Yanks & Rebs: They all look alike!

Military Images, May/Jun 2003 by McAfee, Michael J

When Bill Albaugh's classic Confederate Faces came out we few older collectors played a game called "Spot the Yankee!" with each other. Afterwards, with Bill's More Confederate Faces, Bill Turner's Even More Confederate Faces and finally D.A. Serrano's Still More Confederate Faces the game continued. None of this is meant to disparage these works, for they are valuable references all. It is just fun to see if it is possible to see the clues to make one photograph a Reb and the other a Yank.

Now the wonders of eBay offer us a continuing game of "Spot the Yank!" because so many novice sellers want or hope or try to pass off their Yankee soldiers as Confederates. Probably the most common mistake is to assume that because a carte-de-visite has a Kentucky or Louisiana or even Virginia backmark the man in the portrait must be a native and therefore a Southern soldier.

Stop and think about it, for even Richmond was occupied by April 1865 and I seriously doubt there was a photographer so gray as to refuse to take a Yankee's portrait once they were there. Kentucky itself was split between sides and Louisiana was brought back into the fold early on, so there were many blue-clad soldiers whose pictures were taken there. The same is true throughout the South.

Interestingly, I have yet to see a Confederate prisoner from Camp Douglas sold as a Yankee just because the carte bore a Northern imprint. Hmmn? What does that say about salesmanship?

Let's play the game together. Here are a few examples. In Confederate Faces, page 13, Fig. 22, these unidentified militiamen are actually from the Utica [New York] Citizens' Corps. This full plate ambrotype now hangs on this author's wall. On page 26, Fig. 128, we find a portrait of Captain Asa Cook, of the Boston Light Artillery. The two soldiers shown as Fig. 416, page 117, are certainly members of the 2nd New Hampshire in their 1861 gray and red uniform.

The best example in More Confederate Faces is on page 151, Fig. 405, where this Yankee in four button and full gear has passed as a Reb in several publications. A Yankee Veteran Reserve Corps soldier can be found on page 154, Fig. 407. The two Confederate musicians shown as Fig. 361 on page 139 were purchased by the author in Marietta, Ohio about 1965, traded to Herb Peck and reproduced many times as Rebs although both clearly wear uniforms that sing Yankee Doodle. An unidentified English Volunteer Rifleman becomes a Confederate on page 17, Fig. 38.

Bill Turner and D.A. Serrano enjoyed the benefit of these games and had many fewer Yankees in their books, although in Turner's book on page 204 there are two Yankees, one above the other. On the top left is a Massachusetts volunteer of 1861 and directly below him is one of those pesky New Hampshire men in gray. In Serrano's book the Texas cavalryman on page 191 is undoubtedly from Texas, but serving in a Yankee unit, not Reb. There are others in all four books, but enough of this game.

What is the point? Well first if you are going to pay Confederate prices it is best to be sure you are really buying a Confederate! More importantly, isn't it interesting that we all look alike?* Isn't that what matters after all, that we were and still are Americans first, then Southern or Northern?

* Let me mention, but not go into, the game of is he or isn't he African-American and now, is that an Asian soldier? Sometimes you just can't tell.