Historical Portrait

[Civil War veteran Alfred Colburn of Co. K, 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment and 2nd Minnesota Light Artillery Battery with medal]

1900·Source: loc·View original ↗·Public Domain

Free to use. Public domain. No account needed.

Archive record

1 photograph : print ; sheet 14 x 10 cm, mount 17 x 11 cm (cabinet card format) | Photograph shows portrait of identified Union veteran.

About this photograph

Alfred Colburn served in Company K of the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Minnesota Light Artillery Battery during the Civil War. This photograph was taken by P. J. Nelson in 1900, more than three decades after the war's end.

The medal Colburn wears likely indicates membership in the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union veterans' fraternal organisation founded in 1866. Members wore distinctive uniforms and badges to encampments and parades, which accounts for the formal regalia often seen in late portraits of former soldiers rather than their original military dress.

The image is a cabinet card, a standard photographic format of the period measuring approximately 14 by 10 centimeters mounted on card stock. By the time this portrait was made, photography had long been accessible to ordinary Americans. During the war itself, soldiers on both sides routinely sat for photographs before leaving home, typically cartes de visite or tintypes meant to leave an image with family. The technology of the era required long exposure times that made action photography impossible, so the visual record consists almost entirely of portraits, camp scenes, and fortifications.

Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.

About the format

Cabinet Cards

Rights & Attribution

Credit: Library of Congress

Reuse: Public domain. Free to download, print, edit and republish, commercially or otherwise. How rights work in this archive.

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