[Civil War veteran holding bayoneted rifle and dog holding flag in front of painted backdrop]

Archive record

1 photograph : albumen print on card mount ; sheet 14 x 10 cm, mount 16 x 11 cm (cabinet card format)

About this photograph

A cabinet card portrait made by photographer William Cass shows a Civil War veteran posed with a bayoneted rifle and a dog holding an American flag. The painted backdrop was a common studio convention.

The cabinet card format, larger than the earlier carte de visite, became standard for studio portraits in the 1870s and remained popular for decades. The 1870 date places this photograph five years after the war's end, when many veterans were still relatively young men.

Photography had been widespread during the Civil War itself, with soldiers on both sides commonly sitting for portraits before leaving to provide an image for family. Exposure times made action photographs impossible, so the visual record consists almost entirely of portraits, camp scenes, fortifications, and the dead after battle.

The Grand Army of the Republic, founded in 1866 as a fraternal organisation for Union veterans, grew into a substantial political force that campaigned for pensions and ran reunions and memorial observances for decades. Members wore distinctive uniforms and badges to encampments and parades, which explains why many later portraits show elderly men in regalia rather than wartime dress. Whether this veteran belonged to the organisation or wore its uniform here, the record does not say.

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

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