Bidspirit auction | (AMERICAN-JUDAICA). CARTE DE VISITE PHOTOGRAPH

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA). CARTE DE VISITE PHOTOGRAPH   of Civil War soldier Lieutenant Alfred M. Raphall. Photographer: Philp & Solomons. Washington DC.1860’s     A Jewish 1st Lieutenant in the 6th Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, Alfred Maurice Raphall was wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg, requiring the amputation of his right arm.     Raphall was born in England, one of the six children of Rabbi Morris Jacob Raphall (1798-1868) a congregational rabbi in Birmingham before moving with his family to the United States, where he continued his rabbinic career in New York City. Despite his scholarship, today Rabbi Raphall is remembered for little more than a well publicized sermon he gave shortly before the Civil War in which he argued that slavery was supported by the Bible.     Alfred Raphall was assigned a post in the United States consulate in Mexico, where he died in 1903, with the rank of Commercial Agent.