Item No. 2109830

A CDV portrait of Brevet Brigadier General Isaac Van Duzen Reeve, the 1835 West Point graduate who was lieutenant colonel of the 8th U.S. Infantry in Texas in 1861, before he was captured by Confederates when General David E. Twiggs surrendered his entire command of U.S. regulars to the rebels. On the reverse of the carte is the imprint of photographer J. H. Fitzgibbon of St. Louis, Missouri. The CDV was removed from the album of Bernard J. D. Irwin, the noted army surgeon, naturalist, and Medal of Honor recipient. The connection between Reeve and Irwin is likely explained through their shared service in New Mexico in 1861, where Irwin was serving as a medical officer. Measures about 2 3/8” x 4”.

Reeve is unidentified on the image, but is an unmistakable match to the photograph of shown in his HDS database record as well as in Hunt’s and Brown’s Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue (p. 501).

Reeve graduated from West Point in 1835 and served in the 2nd Artillery, seeing action in the Florida War and the Mexican War. During the Civil War he was lieutenant colonel of the 8th U.S. Infantry and commanded a column of troops in Texas in 1861, where he was captured by Confederate forces after General Twiggs’s treachery. He later served on recruiting duty, commanding the draft rendezvous at Pittsburgh, and remained in service through the war, receiving the brevet of brigadier general in 1865 for faithful and meritorious service. He retired from the Army in 1871 and died in 1890 in New York.