American Civil War Photographs Online Catalog

The Special Collections Branch of the U.S. Army Military History Institute has an online catalog of thousands of Civil War photographs. You can search the catalog by name or by town, state, regiment, or almost anything else you can think of. If a photograph has been catalogued with that word, you will find a listing for it.

This collection includes photographs of thousands of soldiers, enlisted men and officers alike. As usual, I searched the database for any occurrences of my own surname, and I was pleasantly surprised to find several. For instance, here are a few of the ones I found:

RG98S-CWP11.26 - G. Fred Eastman, Confederate Soldier

RG98S-CWP 199.41 - Full standing wartime image of Pvt. Thomas H. Eastman, Co. K, 7th Regt., New Hampshire Vol. Infantry. He is standing in front of a backdrop.

RG98S-CWP 156.55 - Full standing wartime image of Pvt. Joseph S. Eastman, Co. L, 1st Regt., Mass. Vol. Hvy. Arty. His branch insignia is on his hat.

Then I searched by locations. First, I searched for any photographs with the word MAINE in the catalog. I was rewarded with more than 300 such listings, so I decided to narrow the search down by specifying PENOBSCOT, one of the counties in Maine. I found one occurrence that had both words, although it referred to an Indian tribe, not to the county named after the tribe:

RG98S-CWP 178.24 - Seven men (unidentified) from the 7th Regt., Maine Vol. Inf. Some of these soldiers are Penobscot Indians. They are posing outside in front of tents.

Please note also that this is only an online catalog. At this time, the actual photographs are not available online. However, you can easily order photographs by sending an e-mail message to the USAMHI Special Collections Branch at usamhi@carlisle.army.mil. In the message, provide your postal address and the photograph identification number (Photo I.D.) of the photograph you desire, photograph description (i.e., soldier name, military unit, place, etc.).

Special Collections Branch will mail up to two low-resolution photocopies of photographs to you at no charge for your examination and approval, along with much more detailed instructions, which will include charges for the duplication of photos. Assuming that you want a high-quality copy of the photograph(s), you will then mail a check for the appropriate amount payable to "MHI Fund." The Special Collections Branch of the U.S. Army Military History will create a photographic quality copy and send it to you.

The prices for the lower-quality photocopies are twenty-five cents each for printed material, microforms, and documents, while copies of photographs are $1.00. Prices for the high-quality photographic reproductions are $15.00 to $25.00 each, depending upon the size and the source of the original.

All in all, this is a great service to the genealogist or the history buff. You may even find a photograph of your Civil War ancestor. For more information and to search the online catalog, go to:
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/PhotoDB.html