behind AotW

James Gardner took this photograph at Brandy Station, VA in December 1863. The men in it are identified (left to right) as:

Captain Samuel A McClellan(d) – Battery G, First New York Light, 1861-65, formerly 2nd Lieutenant of Busteed’s Chicago Battery. He was with the 2nd Corps in Washington DC in September 1862 and not on the Maryland Campaign.

Captain J (Jacob) Henry Sleeper – 1st Lieutenant First (“A”) Battery, Massachusetts Light Artillery, 1861-62; Captain 10th Battery 20 Sept 1862-1865. He may have been in Maryland with Battery A, part of the 6th Army Corps; they were in reserve at Antietam.

Captain O’Neil W Robinson, Jr. – commanded the 4th Battery, Maine Light Artillery on the Maryland Campaign. Major and Artillery Chief, 2nd Army Corps in 1864. He died 4 months after this photograph was made, at home of disease, exactly 40 years old.

Alfred Waud – famed combat artist and newsman. Was present on the field and sketched extensively at Antietam.

This digital image is from Gardner’s original wet collodion glass plate negative, now in the collection of the Library of Congress.