Portrait of Capt. Jesse Sharpe Barnes has been misidentified

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These portraits are now known to be Major Thomas Martin of the 13th North Carolina, Co. E, and are found in the Liljenquist Family Collection at the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs divisions has announced that their two ambrotypes of Wilson County native, Civil War soldier and namesake of a local SCV chapter, Captain Jesse Sharpe Barnes, was mislabeled and the portraits are actually of his cousin (or maybe his wife’s cousin), Major Thomas Alston Martin.

Read further: https://wilsoncountylocalhistorylibrary.wordpress.com/tag/major-thomas-a-martin/

The photo on the left was colorized by Zuzah, posted here previously. The two ambrotypes of what was originally thought to be Capt. Barnes have been posted all over the Internet. They are two of my favorites as well, so it's unfortunate to hear that this man has been misidentified all this time.
 
Thank you for posting this - I did the research and informed the LOC of the misidentification as well as the likely id for Major Martin. The Wilson blog got it slightly wrong there - Thomas Alston Martin was a first cousin of William Sharpe Barnes' wife Madeline Crenshaw Barnes. Jesse Barnes was never married.
 
Thank you for posting this - I did the research and informed the LOC of the misidentification as well as the likely id for Major Martin. The Wilson blog got it slightly wrong there - Thomas Alston Martin was a first cousin of William Sharpe Barnes' wife Madeline Crenshaw Barnes. Jesse Barnes was never married.
Thank you for doing the research and welcome to the forum! Even though the Internet is great for sharing information, things like this often get spread around with the wrong information. I'm glad this one has been corrected :smile:.
 
Well, given how many ladies fawned over Tom Martin when he was still identified as Jesse Barnes, his image will continue to be out there a lot under the wrong name I'm afraid. But it was good to kind of give these two men their names back. There should be an article on Jesse Barnes in the fall issue of Military Images with a lot more information than I could give in the Find a Grave bio, in case you're interested. I'm currently working on unearthing more on Major Martin - luckily there are several letters by and to him left in an archive in Virginia.
 
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