Glimpses of Soldiers' Lives (Liljenquist Collection)

Prints and Photographs Division

Introduction

Looking directly into the faces of the people who fought the Civil War is a great doorway into history. This set of essays offers glimpses of the lives of particular soldiers—what they ate and whom they missed, how far they marched in the mud, when they were wounded or captured or at last discharged.  The essays are shaped by both traces and holes in the historical record and are far from complete.  But from a name and a regiment, and sometimes a letter or drawing, pension record or poem, something of these men's stories can be gleaned.1 The portraits are all in the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs.

Information about the soldiers comes from:

• documents in the Liljenquist collection, many of which were acquired with the photographs
• published histories of the Civil War and Civil War regiments
• the American Civil War Research Database, a subscription resource available on site at the Library of Congress
• records at the National Archives.

The biographies are accompanied by relevant photographs and drawings from Library of Congress collections that depict where individuals fought or were imprisoned.

Click on a soldier's name to read his story. For more information about the photos themselves, follow the links in the essays to the descriptions in the online catalog.

John W. Anthony of Company B, 11th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Southern Guards	Oney S. A. Brock of Company I, 5th Virginia Cavalry Regiment	Private Edward A. Cary of Company I, 44th Virginia Infantry Regiment	Edwin Chamberlain of Company G, 11th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment
Private David C. Colbert of Company C, 46th Virginia Infantry Regiment	Privates and twin brothers Bartlett and John Ellsworth with brother Samuel Ellsworth of Company A, 12th New Hampshire Infantry	Captain George Riggs Gaither of K Company, 1st Virginia Cavalry	Private William P. Haberlin of Battery B, Pennsylvania Light Artillery
Dr. Alexander Harris of 15th Virginia Infantry Regiment	Private R. Cecil Johnson of 8th Georgia Infantry Regiment and South Carolina Hampton Legion Cavalry Battalion	Freeman Mason of Company K, 17th Vermont Infantry and Michael Mason, 6th Vermont Infantry	Sergeant Cornelius V. Moore of Company B, 100th New York Volunteers...
Brothers Private William Savage Moore and Private John C. Moore of Richmond "Parker" Virginia Light Artillery Battery, 1st Company Howitzers Virginia Light Artillery Battery, and I Company, 15th Virginia Infantry Regiment	Private Charles H. Osgood of Company C, 16th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment	Private Charles F. Sherman of 2nd Massachusetts Light Artillery Battery	George Wingate Weeks of Company D, 8th Maine Infantry Regiment

1 Cautionary note: In some cases, the soldiers' name came from a note found with the photo. We can't be absolutely sure that the photo shows that person unless a second portrait is found. We're making an assumption.