CDV is a bust view of Major Minor Meriwether in uniform. He wears a light-colored double-breasted frockcoat with a high collar bearing the single star of a major’s rank. Meriwether is posed in a slight right profile and is seen from the mid-chest up.

Image has very good clarity and good contrast. Paper and mount are good but upper right corner is chipped. Lower left corner has a faint period stamp that reads “COPY” meaning this image is a post-war copy of a wartime image. The same area as the stamp shows a faint surface crease.

Reverse has a photographer’s imprint for JOHN A. SCHOLTEN. His imprint includes a copy of a gold medal awarded to him in 1879. The back of the image is heavily inscribed with period ink that reads “MINOR M. IN CONFEDERATE UNIFORM-TAKEN SHORTLY AFTER THE WAR-1865.” Also written in a later ink is “MAJOR MINOR MERIWETHER APPOINTED BY JEFF DAIVIS TO BE MAJOR OF ENGINEERS.” There is collector information at bottom in modern pencil along with a modern notation stating that this image appears on page 65 of MORE CONFEDERATE FACES by William Albaugh.

Image is from the collection of the late William A. Turner.

Minor Meriwether was born in Christian County, Kentucky on January 6, 1827. During his youth he was educated as a civil engineer and a lawyer.

On December 20, 1861 Meriwether was appointed a major and Chief Engineer of General Leonidas Polk’s 1^st Division of the Western Department. Meriwether served with Polk at Shiloh and was then assigned to Fort Pillow by command of General Beauregard and in July of 1862 was made the commanding officer of a Pioneer Battalion on the staff of General Sterling Price.

In November of 1862, Major Meriwether was assigned to general engineer duties in the Army of Mississippi reporting to a Colonel Lockett and a year later, on November 6, 1863, he was selected by both the Secretary of War and of the Navy to occupy a position on the Commission for the Collection and Distribution of Railroad Iron. Meriwether was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 5, 1864 and would maintain his position on the railroad commission till the end of the war.

After the war, Meriwether settled in Memphis, Tennessee where he pursued his civil engineering career and built the first levees along the Mississippi in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana as well has helping to construct many railroads in the South.

In 1880 Meriwether moved his family to St. Louis, Missouri where he practiced law. He died in St. Louis on June 6, 1910 and is buried there in Bellefontaine Cemetery.  [AD] [ph:L]

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