Earlier this year, I shared the mid-19th c. photograph of an ancestor of mine whose identity is uncertain beyond being family. Now the Library of Congress has a similar, if much larger, puzzle, and they're asking for your assistance to solve at least part of it.
Recently the Lijenquist Family donated their collection of almost 700 ambrotype and tintype photographs to the Library of Congress in remembrance of the thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers who served in the American Civil War (1861-1865). The images are nearly all of soldiers, as well as a few of their families. These pictures offer an immediate connection to the past: the subjects stare directly from the pictures, carefully posed for posterity in what, for many of them, must have been both their first and last portraits.
But over the years, many of the names of these young soldiers have been forgotten and lost. The Library of Congress has posted this album of the pictures on Flickr, hoping that viewers will be able to help offer names to match these brave faces. Can you help?
Above: Unidentified young soldier in Confederate uniform and Hardee hat with holstered revolver and artillery saber, Library of Congress
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