This grouping includes:

1. Three-quarter length seated albumen CDV portrait of General Alexander von Schrader. Cincinnati, Ohio: Hoag & Quicks, n.d. Photographer's imprint to verso with green 3-cent revenue stamp. SIGNED BY GENERAL VON SCHRADER to verso: "A. Von Schrader Asst. Insp. Gen. Dist. Div. Tenn."

2. POW'S autograph book page signed by von Schrader, Captain Edmund O'Brien (Co. G, 29th Missouri Infantry), and Lt. Col. Robert S. Northcott (12th West Virginia Infantry). [Camp Oglethorpe, Macon, Georgia], [1864]. Inscriptions read: "Alex. von Schrader Lieut. Col. Ast. Insp. Gen. 14 Army Corps." / "Edmund O'Brien, Capt. Co. G. 29th Mo Vol. Inft. Cape Girardeau, Mo." / "Robt. S. Northcott. Lt. Col. 12th W. Va Vols. Clarksburg, West Virginia."

A native of Germany, Von Schrader graduated from a military academy in Berlin and served as an officer in the Duke of Brunswick's Army. He eventually emigrated to the United States, settling in Cincinnati as a streetcar operator before the Civil War. He was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the 74th Ohio Infantry in December 1861, and would later take on the position of assistant inspector general in the XIV (14th) Army Corp - the rank he notes in both inscriptions offered here. Von Schrader was brevetted brigadier general on 13 March 1864 for his "gallant and meritorious conduct at the battles of Stones River, Tennessee, and Chickamauga, Georgia, during the Atlanta Campaign and particularly for the Battle of Jonesboro, Georgia."

Von Schrader was taken as a prisoner of war at Cassville, Georgia on 7 November 1864 (several months after the battle during the Atlanta Campaign), and was confined at Macon, Georgia. It is almost certainly there where the included signature was recorded in a fellow POW's autograph book alongside the signatures of Captain Edward O'Brien of the 29th Missouri Infantry and Lieut. Colonel Robert Sanders Northcott of the 12th West Virginia Infantry.

After the Confederate surrender, Von Schrader continued in the regular army at the rank of Major in the 23rd Infantry, acting as assistant inspector-general for the District of Louisiana, where he died on 6 August 1867 of meningitis.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, POW, Prisoner of War, Macon, Libby Prison, Andersonville, Early Photography, Historic Photograph, CDV, Carte de Visite, Carte-de-Visite, CDVs, Signatures, Generals, Ephemera, Letters, Manuscripts, Documents]