I discovered the Titanic-related significance of this 1862 Harpers Ferry photo ~8 years ago when doing research for The Center for Civil War Photography annual Image of War Seminar. The tall man below the Happy Family tent sign is 21 year-old George B. Goldschmidt of the 22nd New York State Militia. He was mustered out that September, just before Antietam. Returning to New York, he became a successful lawyer and made some money. Fifty years after this photo was taken, he found himself in France and purchased a ticket for a first-class cabin (#A-5) on a ship en route to New York. Unlike so many Civil War soldiers he breathed his last a half-century after the war, not on a battlefield, not in a hospital, not on a naval vessel, but on the worlds grandest ship--the Titanic. His body was either never recovered or was unidentified if it was. George B. Goldschmidt--one of the ~2.5 million soldiers to survive the Civil War.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 20:33:19 +0000
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