Civil War CDV HERO Guard Dog Of Castle Thunder Confederate Prison Richmond Rare For Sale

This CDV came out of an album that contained a collection of Civil War generals and was rescued from an estate sale.

I don’t believe that this image of Hero has ever published online.

A rare image of one of the most famous Civil War dogs.

Size

4” tall x 2 6/16 wide

"Hero is a dog about seven feet in length from tip to top, weighing nearly two hundred pounds. He is a splendid cross between a russian bloodhound and a bull-dog, and combines the faithfulness of the one with the ferocity of the other. We have seen him seize little dogs that came around his heels, shake them and cast them twenty feet from him. The stoutest man he would bring to the ground by one gripe on the throat, and it was always a difficult matter to get him off if he had once tasted or smelled blood."

~The Richmond Whig, May 19th, 1865

The famous Russian bloodhound Hero, from Castle Thunder, has been sent to Washington in a close carriage, creating quite a sensation in the capital. Hero was formerly owned by one of the keepers of Castle Thunder, and kept there as one of the preventives against prisoners escaping. He belongs emphatically to the tribe of ‘heavy dogs,’ seven feet long from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, is three feet eight inches tall, measuring from the fore-shoulders down, and weighs 178 pounds. On two occasions, before he was three years old, he whipped two bears on Belle Island. A royal Bengal could hardly give a better growl. Mr. Munn, sutler, 140th New York, brought him from Richmond only a few days ago. At first he had an intense dislike—the result of his traitorous teachings no doubt—to one of our soldiers’ blue uniforms; but he is rapidly overcoming this antipathy, and daily gives indication of growing tolerance of Union soldiers and Union sentiment.”

Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper