Item No. 9432618

This signed CDV featuring Lieutenant Thomas W. Lord was likely made in 1866 or 1867 as his postwar service in the regular army was commencing. It is signed on the reverse, “Sincerely yours / Tho. Wm. Lord.” During the Civil War, Lord enlisted in the 17th Maine as a sergeant and was severely wounded in 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville. His left leg was amputated and he was discharged in September. That December, however, after a second amputation on the same leg, Lord enlisted in the Veteran Reserve Corps, where he advanced to the rank of captain. He stayed in the Army after the war, serving until 1902. The photograph was part of a family album assembled by Bernard John Dowling Irwin, the noted army surgeon, naturalist, and Medal of Honor recipient. Lord and Irwin served together at Fort Wayne in Detroit in 1867, which is when the image likely dates to. The carte measures about 2 3/8” x 4”.

Lord is the older brother ofGeorge Edwin Lord, who was killed in 1876 at the Battle of the Little Big Horn while serving as assistant surgeon of George Armstrong Custer’s 7th U.S. Cavalry.