Beschreibung:

Lot consisting of three different views of career soldier Charles Wesley Keyes with a Gettysburg BBG and a POW. A wartime view of Chas W. Keyes/1st Lieut.-Co E/32nd Me Vet Vols. wearing a shield pin is by J.S. Hendee, Augusta, with blue-green two-cent revenue stamp. An immediate post-war view by Brady depicts Keyes as 2nd Lieut., 44th US Infantry, ca 1866, while the third view probably dates to 1870 and is signed by Keyes with the brevet rank of Captain. Charles W. Keyes (1831-1906) first enlisted as Sergeant, 28th Maine and later acted as Hospital Steward in the 2nd Maine Cavalry according to records. He next was commissioned 1st Lieut., Co. E, 32nd Maine 4/64; severely WIA Spotsylvania 5/12/64 (left leg amputated); discharged for wounds 9/27/64. The resolute soldier re-enlisted as 2nd Lieut., Maine Coast Guard and lost his left eye in an accident; m/o 7/65. The ever indomitable Keyes then accepted a commission in the Regular Army as 2nd Lieut., 44th Infantry, 7/66. On March 2, 1867 he was brevetted twice for his Civil War service, 1st Lieut. “for gallant and meritorious service in action at Ft. Butler, La.” and Captain “for gallant and meritorious service in the battle of Spotsylvania.” Captain Keyes was unassigned 5/69; retired for disability with substantive rank of 1st Lieut. 12/31/70. A wartime vignette of John Marshall Brown (1838-1907) shown as Lieut. Colonel, 32nd Maine by B.F. Smith, Portland. The back bears a flowing ink salutation in Brown’s hand that reads, In Memory of pleasant/days in the sunny South/Your old friend/Jack Brown/Lieut. Col. 32nd Me. Vols. Brown enlisted as Adjutant, 20th Maine 9/62; discharged for promotion in US Vol. Adjutant General Department 6/63; commissioned Captain & AAG 6/23/63; served as acting ADC to General Ayres and Captain, AAG to General Ames; resigned 5/10/64; commissioned Lieut. Colonel, 32nd Maine 5/5/64; WIA Petersburg 6/1964; resigned 9/12/64. Brown was then brevetted twice on 3/13/65, to Colonel “for distinguished gallantry at the Battle of Gettysburg,” and BBG “for gallant and meritorious service during the war.” H.R. Sargent is ink signed on verso beneath A.M. McKenney, Portland imprint. Herbert Sargent had previous service in the 1st and 10th Maine Infantry having been commissioned Captain 1/63. He joined Co. C, 32nd Maine as Captain 3/64; POW Petersburg 7/30/64, confined at Macon & Columbia, exchanged; transferred to 31st Maine upon consolidation 12/64; m/o 7/15/65. 31st & 32nd Maine Infantries The 31st Maine was organized at Augusta and mustered in April 18, 1864. The regiment immediately proceeded to the front where it was assigned to the 9th Corps for Grant’s pending Overland Campaign. Within a few weeks, the 31st was heavily engaged in the burning Wilderness, suffering 18 killed and wounded in its baptism of fire. Not two months in service, the regiment was commended by General Griffin in Brigade Orders dated June 3, “for gallantry at the furious engagement at Bethesda Church,” where, wrote Griffin, the “31st Me. has made for itself a most brilliant record, and won for itself imperishable renown.” Throughout the hot summer of 1864—from Spotsylvania to the killing grounds before Petersburg— the 31st Maine and its sister formations engaged in a never-ending series of deliberate clashes, always pressing the enemy and moving forward in Grant’s carefully choreographed scheme of attrition designed to bleed the Army of Northern Virginia. By the time of the fearsome Mine Explosion at Petersburg on July 30—where the 31st was the first to enter the enemy’s works—the regiment had sustained 228 killed, wounded, and missing. The casualty count tempered somewhat by fall as the men entered the trenches. However, another 22 joined the casualty rolls after a brisk fight at Poplar Springs Church on September 30th before campaigning finally abated for the season. On April 2, 1865, the regiment cracked the Petersburg defenses as Richmond burned, losing 33 killed and wounded in a single day