The Quartermaster’s Mascot
Oil on Paper 8 x 10"
$200
Oil on Paper 8 x 10"
$200
Quartermaster Edward Marshall, 40th New York Infantry
Marshall, a thirty four year old jeweler and watchmaker from Massachusetts, enlisted in the 40th New York Infantry, also known as the “Mozart Regiment,” a reference to New York City’s Mozart Hall, a faction of the Democratic party machine. He rose to the rank of Quartermaster Sergeant by the Battle of Gettysburg, playing a key behind the lines role in keeping his regiment supplied with ammunition as it struggled in the Valley of Death on the afternoon of July 2nd. Promoted soon after to Lieutenant and Quartermaster, Marshall suffered debilitating burns to his hands and arms in December, 1863, when he tried to save “Government stores” from a blazing fire in his tent. After the inferno, Marshall could “neither feed nor dress” himself and was “perfectly helpless.” Discharged for disability in August, 1864, he returned to Massachusetts, and lived for 30 more years, dying in 1894, at age 66.Ironically, Marshall poses here with a Dalmatian, which by the Nineteenth Century was already known as a mascot for firemen and firehouses.
- J. Runckel Collection