Portrait of Major Arthur Shaaff

Description

Daguerreotype portrait of Major Arthur Shaaff (1831-1874), son of of Mary Ann Athenia Forsyth and Arthur Shaaff (1804-1834) of Washington, D.C. A native of Georgetown, D.C., he enlisted in the United States Army and was stationed at Fort Stellacoom in modern-day Washington State in 1860. Shaaff resigned his commission in July, 1861 to join the Confederate Army via the Los Angeles Mourk Rifles. Shaaff crossed the Arizona desert under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, who had just resigned his post in command of the Department of the Pacific to join the CSA in Texas. After Johnston's 1862 death, Shaaff rose to command the 1st Georgia Sharpshooter Battalion, CSA. He moved to Savannah, Georgia at the war's end Major Arthur Shaaff was the brother of Julia Frances Shaaff, wife of Richard Tilghman Brice of Baltimore. In 1863, Major Shaaff married Elizabeth "Lizzie" Dickerson of Savannah, Georgia. They had one son, Arthur (1867-1911).