Description

This pair of sixth plate tintypes is most likely a soldier and his wife.  Painted on the soldier’s hat are the letters JCR and the number 34.  It has been suggested to me by well-regarded collectors that this soldier may be a member of Piatt’s Zouaves, the 34th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The regiment organized at Camp Lucas, in Clermont County, Ohio, and mustered into service on September 2, 1861, at Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, Ohio. The organization’s members adopted the nickname “Piatt Zouaves” after the 34th’s first colonel, Abraham S. Piatt.  The regiment saw its first service in Western Virginia and took part in the various operations in the Kanawha Valley up to 1864. In that summer it joined Hunter in the raid up the Shenandoah Valley and was with Crook’s command at the battle of Winchester, and later at Winchester with Sheridan.  Those escaping the affair at Beverly, where the Regiment doing post duty was captured in January 1865, were consolidated with the 36th Ohio Infantry.  The soldier tintype displays cracks in the lacquer on the image, but it is stable and not flaking.  The soldier is posed in the classic seated view with arm resting on a table.  The wife is posed in the same manner.   The images are housed together in a nice condition thermoplastic case.