CDV is a full standing view of Severn Teackle Wallis. He is wearing a dark colored civilian frock coat, vest and trousers with a white shirt and cravat. He is holding a light colored hat. Reverse has the photographer’s imprint which reads, “BENDANN BROTHERS GALLERIES OF PHOTOGRAPHY 205 BALTO ST.”.

Severn Teackle Wallis (September 8, 1816 – April 11, 1894) was an American lawyer and politician. Wallis graduated from the secular St. Mary's College in northwest inner Baltimore in 1832, and later studied law with William Wirt, attorney general, and with noted lawyer John Glenn. In 1837, Wallis was admitted to the bar.

Wallis early developed a taste for literature and contributed to periodicals many articles of literary and historical criticism, also occasional verses. He became a proficient in Spanish literature and history and was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of history of Madrid in 1843. He may have been an acquaintance of the budding poet and author Edgar Allan Poe, (1808-1849), along with his friend, the author and political figure John Pendleton Kennedy.

In April 1861, Wallis was elected to the lower House of Delegates of Maryland in the General Assembly of Maryland, and took an active part in the special proceedings of the Maryland Legislature, called into special session that Spring by Gov. Thomas H. Hicks, (1798-1865), as the authority of the Governor of Maryland at Frederick instead of the state capital at Annapolis which was then occupied by Massachusetts and New York militia under the command of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, (1818-1893), deciding on the issue of secession and the state's relationship to the pending crisis and the forming war policies of President Abraham Lincoln. He was chairman of the committee on Federal relations, and made himself obnoxious to the Federal authorities by his reports, which were adopted by the Legislature, and which took strong ground against the possibilities of Civil War, as well as against the then prevailing "doctrine of military necessity".

In September 12th of that year, four months after Butler's occupation of the state's major city, Wallis was arrested with many other members of the Maryland Legislature and other citizens of the city and state (including the new police marshal George Proctor Kane, (1820-1878), and newly elected reform mayor George William Brown), and imprisoned for more than fourteen months in Fort McHenry, Fort Lafayette, and Fort Warren for not citing a Union Oath before a succession vote. He was finally released by November, 1862, without conditions and without being informed of the official cause of his arrest. He then returned to the private practice of the law in Baltimore.

Image is clear and the contrast is good. Surface has some light dirt from age. Image has yellowed with time.

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