Carte-de-visite photograph of a Union Cavalryman, with autograph signature on front: “Isidore Kastner.”

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA)

c. 1863

On the reverse is photographer's imprint: "Photographed by S. L. Bergstresser, Army of the Potomac;” and signed in the same hand as the front: “Your friend, I. K.”

Isidore Kastner of Pennsylvania (1842-95) fought with the 13th Cavalry. He was captured in 1863 and returned to the Union Army in an exchange with the Confederates. He returned to the battlefield and was wounded twice in battles in Virginia and subsequently discharged. Roughly 10,000 American Jews fought in the Civil War, 7,000 on the Union side, and Kastner is presumed to be one of them. See Donald Altschiller, Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social and Military History (2000) pp. 1070-71.