Photograph courtesy of Morphy Auctions (morphyauctions.com).

Wartime photo of General George Custer

A Rare Photo of the Boy General Earns Big

The Artifact

A wartime photograph of Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer

Condition

The image—a half-plate ambrotype measuring 5 ½ inches by 4 ¼ inches—is in very fine overall condition. It is housed in its original veneered case with gold trim. The hinge is broken but can easily be repaired.

Details

Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, William F. Browne, a native of Northfield, Vermont, enlisted as a private in the 15th Vermont Infantry. Soon after mustering out of the army in August 1863, Browne found work as the camp photographer of the 5th Michigan Cavalry, part of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade commanded by 23-year-old Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer. Browne would take some of the earliest photos of the newly minted general, including the one shown here, taken about two months after the Battle of Gettysburg, where the reckless bravery for which he would become famous—and that would be responsible for his demise at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876—had been on full display.

The following year, Browne would be employed by famed photographer Alexander Gardner to take photos of the fighting around Petersburg, Virginia, over 100 of which Gardner would later publish under the title View of Confederate Water Batteries on the James River. After the war, Browne returned to his native Vermont, where he died in 1867 of tuberculosis.

Quotable

In a letter he wrote from the camp of the Army of the Potomac on September 17, 1863—around the time Browne is thought to have taken this image of Custer—Colonel Theodore Lyman, an aide to Major General George G. Meade, described the famous young cavalryman to his wife: “This officer is one of the funniest-looking beings you ever saw, and looks like a circus rider gone mad! He wears a huzzar jacket and tight trousers, of faded black velvet trimmed with tarnished gold lace. His head is decked with a little, gray felt hat; high boots and gild spurs complete the costume, which is enhanced by the General’s coiffure, consisting in short, dry, flaxen ringlets! His aspect, though highly amusing, is also pleasing, as he has a very merry blue eye, and a devil-may-care style.”

Value

$40,250 (price realized at Morphy Auctions in Denver, Pennsylvania, in March 2018). “This is without a doubt the finest known hard image of Custer and has no peers,” noted a representative of Morphy Auctions at the time of the purchase.

Related topics: George Custer