CDV image shows Lieutenant Chauncey Aldrich of Company B, 85th New York. He is posed standing by a small table with his right hand resting on a Colt revolver that is lying on top of the cloth draped table. He wears a dark single-breasted frock coat with matching dark trousers. The frock coat has Lieutenants shoulder straps while the trousers have a thin light colored leg stripe running along the seam. At his waist Lieutenant Aldrich wears a sash and sword belt. The belt plate is the Model 1852 rectangular NCO plate and attached to the drops of the belt is his Model 1850 Foot Officer’s sword.

The image is clear and clean. The contrast is also good. The mount corners are clipped. Reverse has no back mark only an old pencil inscription that reads “LIEUT. C. S. ALDRICH.”

Chauncey Soper Aldrich was born in McDonough, New York in 1833. He was a practicing lawyer when he was commissioned 1^st Lieutenant in Company B, 85th New York Infantry on August 26, 1861. The 27 year old Aldrich was mustered in on December 2^nd and went with his regiment to Virginia. The 85^th was engaged on the Peninsula where it saw action at Fair Oaks, Savage’s Station and White Oak Swamp.

The regiment moved to North Carolina where it was captured at Plymouth on April 20, 1864. Among the captured was Lieutenant Aldrich. After 5 months in captivity at Columbia, South Carolina, Aldrich and four other officers escaped on October11, 1864 and after a month on the run reached Union lines. He arrived home in New York on his birthday, November 18, 1864. He was discharged on December 16, 1864.

After the war Aldrich returned to the law and eventually moved his family to Colorado. He died there in 1909.

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