Sixth plate ambrotype three-quarter length studio portrait. [Charlestown, Virginia]: [Lewis Graham Dinkle?], [2 December 1859]. Full leatherette case.

Important photograph from a known series of portraits that feature the Virginia militia members who were stationed in Charlestown, Virginia for the hanging of John Brown and his conspirators. The officer on the viewer's right in this likeness is identified as Col. David Addison Weisiger of Petersburg, Colonel of the 39th Virginia Militia. Weisiger commanded the men who guarded Brown on the day he met the gallows, and as "officer of the day," presided over the day's events.

Research strongly suggests the photographer was Lewis Graham Dinkle, a Pennsylvania native who decamped to Virginia to work on his parents’ farm. By the end of the 1850s he transitioned from farm laborer to itinerant photographer, operating from a horse-drawn “ambrotype wagon” in the Charlestown area. Dinkle came to that city in the aftermath of Brown’s imprisonment. He made several images of the famous Richmond Grays posing in front of the jailhouse in late November. On 2 December 1859, the same day as Brown’s execution, he took a series of ambrotype photos of Virginia militiamen who had dressed for the occasion — including this one.

Much like the other images in this series, Weisiger and his companion wear pre-War Virginia regulation uniforms complete with epaulettes and a dress hat. Weisiger’s headgear includes a wreathed “VA” hat insignia, while the chapeau of the officer on the left features an infantry hunting horn. Both men carry eagle pommel officers’ swords, which were popular at the time; Weisiger’s companion is also armed with a revolver. Weisiger's identification is based on several other published images, including a companion ambrotype of Weisiger with this same unidentified officer and Maj. Gen. William Taliaferro, who was in charge of all troops in Charlestown. One image in the series of portraits is held by the American Civil War Museum (Catalog Number: 0985.13.02042).

A Chesterfield County resident, Weisiger would be wounded twice in service while holding positions of increasing command. He managed to survive the War despite his eventful service and returned to a quiet civilian life in Petersburg.

As for the artist, Dinkle eventually put down roots in Charlestown. He married a local woman and settled in a modest home there. After a stint as a horse solder with the 7th Virginia Cavalry during the War he returned to farming. He never again worked as a photographer. The series of photographs he struck during John Brown's imprisonment and execution is his legacy, and an impressive one: his humble ambrotype wagon helped document one of the immediate causes of the American Civil War.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Union Cases]