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Wesley Merritt and his staff


General Wesley Merritt (seated center) poses with his staff before the camera of Mathew Brady in this 1864 photograph. A highly competent cavalry officer, Merritt commanded the 1st Cavalry Division of Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah. His commendable performance the year before at the Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia, in June 1863, in part led to his unprecedented leap in promotion from captain to brigadier general of volunteers.


Mathew Brady (1823–1896)
Albumen silver print, 1864
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 

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