Gustave Paul Cluseret, inscribed on the reverse as “Gen. Gustave Cluseret, Amer. Civil War,” was the French soldier who rose to brigadier general in the Union Army before returning to France to serve as the Paris Commune’s Delegate for War in 1871. The carte de visite was produced by H. Le Lieure, Photographe de S.M., at the Jardin Public.

He is shown in an oval vignette, half length, wearing a military tunic with shoulder straps and a dark velvet collar, several medals pinned to his chest including the Légion d’Honneur. His dark hair is brushed back, and a heavy mustache curls down past the corners of his mouth, his expression composed and direct.

After commanding Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley under Generals Frémont and Milroy, Cluseret returned to Europe and threw himself into radical causes, briefly plotting insurrection in England with the Fenian movement before joining the Commune, where he directed its military operations until his removal following the fall of Fort Issy in May 1871. Condemned to death in absentia that August, he lived abroad until an amnesty allowed his return, later serving in the French National Assembly until his death in 1900.

The reverse is inscribed in pencil, “Gen. Cluseret,” and again, “Gen. Gustave Cluseret / Amer. Civil War,” over the printed studio imprint of H. Le Lieure, Photographe de S.M., Jardin Public, with the archival notations “5/18/10,” “LOCDFZ,” and “Eb.”