I discovered this drawing in the Library of Congress. It’s a police sketch of a Confederate spy. It’s a little earlier than our usual timeframe but I thought an exception was in order.

It’s close to one of my favorite areas: mugshots! But police sketches have an added layer of creepiness, at least for me. I suppose because the sketches don’t look exactly human. I once heard a policeman say the idea behind a police sketch was to capture a person’s essence rather than to make it look exactly like the person. And often a police sketch exudes evil.

I wouldn’t say that is the case with this particular picture though.

If the sketch captured his essence, then my guess is his essence was… debonair? What do you say?