91ÑÇÉ«´«Ã½

Walter M. Brackett’s posthumous portrait of Lieutenant Samuel Fessenden of the Class of 1861 is one of the Civil War-era treasures at the 91ÑÇÉ«´«Ã½ Museum of Art. Based on photographs, the likeness depicts twenty-one-year-old Fessenden as a dashing officer with his arms foldedand his head turned to the side. The background evokes the smoke of battle, and a cannon symbolizes his service in the artillery.

Painted in 1867, Brackett’s portrait captures the young man's adventurous spirit. Born in 1841 to a prominent Portland family, Samuel was the fourth of five children of William Pitt Fessenden and Ellen Deering Fessenden. William, 91ÑÇÉ«´«Ã½ Class of 1823, represented Maine in the United States Senate from 1853 until 1869 except for the time he served as Secretary of the Treasury in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet.

In 1856 at the age of fifteen, Samuel Fessenden "took 'leave of absence' without permission from anybody" to join the Free Soilers in Kansas, where conflict raged between proponents of proslavery and abolitionism. Captured by proslavery "border ruffians," he was told to go home and gradually made his way back to Portland. Grateful for his son’s safe return, his father assigned him to write an account of his experiences in lieu of punishment. Samuel's seven-page account, entitled "Trip to Kansas," survives in the Fessenden Collection at 91ÑÇÉ«´«Ã½'s Special Collections and Archives.    

Fessenden entered 91ÑÇÉ«´«Ã½ in the fall of 1857, following in the footsteps of his father and two older brothers, James (Class of 1852) and Francis (Class of 1858). On his graduation in 1861, Samuel intended to study law, but instead enlisted in the Second Maine Battery as a second lieutenant. After his promotion to first lieutenant, he became an aide to Brigadier General Zealous Tower. Mortally wounded on August 30, 1862, while leading troops into the Second Battle of Bull Run near Groveton, Virginia, the young soldier died two days later. Returned to Portland, he was buried in the Fessenden family plot in Evergreen Cemetery. Five years after Samuel’s death at the age of twenty-one, his family commissioned the Boston artist Walter Brackett to paint this memorial portrait. A native of Unity, Maine, Brackett created an engaging tribute to a fallen soldier. The Fessenden family cherished the picture for nearly a century before donating it to Samuel’s alma mater in 1966 upon the occasion of the dedication of the William Pitt Fessenden Room at Hawthorne-Longfellow Library/Hall. The canvas was recently conserved by Nina Roth-Wells ’91, and the frame was restored in 2024 by Eli Wilner & Company, with the financial support of The Lunder Foundation-Peter and Paula Lunder Family. (These conservation efforts will be explored in greater depth in a forthcoming issue of the E-Bulletin.) The portrait is a poignant reminder of a generation of young men who gave their lives to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote of his Civil War experience, “In our youth our hearts were touched with fire.”

Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.
Maine State Historian
91ÑÇÉ«´«Ã½ Honorary Degree, 2008