Item No. 9165935

A CDV portrait of Joseph Payson Wright in the uniform of an assistant surgeon in the Union Army. There is no photographer’s imprint, but Wright signed on the reverse, “J. P. Wright Assist. Surg.” The image was part of a family album assembled by Bernard J. D. Irwin, the noted army surgeon, naturalist, and Medal of Honor recipient. The carte has been trimmed down to about 2 1/4” x 3 5/8”.

Wright was a Pennsylvania-born physician who graduated from Dickinson College in 1858 and received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College. He entered the army in May 1861 as an assistant surgeon and served with the 4th U.S. Artillery before becoming medical purveyor for the Department of the Ohio on the staffs of Generals George B. McClellan and William Rosecrans. In 1862 he joined General Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters with the Army of the Tennessee, later serving as officer in charge of the general hospital at Memphis (likely where he met Irwin) and as assistant medical director for the Army of the Cumberland. By the end of the war he had risen to acting lieutenant colonel, remaining in the regular army thereafter as a career medical officer.