Description
Neat carte view of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halpine. In April 1861, he enlisted in the 69th New York infantry, in which he was soon elected a lieutenant, serving a 3 month term. Halpine was next transferred to the staff of General David Hunter as assistant-adjutant-general with the rank of major, and soon after went with that officer to Missouri to relieve General John Fremont. He would accompany General Hunter to Hilton Head, and while there wrote a series of burlesque poems in the assumed character of an Irish private. Several of them were contributed to the New York Herald in 1862 under the pseudonym of “Miles O’Reilly”. Additional articles were issued in two volumes entitled Life and Adventures, Songs, Services, and Speeches of Private Miles O’Reilly, 47th Regiment New York Volunteers, 1864, and Baked Meats of the Funeral, a Collection of Essays, Poems, Speeches, and Banquets, by Private Miles O’Reilly, late of the 47th Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, 10th Army Corps. Collected, revised, and edited, with the requisite corrections of punctuation, spelling, and grammar, by an Ex-Colonel of the Adjutant-General’s Department, with whom the Private formerly served as Lance-Corporal of Orderlies. Halpine was subsequently assistant-adjutant-general on General Henry W. Halleck’s staff with the rank of colonel in 1862, and accompanied General David Hunter as a staff-officer on his expedition up the Shenandoah valley in the spring of 1864. On his return to New York he resigned his commission in consequence of his bad eyesight, receiving the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers. This has a period ink inscription across the front bottom reading “Col. Halpine Private Miles O’Rielly”. This does have some spotting to the surface as can be observed. Back marked out of New York.
