Autographed CDV image of Civil War General Silas Casey (SOLD)

This is another great CDV being offered, it is an autographed image of Civil War General Silas Casey. It is very clear and about a two-thirds view. In period ink under his image is "Gen. Casey". On the back is the backmark “Published by E.&H.T. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York from Photographic Negative in Brady’s National Portrait Gallery”. I have included a few copies of autographs of General Casey for comparison (see pictures).

Silas Casey was born on July 12, 1807, in East Greenwich, Rhode Island and attended the US Military Academy at West Point. He served in the Seminole War, then fought under Gen. Winfield Scott in the Mexican War. In Mexico, he earned two brevets for gallantry, and was seriously wounded during the storming of Chapultepec. Casey served on the Pacific Coast for most of the ten years preceding the Civil War.

A member of an officer's board that revised the tactics manual, he later prepared the "System of Infantry Tactics," which the War Department officially adopted and published in 1862. Casey's manual was not very different from an 1855 manual, except in its expansion of company and battalion level tactics to fit the brigade and division formations which were used in the Civil War. The new manual was used by thousands of volunteer officers in the Union army, and even influenced Confederate tactics. Casey published a companion work, "Infantry Tactics for Colored Troops," in 1863.

During the Civil War, Casey served in the Peninsula Campaign. There, his division of the II Corps/Army of the Potomac was defeated by a Confederate attack at Seven Pines. Nevertheless, he was promoted to a Major General as of May 31, 1862. Casey spent the rest of the war as an administrator and commanded a provisional brigade in the defenses of Washington, D.C. for a period. In July of 1865, he was mustered out of the volunteer service and served as colonel of the 4th Infantry until he retired from the Regular Army in 1868. This is about as nice as an image of Casey as you will find and rare because he signed it.