15th Corps Veteran, Sixth Plate Tintype, with Inset Forty Rounds Badge 

A painfully young early war volunteer from the call of 1862 wearing a regulation four button sack coat with cravat that is the off-to-war dress of a recent civilian. The anonymous private is accoutered with a US oval plate on a pristine, just-issued leather belt holding a brass-hilted sword bayonet. Pinned vertically to the pillow of the case is an iconic post-war painted metal Forty Rounds badge suspended from a pressed eagle and stenciled American flag segment, evidence that the young man survived the war and lived to associate with fellow veterans in the GAR.

Sherman’s hard-scrabble bummers were busy "marching to the sea" in February 1865 when the iconic 15th Corps badge was formally adopted and there is no documented evidence that “Forty Rounds” ever saw field service except as the contents of a fully loaded cartridge box.

Varnished plate near EXC. with just average clarity. Glossy black cartridge box with slight bend on right flap and minor paint loss at edges; raised gold paint perfect. Fine cloth flag segment worn and frayed, missing lower metal planchet. Tintype and badge housed in separated composition case missing front lower edge.