Is this CSA General John Hunt Morgan

Sea Scallop

Private
Joined
Sep 8, 2019
query1.jpg
query2.jpg
 
Every time I'm tempted to say ' no ', I change my mind. Even his hairline recedes like you'd think by the time of the Civil War. I'm not very familiar with Morgan, just comparing other images it seems it could be him.
 
In the Tennessee Encyclopedia, this image in the post by Sea Scollop is identified as John Hunt Morgan. I would not set much store by that. This image has been repainted to an extensive degree. It is not an accurate depiction of a Confederate uniform. The more I looked, the less certain I became about any image purporting to be Morgan. The image below is the cleanest facial I found. The uniform, however, appears to have been painted over. If I were making a professional search, an original image in civilian clothes would be the object of my future searches.

 Carte de Visite J. H. Morgan.jpeg


This Carte de Visite appears to be the original from which the image in this thread was created.

Morgan card facing left.jpeg
.........
morgan facing right.jpeg
.......
Morgan head shot from left & right.jpeg
......

head shot isolation left & right.jpeg
........
morgan carte again.jpeg


All of these John Hunt Morgan carte de visits were generated from the same image. If you have the right ap, the images can be superimposed over one another. The easiest thing to do is line up the eyes & see what you have from there. There wasn't any kind of copyright protection during the Civil War. Even today, if the image is manipulated, there really isn't any kind of protection, either. The first image is the cleanest, so I would assume that it was the original from which the others descended. Another thing to look for is costume. In this case, the tie & the pocket hankie were carried into several images. I would not be surprised if the seated image has the head shot from the carte de visits grafted onto it. That would not be at all unusual.

Of course, we just have to assume this is John Hunt Morgan's image, originally. Even the only image that purports to be Morgan & his wife is an obvious montage. I would have to have an image that had not been redone to know for sure that any Morgan portrait is an accurate depiction. It turns out that actual photos of Morgan are extremely rare. However, as you can see, the few images that were floated of Morgan were fruitful & multiplied.

We have two albums of Civil War carte collected by my wife's family. They are in very elaborate albums. There is no way of knowing how many studios produced these precursors to baseball cards. It was a very popular hobby.
 
Last edited:
The OP photo and the clean shaven photo of John Hunt Morgan were on display at the Hunt-Morgan House in Lexington, Kentucky when I visited in 2014. I will send them this link to make a positive I.D. of the 2 photos.

Bill

20200216_103205.jpg
 
Finding an image of Morgan that hasn't been retouched is difficult. This is the best I could locate.

View attachment 347014

I'd wondered that, too, if it was one that had been touched up for reunions or something like that. There's a fairly common one of Forrest in his Confederate uniform well after the war - he never wore the uniform again but someone had replaced his suit with the uniform for publicity purposes. Grant has one with a long flowing beard he never grew.

By the way, I think John Hunt Morgan would win the contest for best looking guy on either side!
 
I'd wondered that, too, if it was one that had been touched up for reunions or something like that. There's a fairly common one of Forrest in his Confederate uniform well after the war - he never wore the uniform again but someone had replaced his suit with the uniform for publicity purposes. Grant has one with a long flowing beard he never grew.

By the way, I think John Hunt Morgan would win the contest for best looking guy on either side!
Is this the one of Grant you were referring to?
929px-U.S._Grant_and_staff.jpg
 
Back
Top