Very nice Rob, I especially like the facial area, the coloring is on point perfect in my opinion. tigs=^..^=

It's impressive how capable he was in keeping still. During this era of photography, portraits were often taken with the aid of accessories. Posing for an early daguerreotype (1830's) wasn't trivial... because the exposure time was originally about 15 minutes, the subject's head had to be held still with a clamp! Sometimes we can see part of the device in old photos, and in this one, because Corbett's head is angled severely to his left, it's possible we would be able to see it if one had been used. I don't believe it's there at all: by the time the Civil War began, exposure times had been reduced by better light sensitivity in the paper, the exposure time being more like 1 to 3 minutes. Even so, that's a long time to hold your head still... and your eyes (his right hand is a little blurry but that's the camera focus: the arm of the chair under his hand is also out-of-focus). Try it yourself. Ten bucks says you can't do it.

[okay, enough being silly...] As to Corbett's uniform, if there was a square sitting in the saddle of his top stripe he would have been a First Sergeant; a star there would signify an Ordnance Sergeant (artillery); a single bar straight across between the top points of the top stripe would indicate a Company Quartermaster Sergeant (responsible for the supplies, food, uniforms, etc.); three horizontal bars across the top was a Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant; and three upward curved lines across the top would have been worn by a Sergeant Major.

Now as to the stripes... I spent over 33 years in my career working with black & white photography going back to the early daguerreotypes and with actual uniforms from the Civil War through the Gulf War. So I am familiar with how certain colors in those old photos translate into black & white. During those years, cavalry stripes were gold and would appear a little lighter in b&w than the darker blue serge Union uniform; artillery stripes were red which would be considerably darker; and infantry stripes were a light blue which would appear somewhat lighter. Looking at the original b&w photo you provided a link to, Rob, my guess is that he was a cavalryman... so the color you chose for his stripes was very close to gold, could probably have had a little more yellow in them. Just a thought. (Or did you already know all that and this know-it-all just pooed in your ear?) [oD

By the way, when you see civil war uniforms that include a colored sash worn at the waist, under the belt, those same gold, red, and light blue colors apply to those sashes, for the same branches of the army.

-Nik

Another impressive photo from the Lincoln assassination. Sgt. Boston Corbett was quite the "colorful" character. Due to his strange and insane behavior, in 1888, a judge sentence him to spend some time in the Topeka Asylum for the Insane. He is credited (with some reserve) as the man who shot and killed John Wilkes Booth for which he was viewed by the public as a hero.

He is my generation's equivalent of Jack Ruby, except he was in the military Rob. I wonder if the conspiracy theories abounded after he killed Booth.
Knik's detailed information was interesting and a good companion for you great colorization. I found some other colorization while reading about him.
Thanks for stimulating our minds, as well as our senses.

TicK

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The colorization here works perfectly, to the point, where I find this more realistic than photos that are captured with current cameras. Don't know why, it just seems incredibly life like...excellent work.

Marvelous work again my friend - you seem to know what colouring to use to make these old pictures come to life