This hand-tinted tintype of George Pepper shows the young man at about the time of his enlistment in the Union Army as a member of the 7th Maine Regiment.

Such photographic mementos were common, as young men optimistically prepared to fight in the Civil War, the first war in American history where such a keepsake could be left in the hands of anxious relatives.

George (1840-1862) and his older brother Joseph (1834-1862) enlisted in the 7th Maine Regiment on August 21, 1861. Joseph died at the Battle of Yorktown in April of 1862, and his brother George died of disease only seven months later.

The brothers were part of a family that immigrated from Canada. John (1794-1858) and Sophia Pepper (1797-1878) were both born in Canada as were most of their five children. The family had moved to Bath by the time of the 1850 census.