Civil War Painted Photograph, 2nd Lieutenant Julius M. Swain. 

Overall: 12 3/4 X 10 3/4 in. 

Sight: 7 1/4 X 5 in. 

Julius Marshall Swain (1835-1911) was a signal corps officer during the Civil War whose poignant experiences in establishing signal stations for the North are recorded in multiple archives. A resident of Roxbury, Massachusetts, he had been working as a dry goods cashier when the war began, and enlisted on August 13th, 1862 against the wishes of his family. He was commissioned into Company B, 39th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. After single-handedly capturing three Rebel soldiers on the road to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he was discharged for promotion and was commissioned into the US Army Signal Corps on March 3rd, 1863 as a 2nd Lieutenant. In February 1864 he was given leave to marry Rosann Garcelon in Harpswell, Maine, but shortly thereafter was made the signal officer at Fort Powhatan on the James River near Garysville, Virginia, which had been captured by the Union the previous year. Major General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Robert E. Lee, led 3,000 Confederates in a surprise attack on the Fort on May 24th, 1864, specifically with the goal of capturing the 2nd US Colored Light Artillery to weaken Union support for Emancipation. Although Swain’s family was terrified that he had “joined a Negro Regiment,” he survived numerous barrages alongside the troops and was able to set up a signal station aboard a gunboat, where he coordinated simultaneous attacks by the boat and the 1st, 10th, 22nd, and 37th US Colored Infantry that effectively ended Fitzhugh’s assault, as well as his military career.

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