The Ones They Left Behind CAUTION Very Sad

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While doing some research I came across some photos in the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs in the LOC. I came across the first photo which is what drew me in. It was a photo of a little boy with a tintype of his soldier Dad on top of a Bible. It was the look in the boys eyes that got me. I scrolled on and came across several others one with a name. Who where they I ask myself so I put it aside for later. Then the last one put a lump in my throat as it was of a deceased little girl. It got me to thinking why would they take such a photo, could it be this baby was born and died while her Dad was off at war and it was a way for them to be able to show him his little girl?
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Wife of James Shields in mourning dress with photo of her husband on a mourning broach. His daughter is wearing a grey kepi. Who was he and what was his story.

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Holding a tintype of her Confederate husband.
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This one really got to me. The caption said deceased child.
deceseaded baby.jpg

 
Very sad. Deerfield, Mass. has a very active historical society and a wonderful preserved main street, btw. They have a whole collection of these photos with deceased children in that area. Often it was the only photo the parents had a of a child. My father remembered one of his sisters being very ill (and she died from the scarlet fever) and his parents having a photographer coming in to take a picture of her propped against the pillows just before she died. It was all they had. This would have been around 1918 in NH. Scarlett Fever used to rage around here and take children all the time. The parents just wanted something for their own restoration and healing if for nothing else.
 
These are very touching and I had not seen photos like this. We sometimes forget in our fascination with this war that the sentiments in those photos was multipled nearly 3/4 of a million times (if not more) for each man who was killed. Not to mention the thousands of non combatants who died as well.

The last one of the child was very upsetting to say the least.
 
They did all the time back then. They were used to all that death because life expectancy was much shorter and the infant mortality rate was much higher. Photography was new and they took advantage of it as well as locks of their hair as was a way for them to remember them as well as outlaws etc. These videos explain it:
 
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While doing some research I came across some photos in the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs in the LOC. I came across the first photo which is what drew me in. It was a photo of a little boy with a tintype of his soldier Dad on top of a Bible. It was the look in the boys eyes that got me. I scrolled on and came across several others one with a name. Who where they I ask myself so I put it aside for later. Then the last one put a lump in my throat as it was of a deceased little girl. It got me to thinking why would they take such a photo, could it be this baby was born and died while her Dad was off at war and it was a way for them to be able to show him his little girl?
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Wife of James Shields in mourning dress with photo of her husband on a mourning broach. His daughter is wearing a grey kepi. Who was he and what was his story.

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Holding a tintype of her Confederate husband.
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This one really got to me. The caption said deceased child.
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I found one other James Shields from Virginia that died in October, 1861. There was no mention of him dying in battle. The photo seems to be mid-war.

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I found one other James Shields from Virginia that died in October, 1861. There was no mention of him dying in battle. The photo seems to be mid-war.
I saw that also in his Fold3 records which were slim. The question is if they were from NC and the photographer was in Richmond well whats the story.
 
Makes you really appreciate how lucky we are now with modern medicine and to realize that this was a common part of life for people raising children in those times
The look in that little boys face and the woman holding that tintype got me and to be honest I just had to scroll the the ones of the kids quick my daughter is 2 and 1/2 and since then I'm a even bigger softy when it comes to stuff like that but thanks for sharing that's an important part of life in our history
 
I'm not sure that they were used to the death of their children. Maybe it was not unexpected but I'm sure they suffered as much as we would.

I agree - I think they may have expected death more than we do but they didn't get used to it. My great-aunt, who had 17 living children, when I knew her, still cried for a baby she lost around 1900.
 
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