, Illinois’s most prominent families. The Civil War had just begun, Josiah was the captain of the 17th Illinois Infantry, and his war would be a long and bloody one. Their courtship and romance, which came to light in a rare and unpublished series of letters, forms the basis of Gene Barr’s memorable “A Civil War Captain and His Lady: Love, Courtship, and Combat from Fort Donelson through the Vicksburg Campaign”.

The story of Josiah, Jennie, the men of the 17th and their families tracks the toll on our nation during the war and allows us to explore the often difficult recovery after the last gun sounded in 1865.

Josiah’s and Jennie’s letters shed significant light on the important role played by a soldier’s sweetheart on the home front, and a warrior’s observations from the war front. Josiah’s letters offer a deeply personal glimpse into army life, how he dealt with the loss of many close to him, and the effects of war on a man’s physical, spiritual, and moral well-being. Jennie’s letters show a young woman mature beyond her age dealing with the difficulties on the home front while her brother and her new love struggle through the travails of war. Her encouragement to keep his faith in God strong and remain morally upright gave Josiah the strength to lead his men through the horrors of the Civil War. Politics also thread their way through the letters and include the evolution of Jennie’s father’s view of the conflict. A leader in the Peoria community and former member of the Illinois state house, he engages in his own political wars when he shifts his affiliation from the Whig Party to the new Republican Party, and is finally elected to the Illinois Senate as a Peace Democrat and becomes one of the state’s more notorious Copperheads.

In addition to this deeply moving and often riveting correspondence, Barr includes additional previously unpublished material on the 17th Illinois and the war’s Western Theater, including Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and the lesser known Meridian Campaign—actions that have historically received much less attention than similar battles in the Eastern Theater. The result is a rich, complete, and satisfying story of love, danger, politics, and warfare, and it is one you won’t soon forget.

Thomas Moore

**‘Developing’ the history of Monmouth’s Lincoln photograph

Jeff Rankin

Oct 19, 2017

MONMOUTH, Ill. —On Oct. 11, 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered a senatorial campaign speech in Monmouth, following which a local photographer took his portrait. Recently, I was contacted by a great-great-grandnephew of that photographer, living in Los Angeles. His inquiries caused me to review the historical information I have about Lincoln’s visit and the Monmouth portrait.

David Thomson Jones is the great-great grandson of Hugh Laughlin Thomson, an Ohio native who settled near Biggsville in 1852 and served eight years as Henderson County circuit clerk. Hugh Thomson’s brother, William Judkins Thomson, came to Monmouth from Pennsylvania in 1856, where he established an ambrotype studio on the south side of the Public Square, just east of Main Street. Ambrotypes were portraits on glass that bridged the technological gap between daguerreotypes and dry plate negatives.

The Thomsons were devout Presbyterians and active in the new Republican Party. William Judkins Thomson was one of several Republican leaders who welcomed Lincoln to Monmouth and shared dinner with him at the Baldwin House hotel, prior to his afternoon speech. An article in the Nov. 26, 1884, edition of the Monmouth Evening Gazette stated that Thomson was “a friend of Mr. Lincoln” and persuaded him “to sit for a negative.”

Lincoln’s Oct. 11 visit to Monmouth followed a similar visit to Monmouth by his opponent, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, Oct. 5, during which he spoke on the Public Square. On Oct. 7, Lincoln debated “The Little Giant” at Knox College. On Oct. 9, he spoke at Oquawka and Burlington, Iowa. On the morning of Oct. 11, he took the train from Burlington to Monmouth. Arrangements had been made for a huge gathering to welcome him on the Oquawka road, but torrential rains had washed away those plans.

Lincoln was met at the Monmouth CB&Q depot by circuit clerk William S. Laferty, who had a carriage waiting, but despite the rain, Lincoln elected to walk the seven blocks to the Baldwin House on East Broadway. A Monmouth correspondent for the Chicago Tribune wrote that rain continued to fall, and that until 1 p.m. it was assumed that no one from the country would show up for the speech, so it would be moved indoors to a hall. About noon, however, large crowds began forming and it became apparent the speech had to be given outdoors. A stage had been constructed on the Public Square, but according to eyewitness Harry B. Young, the location “was changed to the lumber yard at the corner of East Fourth Avenue and South First street, because the square was a sea of mud. A stage was built for the speaker and when the rain came up an improvised top of rough boards, slanting in order to let the rain run off, was made for it.”

The Tribune correspondent noted that Lincoln spoke for three hours, with the entire audience seemingly “perfectly wrapt in attention.” The reporter for the Monmouth Review (a Democratic paper), however, described the speech as “coldly received by the small crowd present.”

Just what time the speech ended is uncertain, but it seems likely that Lincoln’s next destination was Thomson’s ambrotype studio, as daylight probably would have been required to capture the portrait. In a 1932 letter to Monmouth photographer Fleming Long, Alexander S. Thomson, a nephew of the photographer (who was 14 during Lincoln’s visit) recalled assisting his uncle in the studio that day. He began his recollection by mentioning the speaker’s stand was in front of his uncle’s studio, so perhaps Lincoln delivered some additional remarks from the original stage before having his photo taken.

After Lincoln finished his address, the nephew recalled, “he threw his cloak around himself and came into the front room of the studio where many politicians followed him. Uncle invited him into the back gallery, closing the door on the crowd. As he came in I placed a chair for him to sit down and wait a little while Uncle was preparing for him. As he sat down he took me by the hand, asked my name and asked about my school work and other things along the line of boy talk. … When Uncle had placed him in position, I was standing at one side, a little back but where I could see plainly. I saw him as he sat on the chair, the same as you see him in the picture.”

Alexander Thomson’s 1937 obituary notes that in later years, he spoke about “the uncanny carrying powers of Lincoln’s high pitched voice, the outstretching of his enormous right arm as his chief gesture, and the great hand waving for silence. It was the proudest moment of his young life as he led Lincoln from the platform to his uncle’s shop and watched the taking of the picture, which was a laborious process in those days.”

According Monmouth historian Emily Roberts Hubble, William Laferty entertained Lincoln with a two-hour reception in his home across from the Baldwin House “when the exercises were over in the afternoon.” While it’s possible the reception occurred before the portrait was taken, it seems more reasonable to assume the photo was taken first, as the sun set on that date at approximately 5:30.

On the 70th anniversary of the speech in 1927, the Review Atlas interviewed the photographer’s son, John N. Thomson, who was just 2 at the time of the photo, but whose older brother William was 6. He recalled that after the photo Lincoln took William next door (to N.A. Rankin’s store) and “filled him with candy and figs.”

William Judkins Thomson would abandon the photography business by 1862 and become Warren County clerk, serving in that post until 1866. He died in 1869 at the relatively young age of 46. While the cause of his death is uncertain, one wonders if it might have been related to his use of carcinogenic chemicals. The ambrotype process used cadmium compounds, which, according to Monmouth College chemical hygiene officer Kathy Mainz, are potentially hazardous, as are other chemicals used in the process, including ammonium bromide, dimethyl ether, glacial acetic acid, potassium cyanide and bichlorate of mercury. In 1896, when journalist Ida Tarbell was writing her 20-part series on Lincoln for McClure’s Magazine, Thomson’s widow, Margaretta, was asked to lend the Lincoln ambrotype to be sent to New York City for an engraving to illustrate the article, but she refused. Eventually, through the intervention of Col. Clark E. Carr of Galesburg and State Sen. Fred E. Harding of Monmouth, she allowed the picture to be copied by Galesburg photographer Thomas Harrison, who forwarded a print to McClure’s.