Description
Carte view of Brigadier General Alfred Napoleon Duffie. A French native, Duffie would serve in multiple military roles in the French military before resigning his commission and fleeing to the United States. Duffie’s was not one to follow order’s well. He would be arrested on multiple occasions for confrontations with other officers and in one instance challenged General Fritz John Porter to a dual. In July 1862 Duffié was appointed to command the 1st Rhode Island Cavalry, with the rank of colonel by that governor William Sprague. The 1st Rhode Island’s officers initially refused to serve under a foreign-born leader but Duffié soon won them over and reorganized the regiment into a fine fighting unit. They would first see action at Cedar Mountain in May, 1862. During the Battle of Brady Station, Duffie’s Division would get lost and arrived late. As a result he would be demoted back to regimental command. In June of 1863, Duffie and the men of the 1st Rhode Island would battle J.E.B. Stuarts cavalry at Middleburg, Virginia. The resulting battle would hand Duffie a decisive defeat with a mere 61 men from the 1st Rhode Island escaping. As a result, he would relinquish command and return to Washington. He would not see active duty again until the fall of 1863, later taking part in General David Hunter’s 1864 campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. He also took part in operations against Confederate guerrilla leader John S. Mosby, promising to capture the so-called “Gray Ghost” and bring him back to Washington. Instead, it was Duffié who was captured by Mosby’s men near Bunker Hill on October 20, 1864. Due to this incident General Phillip Sheridan requested that he be dismissed from the army calling him “a trifling man and a poor soldier. He was captured by his own stupidity.”[9] He was sent to prison camp, then paroled on February 22, 1865. Duffié was then ordered to Texas for a campaign against Confederate General Kirby Smith, but that campaign ended before he could arrive and Alfred mustered out of service. This view shows Alfred posed in front of his tent and was likely taken at Bull Run in 1863. No back mark on this one.
