One of the most impressive large-format photographs of the era we have handled.

Large albumen print taken and produced by photographer Samuel Broadbent, measuring 16” x 14” (including mount) depicting a group of Union officers assigned to conduct court martial proceedings in Philadelphia. All officers pictured signed the mount below the photo with their names and regiments. A cursory search of the men’s service histories found that at least three were wounded in action.

The court martial process was the army’s system of military justice during the Civil War. Tribunals comprised of Union officers heard cases and had the power to mete out substantial discipline - including a death sentence in extreme cases, such as espionage. This particular group of officers was assigned to carry out this duty in Philadelphia, where this photo was made in 1863.

The photographer, Samuel Broadbent (1810-1880), began his career as a portrait painter and miniaturist in Hartford, Connecticut while in his teens. Friend and distant relative Samuel Morse introduced Broadbent to daguerreotyping in 1840 and throughout the 1840s Broadbent traveled around the southern United States as an itinerant daguerreotypist visiting many of the same locations where he had worked as a portrait painter and miniaturist. In 1851 he settled in Philadelphia, where he worked for the next nearly thirty years.

The photograph itself is wonderfully posed and taken from a close-in perspective, allowing the viewer to clearly see each man clearly. It is in remarkably good condition for its age, and has retained a wonderful tonal clarity.


[Antique Photography, Daguerreotype, Ambrotype, Albumen, carte-de-visite, CDV, Tintype] [Civil War, Union, Confederate]