The Mysteries Behind Annie’s First Husband

Glenside Park, the resort, may have been created by two wealthy individuals—Warren Ackerman, the owner, and Ella King Adams, the woman with a vision of an Adirondack style resort where she could take her family and her friends. But the resort would never have been successful without the tireless efforts of its staff, particularly Annie and Thomas Molloy, and their daughter Anna. I have already written about the Irish immigration that the two elder Molloys were part of, along with Annie’s mother Mary Hoyne. It is by the merest of chances that they even got to the village—the Molloys were living with their infant daughter in Newark, New Jersey, and the Deserted Village of Feltville was a world away from their working-class world.

By fortune, we have Anna’s recollections of the serendipity which brought the Molloy family to work—and live—at the village:

At age eighty four and six months I look back with a great deal of pleasure on my young life spent at Glenside Park [Feltville/Deserted Village]—I was a delicate baby and my parents moved from Newark, N.J. where I was born on North Fifth Street—about four blocks from the Morris Canal which was used in those years to bring mostly coal from Penn—used mules to draw the canal boats. I developed malaria. Our doctor said if they wanted to raise me, they must take me out to the country. Father’s circumstance was modest—so that became the question—

Our doctor’s sister had been a friend of my grandmother’ (who had just died). Doctor took it up with Mrs. Halstead whose husband General Halstead had been in business with Mr. Ackerman during the Civil War—had a factory in Elizabeth and did government work. The title “General” was a complimentary one for his wonderful work in supplying the government with boots, blankets, saddles, etc—

The General contacted his former friend and secured a job for father.

As set out in my September 2024 post, “The General” referred to here, Nathaniel N. Halsted (or Halstead, both spellings seem to be used interchangeably) was Mary Hoyne’s employer for more than a decade. This was not the first time he helped the family, as will be seen below.

Anna’s recollections were part of the research files I have from my grandfather and his friend James Hawley concerning the village, so I have known of this connection for a long time. More recently, it was through separate oral history passed down from Anna to two of her granddaughters that I learned of some other possible connections which were critical in the history which led the Molloys to the village. A former employee of Union County, Linda Brazaitis, learned the following history from Anna’s granddaughters, Nancy and Judy Walsh. It was mostly told to me orally but I was copied on some emails.

From these family recollections, I learned for the first time that prior to her marriage to Thomas Molloy, Annie had been married to a Civil War veteran named John C. Steinbauer. According to the family account, John had been born in Germany, and come to America by way of Cuba. Arriving in New Jersey at some time previous to the Civil War, he had volunteered to serve at the very start of the war, reportedly in the Brigade led by Philip Kearny, a much esteemed general. Sometime during his service, the story continued, John had been badly wounded and had returned to New Jersey. By 1866, he was married to Annie, and they were reportedly living at Bellegrove, Kearny’s estate. The story indicates that they received the opportunity to be at Bellegrove because of John’s service with Kearny. Reportedly, Annie worked at the estate for a number of years, while also caring for her invalid husband, who ultimately died in 1873 as a consequence of his Civil War wounds.

Reportedly, sometime during her service, she met Thomas Molloy, who was hired on occasion to drive “Mrs. Kearny” and her lady friends into New York. Several years after John’s death, Annie and Thomas married, and eventually Anna was born.

As I researched this family oral history, I found that it offered both riches and challenges. I became obsessed with the mysteries the story presented, looking for confirmation of the various elements of the story. I present my findings here to you, with all their rabbit holes and wonderings.

JOHN C. STEINBAUER’S BIRTHPLACE

Where was John born? My research offered some conflicting information. The federal pension documents that John, and later his widow Annie, filed for an “invalid” pension (a pension based on disability) actually identify two different birthplaces. In John’s original filing for an “invalid” pension, before his marriage to Annie, the Certificate of Disability for Discharge lists his birthplace as Elk County, Pennsylvania. ¹

Nine years later, when his widow filed to have John’s “invalid” pension continued and paid to her, one of her application documents indicated that her dead husband had been born in Germany. His birthplace is again listed as Germany on the transcript of his death certificate, presumably also based on information from his widow.² It is abundantly clear that Annie believed John to have been born in Germany, and equally clear that this is what she would have told her daughter, who would have passed it on to succeeding generations.

JOHN AND HIS CIVIL WAR SERVICE–THE RESEARCH

Over the course of the Civil War, John C. Steinbauer enlisted as a volunteer for the Union Army in three different New Jersey companies. In compiling the history below, I was fortunate to have personal help from various historians and genealogists, chief among them Betty Magrino DeSapio, Nancy Dearing Rossbacher, Daniel Binder and individuals at the New Jersey State Archives.

Only 18 days after the Confederate Army had fired the first shots on the Union Army at Fort Sumter, on April 30, 1861, John joined the E Company of the First New Jersey Infantry Regiment. His service with this regiment ended on July 31, 1861. During John’s deployment, his regiment was mostly engaged in training exercises; John may have seen one battle, when most of the soldiers from the First New Jersey were sent to help stop the retreat from a battle at Centreville, which was the “first battle of any importance since the firing on Fort Sumter.”³

When his service with the First New Jersey Infantry Regiment was completed, John wasted no time before volunteering again, beginning service with the New Jersey Eighth Infantry in the A Company on August 22, 1861. Historian Daniel Binder, who has had nearly 100 articles published on Civil War history, indicates that this was a common practice for Civil War soldiers after mustering out of an initial 3- or 6-month unit. The succeeding three-year regiment service was meant to encompass the remainder of the war, unless the soldier was killed or discharged as an invalid (or if the war ended).⁴ According to a living history site maintained by the 8^th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, the unit left New Jersey with 38 officers and 851 non-commissioned officers and privates.⁵ The year 1861 seems to have been relatively quiet for the regiment, but in 1862, the regiment was involved in more than a dozen battles or campaigns, many following directly on each other. Their first major engagement in 1862 was at the Battle of Williamsburg, where they had two officers and 36 other soldiers killed, and 10 officers and 159 soldiers wounded, for a total of 196 killed or wounded of the original 889. Later that year, they fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and the Battle of Chantilly. They finished 1862 with the Battle of Fredericksburg.

For the next year, 1863, I have found one pay compensation listing from April 21, 1863, in which John C. Steinbauer is owed $50.00, which is to be paid to his mother, Barbara Steinbauer, living at 27 Essex Street, Newark, NJ.⁶

The pay record was less than a month before the regiment went into battle again at the devasting multi-day Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. The regiment entered the battle of Chancellorsville with only 242 men able to fight out of its original 889. The regiment sustained major losses, with 1 officer and 20 others killed, and 5 officers and 91 others wounded. Ten men were missing. On May 3, 1863, which was the worst day of the battle, John was struck by a “minie ball” through or just above his right knee, breaking one or more bones, and making it impossible to put any weight on that leg.

A note on what a “minie ball” was, and how it could cause so much damage. It is well explained in Russell F. Weigley’s A Great Civil War:

In 1850, however, the Army adopted the Minié bullet, named for Colonel Claude Étienne Minié of the French Army, the eventually famous “minnie ball” of the Civil War, whose diameter was small enough in proportion to the rifle’s bore that it could be loaded easily into a muzzleloading rifle, but whose hollow base was expanded by the explosion when the rifle was fired so that the missile then fitted tightly into the rifle’s grooves. In 1855 an improved model rifle was adopted, using the Minié bullet. The spin imparted to the rifle bullet by the grooves in the rifle’s bore greatly increased the bullet’s accuracy in flight. . . . Even though these weapons were single shot muzzle loaders, they greatly enhanced the lethality of the standard infantry weapon.⁷

After being wounded, John was transferred to the “114^th Co. 2^nd Batt. Vet. Res. Corps at Mt. Pleasant Hospital Washington, DC Dec. 10^th 1863”⁸ (another record cites the date of transfer to the Veteran Reserve Corps as February 15, 1864). This had previously been known as the “Invalid Corps” and was composed of soldiers whose wounds were not totally incapacitating. It is not clear how long John remained hospitalized after his wound, but he was discharged on account of his disability on May 7, 1864, as evidenced in his Certificate of Disability for Discharge,⁹ and he was headed home to Newark, NJ (“The Soldier desires to be addressed at Town Newark County Essex State New Jersey”). At the bottom of the Certificate of Disability is a statement by C. A McCall, Asst. Surgeon U.S.A. “In charge,” stating that

I CERTIFY, that I have carefully examined the said John C. Steinbauer of Captain ___________ Company, and find him incapable of performing the duties of a soldier because of G.S. [gunshot] wound right thigh slightly splintering femur near knee joint subject to attacks of acute rheumatism, arthritic dipesis [sic] in joint. Suspected wound said to have been received at battle of Chancellorsville, Va. May 3rd 1863. Says he received wound in side & left leg at battle of Bull Run Aig. 29^th 1862. Unfit for I.C. [Invalid Corps] Disability at present total. Elects discharge.

Note that this statement clearly says that John is unfit because of his wound even for service in the Invalid Corps/Veteran Reserve Corps. Note also that this certification suggests that this was not the first time John had been wounded, since he had clearly told the doctor that he was also wounded earlier at the (second) Battle of Bull Run.

John filed for an “invalid”—i.e. disability—pension on May 13, 1864, with proofs showing total disability, due to his femur being partially splintered above his knee, “partial ankylosis of the knee joint,” and an inability to put any weight on the leg. His disability—which at the time of filing is “total” –is described as being “for 2 years.”¹⁰ His pension was granted on February 7, 1865 at the rate of $8.00 per month, subject to a required semiannual examination.¹¹ Apparently John was required to demonstrate continued incapacitation in order to continue the pension; presumably these examinations would take place after the initial 2 year period.

Oddly, military records suggest John was not done with military service: on January 25, 1865—just before the pension was approved—he apparently mustered into his third New Jersey company, the Seventh Regiment, United States Veteran Volunteer Infantry, as a Sergeant and mustered out again on July 23, 1866. Did he find himself in some need of income, since he had not yet received his pension? His pension file from the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) includes a letter from a Louis Greiner, probably an attorney, dated January 4^th or 6^th 1865, with Greiner writing to the Honorable Joseph H. Barrett, Commissioner, asking for an early decision and the number of John’s application. Greiner indicates he is writing because John is “under the impression, that his application is delayed and that he cannot get a satisfactory information of said agency.”¹² How incapacitated was he at the time of this final enlistment?

ISSUES SURROUNDING THE KEARNY SERVICE CONNECTION

So, was any of John’s service under the command of the General Kearny identified as a connection in the family oral history? It is time to examine a bit of Kearny history and his timeline.

One-armed military phenomenon Philip Kearny eventually commanded the First New Jersey Brigade, of which John C. Steinbauer’s first service regiment was a part. That Brigade was indeed formed on the day that John C. Steinbauer mustered into it, but it appears that their terms of service did not overlap. Why Philip was not with the brigade on day one reflects the story of his amazing career and equally amazing scandal. Working out the timeline and details proved to be an absolutely irresistible rabbit hole.

In researching the Kearny connection, I had the estimable help of the preeminent expert on the life of Philip Kearny, William B. Styple (I think I now own all his books about Kearny). Unless otherwise noted, the following information comes from Styple’s 2022 book,General Philip Kearny: A Very God of War. I will use “Kearny” or “Philip” interchangeably here to denote General Kearny.

Kearny’s original family members in America were, like Mary Hoyne, and Annie and Thomas Molloy, Irish immigrants, but had arrived much earlier than the mid nineteenth century arrival of the Molloys. Philip’s ancestor Michael Kearny had emigrated to Philadelphia in 1704, but eventually settled in Perth Amboy, New Jersey; his three brothers followed him to America, and all became successful businessmen. Michael’s son Philip (named after one of Michael’s brothers) was a Loyalist during the Revolution, which was true, notes Styple, of most wealthy members of society at the time. The New Jersey property of that Philip was confiscated after the war, and he filed a claim with the British Loyalist Claim Commission. He resettled in Newark, on an estate of about 15 acres on the west bank of the Passaic River, and it was here, some years later, that his seventh child, the Philip Kearny of our story, grew up—except for summers usually spent in northern New York, at a mansion built on 10,000 acres in St. Lawrence county. At that summer retreat, Philip, the father, found himself able to leave his business worries behind. Also at that summer retreat, young Philip was surely able to pursue one of his great loves in life, horseback riding. By this time the family was both wealthy and well-respected.

The family bought a New York City home on the east side of Broadway across from Morris Street. Philip attended various private schools, and then Columbia College, where he was both a dedicated student, and also addicted to reading military history and commentary—and sleeping under an engraving of Napoleon Bonaparte. While in Europe on the “Grand Tour” gifted to him after graduation by his grandfather on his mother’s side, he saw, for the first time, examples of “grand military pageantry” which only strengthened a growing desire to become a soldier. Upon his return, he at first dutifully took up a clerkship in the office of a prominent New York lawyer to please his grandfather. When his grandfather died and left him a significant fortune, Philip left the law to finally realize his dream of being a soldier.

His family connections secured him a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the elite First United States Dragoons, stationed in the “American west,” and tasked with control of various Indian groups—both those originally in the area, and those being forcibly relocated from further east. Kearny, already seeking advancement, applied to study at the school of Cavalry Practice and Discipline at Saumur, France, at that time considered the finest military training institution in the world for mounted service. While abroad, Kearny managed to secure time in military engagements, in addition to completing the training. From then on, he continued to seek one military engagement after another, with pauses in between.

Philip married beautiful and well connected Diana Bullitt, whom he had met during his first commission with the United States Dragoons, and the home where they lived for some time in Washington, DC became, according to Styple, “the centerpiece of all societal gatherings in Washington; it was said that they entertained most every night.”¹³ The couple later moved to New York City.

Kearny’s devotion to military service continued, but his marriage lasted only eight years. Diana was pregnant with their fourth child when she left their New York City home to live in a rented house in Paducah, Kentucky.¹⁴

Divorce would have been too much scandal for either Diana or the well-connected Kearny family; separation was acceptable. After Diana left, Kearny left the family home as well, and did some military recruiting and advising, before arriving again in the West and fighting Indians—“savages”—in a number of places. Styple indicates that neither he nor Diana ever tried to make up, and indeed each took steps to “erase” the other from their existence. Diana literally had Philip removed from a family photo. Philip became, for some years, a wanderer of the world, and managed to arrive in Paris just as then President of France, Louis Napoleon, nephew of the original Napoleon, declared himself “Prince-President” Napoleon III, refusing to leave office as constitutionally mandated. Kearny secured a position assisting in Napoleon III’s Imperial Guard.

On one of his visits to Paris, he met a nineteen-year-old young woman, Agnes Maxwell, who was on a trip her father had promised her as a reward for having Agnes having learned enough Greek and Latin to appreciate the father’s library, which included hundreds of Latin and Greek books. I have to skip all the juicy details contained in Styple’s book, A Very God of War, but suffice it to say that Agnes and the nearly 20-year-older Philip began to fall in love. When Agnes and her father left Paris for Italy, Philip arranged to accompany them. Philip commissioned a bust of Agnes in Italy.

Over the next few years, the relationship continued, with some hiccups. Philip’s repeated requests to Diana for a divorce continued to be opposed both by Diana and the Kearny family. When the intimacy between Agnes and Philip resulted in a pregnancy which was about to become obvious, the two staged an escape to Europe, hoping to keep it secret. The resulting “elopement” became the fodder of major newspapers in America and was considered a major scandal. The word “elopement” does not have today’s hasty-marriage-linked significance. The couple were not yet able to actually marry, as Philip was still married to Diana.

Diana finally agreed to a divorce only after Philip threatened legal action to take custody of his oldest son away from her. Philip wanted to protect Agnes from the circus of the divorce proceedings, so Philip and Agnes did not come to New York for the proceedings. Since testimony of extramarital sex was necessary to secure the divorce, rather than have Agnes testify, Philip recruited a “well-known lady of pleasure,” Jane Winslow, to testify that she had had sex with him. Winslow had provided similar testimony in other divorce proceedings.

Somehow, the details of the divorce proceedings, unlike those of the earlier “elopement” were kept out of the paper. Diana secured the inclusion of a clause in the divorce decree that disallowed Philip to remarry. Consequently, Philip and Agnes were married in New Jersey where the New York law under which the divorce decree had been issued did not apply. They settled into a mansion and estate called Bellegrove overlooking the Passaic River—across from the site of the estate where Philip had grown up with his family on the west bank of the river.¹⁵ When a railroad was built across one of the borders of the estate, the couple decamped again to Paris for some time, during which time their second child arrived and Philip fought in European conflicts. Philip, whom Styple indicates loved fancy carriages, bought one or more while in Paris, which Philip eventually had shipped over to Bellegrove.

Philip and Agnes were still in Europe when Philip became incensed over the news of the secession of the Southern States. But it was not until the news of the first shots at Fort Sumter that he took action, coming to New York and tendering his services to the Governor of that state, for military service on behalf of the Union.

Philip was simply ignored, the scandal of his “elopement” and second marriage the apparent cause. Philip spent months trying to serve New York regiments in the war; Styple indicates the state’s brigades were actually desperately in need of good command like that Philip could have offered, but his requests continued to be rebuffed. It was a New Jersey friend, Courtlandt Parker, who, knowing that the New Jersey Brigade, just being formed, needed the leadership of someone like Philip, began to seek a commission for Philip with that state’s brigade. It took many months, and the direct intervention of President Abraham Lincoln, but Kearny was finally given a command.

Within hours after receiving his commission, Philip set off by train on July 27, 1861, to Washington. After making preparations for a training location and delivering a series of preparatory orders, Kearny himself arrived to meet his troops in person for the first time, on the “brutally hot” day of August 7, 1861. Corporal Charles F. Hopkins of Company 1, 1^st New Jersey Regiment described Philip as wearing a “seersucker coat, bareheaded, only his pants were of his uniform, hence to the uninitiated looked the civilian more than an officer of rank.”¹⁶ Most of the men Philip was there to lead, in spite of having been ordered to march in soldierly fashion, broke ranks next to a peach orchard (with green, unripe fruit) and basically destroyed the trees and became an “unruly mob,” in their quest to get the fruit. Philip exploded. The Sergeant of one company asked “who the hell he throught he was” and called him a slang word for a Secessionist. Philip promptly informed the Sergeant both of his identity and that he would have the sergeant shot if he did not return to ranks. Apparently Philip’s colorful language was what convinced many of the true identity of Philip, suggesting that a salty reputation had preceded him.

John C. Steinbauer’s deployment had ended just days prior to Philip’s arrival.

MARRYING ANNIE AND PURSUING THEIR LIFE TOGETHER

On July 16, 1866, just days before his last Civil War military service ended, John was married by “Rev. Father Dalton” to Annie Hoyne, in Newark, New Jersey. John was 24, and Annie, 20. John’s occupation is listed as “Hatter.” There is no place on the form to note any occupation of the woman.¹⁷

How disabled was John at the time of the marriage? Had John’s “invalid” pension payments continued during his final service? Were John and Annie living at Bellegrove?

On January 10, 1873, at age 30 years 9 months, John died in Newark of consumption, with his residence at the time of death listed as 276 Orange Street, Newark, NJ. He was buried in the Cemetery of Holy Sepulchre. John’s widow, Annie filed for the continuation of his “invalid” pension after his death, the payment then being $8.00 per month. The pension application includes a sworn statement by a doctor dated February 28, 1873, that John’s death from consumption was directly related to his service during the Civil War:

To whom it may concern:

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This will cerfify that John Steinbauer died on the 10^th day of January 1873 of Consumption. It is my decided opinion that the disease, of which he died, was hastened, if not caused, by exposure whilst a soldier in the army.

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Respectfullly,

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Arthur M??, M.D.¹⁸

On Annie’s pension application, the standard language declaring that the soldier died in the service of the United States is changed with a hand written note that the soldier had died after leaving the service. The standard application form also required Annie to declare that she had remained a widow since her soldier husband died, and “that she has not in any manner been engaged in, or aided or abetted, the rebellion in the united States.”¹⁹ Annie had to hire an attorney to “present and prosecute this claim.”²⁰ Another form she filed indicates that the $8.00 per month pension had been paid until January 10, 1873, which is the day John died. She was simply seeking to continue to receive the monthly payments for the “invalid pensioner.”²¹

Annie identifies her Post Office address as Newark Post Office Care of N.N. Halsted. Nathaniel N. Halsted was also one of the witnesses to Annie’s statement.²² Neither John’s stated address for the time of death nor Annie’s (if her address is presumed to be that of the Halsted family) was the address of Bellegrove. But Annie did not list the address at which John had apparently died as hers. Does Annie’s use of Halstead’s address reflect her being in transition from one place to another?

PHILIP’S DEATH AND THE IMPACTS ON BELLEGROVE

Philip and his friends had gone to great lengths to get him a Union Army command. Once Philip arrived to take command of the First New Jersey Brigade and its regiments, the soldiers soon found themselves appreciating the level of discipline they learned under his command. Philip also improved day to day conditions for his soldiers, including rations.²³

By 1862, Philip’s New Jersey brigades were a well-trained bunch, and Philip was unanimously adored by his soldiers and throughout the Union army, the personal scandal left behind, at least in the military arena. Then, on September 1, 1862, shortly after the disastrous Second Battle of Bull Run, Phillip was killed trying to escape from a group of Confederates seeking to capture him. There are many accounts of his death, and many Confederate soldiers later took credit. Agnes had to write to Robert E. Lee for the return of his effects—upon his death, Confederate soldiers had taken his sword, his horse and saddlery, and all other possessions, leaving him only his uniform.²⁴

Agnes was, of course, devastated by his death. According to Styple, for “a few years,” she lived on and off at Bellegrove; “occasionally, she lived with her mother in New York.”²⁵ Thus, at the time Annie married John in 1866, and the time when the two of them are supposed to have taken up residence at Bellegrove, it is unclear who, if anyone, was living there. Styple cites newspaper advertisements from the 1860s saying the estate was available for lease, so that anyone might have been living there at that time. Agnes remarried in 1868, to widowed Admiral John E. Upshur, so would not have returned to Bellegrove after that. Even before her remarriage, Agnes only had the right to occupy the mansion, not its ownership, which went to Philip’s first son from his first marriage. That son, John Watts Kearny, moved into Bellegrove in 1886. But one might expect there to be a continuing small set of staff at Bellegrove for when Agnes returned, and even through to when John Watts Kearny took over.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE KEARNY CONNECTION

I was unable to confirm either that John C. Steinbauer served under Philip Kearny, or that, on the basis of that connection, John and Annie were given a place at Bellegrove during the long period of John’s being an invalid and ultimately dying. But the story was passed down with so many details that would have been hard to make up out of thin air to simply be discounted.

I believe that the supposed connections were related somehow to Nathaniel N. Halsted. The latter was a close friend and neighbor to Philip and Agnes Kearny. He pursued a campaign to have a portion of the existing town of Harrison, New Jersey separated off and renamed for his friend, Philip.²⁶ As detailed in a previous post, Annie’s mother, Mary Hoyne, had worked for Halsted for over a decade, and was working for him at the time Annie married John. Perhaps somewhere in here is the “Kearny” connection. And perhaps Halsted’s wife was one of the women driven by Thomas Molloy in his reported sometime service to “Mrs. Kearny.” I know I will keep looking for more evidence.

THE PHENOMENON OF THE CARTE DE VISITE

One further item remains—although not one of the mysteries surrounding John C. Steinbauer and his wife Annie—but fascinating, nonetheless. At the onset of his service with the 8^th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, Steinbauer sat for a portrait—the “social media” equivalent of the time, a carte de visite.

Photo by John Wallen Holyland From the collection of the Library of Congress

Verso Photo by John Wallen Holyland From the collection of the Library of Congress

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The Times of London made the following droll observations about Civil War soldiers and their rush to procure portraits:

America swarms with the members of the mighty tribe of cameristas, and the civil war has developed their business in the same way that it has given an impetus to the manufacturers of metallic air-tight coffins and embalmers of the dead. The young Volunteer rushes off at once to the studio when he puts on his uniform, and the soldier of a year’s campaign sends home his likeness that the absent ones may see what changes have been produced in him by war’s alarms. In every glade and by the roadsides of the camp may be seen all kinds of covered carts and portable sheds for the worker in metal acid and sun-ray—Washington has burst out into signboards of ambrotypists and collodionists, and the “professors” of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia send their representatives to pick up whatever is left, and to follow the camps as well as they can.²⁷

By the time of the Civil War, photography had only existed for about two decades. Photo portraits quickly became a prized item in homes, but the earliest forms of portraits, many printed on silver-plated copper sheets or on glass sheets, did not allow for more than one copy and were somewhat pricey. A man named André-Adolphe-Eugène Disderi, born in Paris, the son of an Italian clothier, who had come to France for better business opportunities, borrowed funds for a large studio in Paris and looked for ways to make portraiture available to a broader market. As he sought to make portraits cheaper and more replicable, he invented the carte de visite, a portrait of about 2 ½ inches by 4 inches. Further cost savings came from Disderi perfecting the process to create 4 or more negatives on one glass plate. Each negative could even be a different exposure.²⁸ The carte de visite was card sized, printed on paper, and mounted on a stiff decorative cardboard backing, and quickly became the most popular form of portraiture. The negatives could be used to print unlimited copies.

The carte de visite would soon become the first kind of fan photo for celebrities, something to collect. This phenomenon was helped along by Disderi being asked to create cartes de visite of Napoleon III on his way to war in Italy, while his whole army waited for him “in tight formation.”²⁹ But it was not only celebrities embracing the new trend. The carte de visite almost instantly became an international collectible.³⁰ Special albums allowed the collector space for multiple cartes de visite, which might include friends and family as well as the celebrities of the time. Indeed, says Volpe, the first photo albums were actually created to hold cartes de visite. Queen Victoria not only sat for cartes de visite, which could be sold to collectors all over, but kept albums of cartes de visite of many people herself³¹. Queen Victoria’s practice of putting her cartes de visite into specially made photograph albums sparked the vogue of ordinary people having what were called “family albums,” which could include photos of family, friends and celebrities.³²

The technology was brought to America in the summer of 1859. President and Mary Todd Lincoln began a collection in early 1861.³³ At least one historian credits the cartes de visite which famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady produced of Abraham Lincoln on February 27, 1860, with making Lincoln well known and advancing him towards the nomination of his party, and ultimately towards the presidency.³⁴ Photographer Alexander Hesler distributed more than one hundred thousand copies of the four poses from his June 3, 1860 sitting, also during Lincoln’s presidential campaign.

Historian Andrea L. Volpe, who has done extensive research on the “cartes de visite craze” says that the cartes were so popular that the press called the craze “cartomania.”³⁵

STEINBAUER’S CARTE DE VISITE

Like many other young soldier volunteers, John C. Steinbauer succumbed to the carte de visite craze sometime in 1861, not during his first three-month deployment with the First New Jersey Invantry, but during his next deployment, with the 8^th New Jersey Volunteers. The image shows Steinbauer in uniform, holding a sword, in front of a painted backdrop depicting cows behind Steinbauer to the right, a pond or lake behind him on the left, and in the distance houses or other buildings. He is apparently standing next to a table with a patterned tablecloth. The image, included here, identifies his regiment and home town on the verso, along with the name of the photographic studio where the carte de visite was created, identified as “Hollyland’s [sic] Metropolitan Photograph Gallery,” at 250 Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, DC.

Dan Binder, a Civil War expert who has written nearly one hundred articles on topics of Civil War history says that Steinbauer’s carte-de-visite “shows him as a member of the 8^th NJ as he mustered in with them as a first sergeant,… wearing first sergeant’s chevrons and lozenges in the image.”³⁶

John C. Steinbauer was a mere 18 or 19 years old when he sat for his carte de visite. I love that the photographer, a man named John Wallen Holyland, was only 20 years old himself, and only in the first year of operating his own first photographic studio—which had been created by his father and given to Holyland to manage.

A bit more about Holyland. The younger Holyland (John’s photographer) had originally trained as a civil engineer, but subsequently studied photography in Baltimore, Maryland with photographer John H. Young. Reflecting the boom in photography services, Young had himself arrived in Baltimore in 1860, after a short time operating a studio in New York. Holyland may have been employed when he responded to advertisements seeking a “First Class Artist” to add color to Young’s photographs in 1860.³⁷

Having left Young’s instruction after a year, Holyland maintained his studio in Washington only during the years of the Civil War, before moving back to Baltimore in 1865 to take over the studio of his mentor, John H. Young.

AFTER STEINBAUER—WHATS NEXT?

Some years after John’s death, Annie remarried Thomas Molloy and the couple moved to a home in Newark. As noted in a previous post, the 1880 census shows them living in Newark, with Thomas listed as a laborer, and Annie as “keeping house.” Living with them is their infant daughter Anna and Annie’s mother, Mary Hoyne, listed as “mother-in-law.” At age 55, Mary was apparently retired from her life of domestic service on the estate of the General Halstead of Anna’s written recollections. We know from Anna’s recollections that Mary died around 1884, when Anna was four years old, the year that Anna contracted malaria. And that is when the Molloys landed in the village, where we will land with them in January.

I am taking a break to decorate my house for the holidays! Until January.