Sixth plate ambrotype portrait of John M. Safrit. Full leatherette case. Period partial illustrated Confederate cover inserted behind image with postal stamp, a penciled address, and the ink note "Not Paid for." Pencil inscription behind cover reads: "Safrit / 869"

Portrait of seated, young Confederate soldier.

The case reveals the identity of the young soldier as John M. Safrit, a 26 year old farmer who enlisted on 7 July 1862 as a private in Company F of the 57th North Carolina Infantry. A pencil inscription behind the plate reads "Safrit" and is accompanied by a partial Confederate cover addressed: "Miss Mary Sa[frit] / Mt. Ple[asant] / Cabar[rus Co.] / N. [C.]" and "M. Safrit N.C.T. written in the lower corner." John and Mary wed in the midst of the war on 10 January 1862 before his enlistment.

Safrit and the regiment left for Virginia where heavy fighting awaited them in the late autumn of 1862, engaging at the Battle of Fredericksburg. They fought at Chancellorsville, Second Winchester, and were bloodied at Gettysburg, where Safrit was captured after the fighting. He was taken as a POW and transported and confined at Fort Delaware, where he died from chronic diarrhea just a few months later.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Historic Photography, Early Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Ephemera, Postal History, Covers, Illustrated Covers]