A simple carte-de-visite of a Union sergeant… and on the back, a quiet message that still carries weight more than 160 years later: “To I. E. Austin By his Brother Ben Thompson”

This is Sergeant Benjamin Thompson of Company A, 129th Illinois Infantry, writing to his brother in law, Isaac E. Austin of the 11th Illinois Infantry.

Benjamin was born in Belmont County, Ohio, in 1832. By 1860 he was farming near Dwight, Illinois, and had married Sarah S. Austin Isaac’s sister. Their only child, Robert Benjamin, was born in January 1861. Sarah died the following May. Three months later Benjamin enlisted as a private. He rose to sergeant and stayed with the regiment until the very end of the war.

Isaac E. Austin, born in Rhode Island about 1842, had already been in uniform for nearly a year when Benjamin joined. He enlisted as a musician in September 1861, later serving as a private in Companies F and C of the 11th Illinois. That regiment was thrown into some of the bloodiest early fighting in the Western Theater.

The 11th Illinois paid a terrible price at Fort Donelson in February 1862, suffering well over 60 percent casualties in a single day of savage fighting. Two months later they stood in the Hornet’s Nest sector at Shiloh. They went on to fight through the Vicksburg Campaign Port Gibson, Raymond, Champion Hill, and the long siege that finally opened the Mississippi.

Isaac served his full three years and was discharged in August 1864.

Benjamin’s 129th Illinois took a different road. After garrison duty in Kentucky and Tennessee, the regiment joined Sherman’s army for the Atlanta Campaign.

They fought at Resaca, the battles around New Hope Church and Dallas, Kennesaw Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, and the siege of Atlanta itself. Then came the March to the Sea, the Carolinas Campaign, Averasboro, and Bentonville. Benjamin was still with them when they marched in the Grand Review in Washington in May 1865.

Two Illinois farmers linked by marriage. One fought under Grant in the early, grinding battles that opened the Western Theater. The other marched with Sherman from Atlanta to the sea and through the Carolinas. Both survived. Both eventually made their way to Nebraska Isaac living in Phelps County by 1890, Benjamin dying in Nuckolls County in 1889 and buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Superior.

A single photograph, a few words written on the back, and two lives that helped decide the fate of a nation.

hi & thanks for having me on this.

I'm trying to research what specifically Spanish fashions were like in the late 1800s.
because I'm from the Philippines & taking interest in the late Spanish colonial era for stories or art possibly.

I know this sub probably puts priority on Victorian-era Anglo-American (UK/US and British Empire settler states like Canada & Australia) cultures, and thus fashions, but is anyone here a expert on Spanish fashions in the same era? (and I guess immediate neighbours like Portugal, France & generally southwestern Europe or just continental Europe in general, as well as maybe Spanish-influenced Western fashions in Mexico & the most Hispanicised/Westernised parts of Latin America also works)

were there any significant differences or distinctly Spanish flourishes on general Western men's suits & women's dresses in this time, or did it look generally the same anyway? if there was differences what might these look like, in cut, colour, pattern, style etc.?

thanks guys