First Lieutenant William Gurney, 7th New York Infantry Regiment, 1861

Soldiers fighting in the Civil War often had their photographic portraits made and mailed them to family and friends back home. This carte-de-visite shows an unidentified Union Army first lieutenant. He is from an infantry unit and is wearing a military coat, sky blue trousers with stripe while holding his officer's kepi cap.

Mathew B. Brady's photography studio in Washington, D.C., made this full length portrait about 1863. A successful photographer since 1841, Brady owned studios in Washington and New York City and became renowned for portraits of notable personalities of the time. Starting in 1861 he had the ambitious goal of documenting all aspects of the Civil War. To do this he hired many photographers to work in his studios and in the field to capture images of battles, life on the front, and important military figures. As was the custom, Brady did not identify individual photographers working for his company. However, many went on to become successful photographers in their own right, such as Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan. Brady's vision and longevity created photographs that are meaningful records of this important time in United States history.

Carte-de-visite, French for visiting card, was a type of small photographic print on cardboard stock that professional photographers made in the nineteenth century. Popularized by the French photographer, André Disdéri in 1854, this format measured about 4 x 2.5 inches--the same size as personal calling cards of that era. Photographers made a single glass negative and then produced multiple positive prints on paper and mounted them on the cards. The backs often carried advertisements for the photographer. When mailed in the United States between 1864 and 1866, the CdVs had a tax stamp on the back. This was a source of Federal government revenue to pay for the Civil War expenses. Popular in the United States from the 1860s through the 1880s, photographers continued to offer this size into the early 1900s. After having their portraits taken at the photographer's studio, people exchanged them among family and friends. As a favorite hobby, many people gathered CdVs into photograph albums to help them remember family and celebrities.