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Private John Goosberry

Private John Goosberry Tintype
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[ This description is from the project: Witness to America's Past ]

One of the twenty-one Black recruits from Canada, twenty-five-pear-old Goosberry, a sailor of St. Catharines, Ontario, was mustered into Company E on July 16, 1863, just two days before the fateful assault on Fort Wagner. (Footnote 1) He was mustered out of service on August 20, 1865, at the disbanding of the regiment.


Goosberry appears in this full-length photograph wearing his uniform as a company musician, holding a fife and standing before a plain backdrop. The buttons and buckle of the uniform have been hand colored, and there is an impression remaining on the tintype from an earlier oval frame.

Footnotes

1. Kaplan, Sindey. "The Sculptural World of Augustus Saint-Gaudens." Massachusetts Review 30 (1989), p. 30; Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War. 8 vols. Norwood, Mass.: Printed at the Norwood Press, 1931-1934. 4:682.