Item No. 9347564

A nice quarter plate tintype of Brevet Brigadier General Datus E. Coon of Iowa. A pioneer newspaper man in Iowa at the outbreak of the war, Coon received permission from Governor Kirkwood to raise a company for the 2nd Iowa Cavalry. This unit mustered in as Company I and Coon was commissioned its captain. He was promoted major in September 1861, and participated in all the regiment's campaigns in Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. He was promoted colonel in May 1864 and brevet brigadier general in March 1865. Coon relocated to Alabama after the war where he was elected to the state legislature. He was also appointed Consul to Baracoa, Cuba, by President Hayes. In 1875 he went to San Diego, California, as Superintendent of the Chinese Exclusion Law, where he was killed by the accidental discharge of a pistol in December 1893. In the tintype, Coon is posed in a photographer’s studio. He wears a double-breasted frock, a sword belt with pattern 1851 buckle, sash, and heavy gauntlets, one of which rests upon the hilt of his sword. The photographer applied gold tint to the buttons and shoulder boards (filled all the way in, indicative of cavalry). Red tint was applied to the sash and the decorative cord to Coon’s side. The image is in excellent condition, is free of bends, and is housed in half a pressed paper case with glass, mat, and preserver.

While unnamed on the image itself, the subject was identified as Coon via a known Coon CDV found on the Civil War Photo Sleuth website. The existence has since been confirmed of a second signed image of Coon, this one with the same hair and beard style as in the tintype offered here.