This excellent photograph is in the collection of the Library of Congress and was taken in February 1863. It is of Captain James William Forsyth, then US Provost Marshall at Aquia Creek, VA – a large supply base for the… continue reading

James Forsyth moved across the River Tweed from his birthplace, Coldstream, Scotland, to Berwick-on-Tweed in England with his family as a small child in about 1842, and was a student there into the 1850s. In 1861, by then a painter… continue reading

Here’s a photograph taken just after the war of Benjamin Crawford Brantley (left), late Private of Company B, 13th Georgia Infantry. He went by Crawford or Croff and was not yet 17 years old when he enlisted in 1861. He… continue reading

Private George Washington Reaves, 13th Georgia Infantry was about 30 years old when he was wounded in a most frightful way at Sharpsburg in September 1862. He later described it in his application for a Confederate veteran’s pension in 1896… continue reading

In March 1862 22 year old Private John Barnett Mathews of the 13th Georgia Infantry wrote the Confederate President Jefferson Davis asking for appointment to a more important position so he could better help support his newly widowed and “nearly… continue reading