1st TN or 57th GA?

Before I go into photos of 1st Tn. soldiers, I'd just like to share this image. Not 1st TN but I think its content covers a good deal of what we're trying to do. Matter of fact, I will go ahead and say that this image sets the tone for this event. Physical impressions, mindset, attitude, interpretive goals, it covers all the bases. Due to the war's circumstance, all of our 1st TN images will be 1862 and earlier. But this one shows us a field look of some soldiers similar to those found in Co. Aytch.

(Click to enlarge)

L to R Lt. Archibald McKinkley, Capt. John Bonner, Scott (behind), and Sgt. William Stetson.

Two officers, a Sergeant, and their mess' body servant from the Co. H, 57th GA. Don't know which book this came out of, but a copy of it was in the park's files. This is too good not to look at citation or no. By way of background, the 57th had little in common with the 1st TN, the 57th being older, more salt-of-the-earth types. But these fellows here were rather exceptional. They joined up early and then transferred out of their first unit when the 57th was being formed. I think they bumped up from low noncoms to company office.

Anyhow, these fellows are out in Vicksburg which puts this shot sometime during '63. How rare to actually get to see what these guys looked like in the field. I doubt the details changed much from that army to the AoT. Personally, I am going to base my impression on McKinley over on the left. The attitude, the hat off at an angle, the simple and serviceable field uniform, carrying some (not all) of his kit with that rolled gum blanket. You can see that Capt. Bonner has on a necktie under his coat, which is presumably privately purchased commutation style. Even as officers, they've abandoned the gilded kepi in favor of the practical slouch, though they've dandied it up by shaping it and setting it off to the side.

But, of course, the most obvious and striking feature of this image is Scott. We all are very aware that body servants followed Confederate units, and sometimes in large numbers. The problem is often simply finding documentation for such. But these boys have gone one step further by including him in their photo. Unsurprisingly, we can see little of Scott. He remains in the background -- as his masters would have both expected and demanded. He is there only to serve, not even acknowledged by Stetson whose eyes remain on the camera. Of course, Scott himself doesn't look at the camera. In an era of decidedly non-candid photography, what does it say about these men that while trying to set up a "candid" scene they -- consciously or not -- reinforced the lessons of the Southern social and racial hierarchy?

Are these men 1st TN? No. But were there no caption to this photograph could I believe they were? Without question.

I have a more detailed (read bigger) version of the photo. Email me to get it.