The "branded slave" photograph of Chinn with "VBM" (the initials of his owner, Volsey B. Marmillion) branded on his forehead, wearing a punishment collar, and posing with other equipment used to punish slaves became one of the most widely circulated photos of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War and remains one of the most famous photos of that era.

The New York Times writer Joan Paulson Gage noted in 2013 that "The images of Wilson Chinn in chains, like the one of Gordon and his scarred back, are as disturbing today as they were in 1863.

"[1] Abolitionist, civil rights activist, and Union colonel George H. Hanks sent photographs with descriptions of emancipated child slaves and Chinn in a letter to George William Curtis, then editor of Harper's Weekly,[2] the most widely read journal during the Civil War, which appeared in the January 1864 article "Emancipated Slaves White and Colored":[3] The group of emancipated slaves whose portraits I send you were brought by Colonel Hanks and Mr. Phillip Bacon from New Orleans, where they were set free by General Butler.

Thirty of them had been branded like cattle with a hot iron, four of them on the forehead, and the others on the breast or arm.The former slaves, including Chinn, traveled from New Orleans to the North.

The resulting images were produced in the carte de visite format and were sold for twenty-five cents each, with the profits of the sale being directed to Major General Nathaniel P. Banks back in Louisiana to support education of freedmen.