Photo collector David Vaughan pens essays that detail the rich stories of Georgia soldiers. Still, the vast majority of Civil War images are unidentified

David W. Vaughan at 2023 Phoenix flies (Picket photo) and images of Georgia soldiers 
William Raines, Randolph Spalding and Alfred Cantrell, described below (David Wynn Vaughan Collection)

David Wynn Vaughan enjoys the thrill of the hunt.

The longtime collector of photographs depicting Confederate soldiers -- many from Georgia -- has a seasoned eye for ones that stand out. “I love (subjects) that are heavily armed,” he says. “I love tinted photographs. It crosses over to artwork to me.”

Vaughan’s pursuit doesn’t end at a purchase. He becomes that soldier’s storyteller, researching and writing a modest biography that highlights service, combat and the subject’s personal attributes – heroic and perhaps less so.

Vaughan will talk about his passion Wednesday evening in Atlanta and show pictures of a dozen or more soldiers and give an overview of their wartime lives.

I attended Vaughan’s captivating talk last year at the Atlanta Preservation Center, the same site for this week’s “Southern Photography in the American Civil War.”

The program is part of the center’s annual Phoenix Flies. Participants over several weeks can attend the “preservation celebration” at scores of sites across the Atlanta area.

The collector told me he is going to add some new material and speak about research discoveries since March 2023.

The internet has been a huge boost since Vaughan began collecting some 40 years ago. “It has totally changed my collecting habit. I look at history as much as the photo,” he tells the Picket. (Photo at left courtesy David Wynn Vaughan Collection)

Vaughan, an Atlanta Realtor, is well-known in Civil War photography circles for his premier collection of hundreds of images and his precise research.

About 50 of his photos and biographies have been published in Georgia Backroads magazine, with 8-12 hours of work going into each profile.

“David Vaughan is a terrific resource for Georgia history,” says Dan Roper, editor and publisher of Georgia Backroads. “His Civil War photograph collection is superb and he does a great job finding and writing backstories.”

Vaughan’s efforts garnered some national attention some 15 years ago in an article in Garden & Gun, a copy of which sits in a framed case at home (below). His photographs have also appeared in Military Images, including one depicting a fighting minister.

(Courtesy of David Wynn Vaughan)

“Every time I buy a new portrait, I’m off on a new tangent,” Vaughan told Garden & Gun. “I research each one, so I get to learn and grow. I chase down their history, their letters, their thoughts. It’s enriching. And it’s surprising.”

During his presentations, Vaughan weaves anecdotes about how he came to acquire some of the images – being strung along by sellers or learning fascinating details about a soldier from descendants.

He has about 100 photographs of Georgia soldiers. “You can literally put a book together on some of these guys.” Among the men he has researched for Georgia Backroads:

-- Pvt. Alfred Webb Cantrell of Cobb’s Legion cavalry (right): Cantrell was one of three brothers to join up. His unit fought at Brandy Station and skirmishes leading up to Gettysburg, and later Petersburg. Cantrell took part in every engagement except when in Georgia in 1864 to help procure horses. After the war, Cantrell took his family to Warrensburg, Mo., where he died in 1917 at age 75. Cantrell poses in the ambrotype with a revolver and cavalry saber. He wears a nine-button shell jacket and an oval Georgia state seal buckle, upside down for some reason.

-- Col. Randolph Spalding, 29^th Georgia: Spalding was a member of a prominent family on the Georgia coast. His unit was stationed in Savannah and South Carolina, and he was reported by a sergeant to be “shamefully drunk” before battle at Fort Walker. An officer in another unit said Spalding attached himself as a private to a South Carolina regiment and fought throughout the day. He resigned for unknown reasons in December 1861 and died of pneumonia at age 39 in Savannah.  A newspaper said “a more generous and kind-hearted man never lived.” The ambrotype of Spalding depicts him in a double-breasted jacket, with three stars on his collar. He strikes a Napoleonic pose, with hand in jacket.

(Photos courtesy David Wynn Vaughan Collection)

-- Pattillo brothers: Left to right in the portrait above are Benjamin, George, James and John Pattillo, who served in Company K of the 22^nd Georgia Infantry from Henry County. The regiment took part in “prolonged, arduous campaigns” from Seven Pines, Gettysburg and Cold Harbor to the Petersburg trenches and surrender at Appomattox. Benjamin died at Second Manassas and James and John were wounded during the war. The 1861 ambrotype features Corsican cap covers over their kepis. The brothers hold Bowie knives and George’s shell jacket has red tape trim on either side of the buttons.

-- Sgt. William Green Gaither Raines, 9^th Georgia Infantry: The Walton County, Ga., man and his regiment fought in Virginia at first. It suffered brutal casualty numbers at Gettysburg and Raines was wounded a few days later. He died on Nov. 18, 1863, during a skirmish around Knoxville, Tenn. He was about 29. His brother, Littleton, died a few weeks later during an assault on Fort Sanders in Knoxville. In an ambrotype, Raines wears a seven-button jacket and the image is housed in a handmade case with a rare black embossed paper mat. “There was a shortage of photographic supplies in the South because of the Union naval blockade,” Vaughan wrote in Georgia Backroads, and photographers improvised by making their own cases

-- Col. John Hart, 6^th Georgia Cavalry (right): “Although a man of the cloth, he loved hard liquor and single women,” Vaughan wrote in Georgia Backroads. Hart used his hot temper and Rebel yell to lead charges. He was wounded in July 1864 near Atlanta and got into a row a month later with another officer, leading to talk of a duel. His regiment chased the Union army all the way to Durham, N.C. The officer returned to Floyd County, where he died in 1878 at age 52. In his portrait, Hart wears a seven-button, double-breasted frock coat, and the stars on his collar and gold braid denote has rank as colonel.

Ode to just a boy: 'Not knowing your real enemy'

Roper of Georgia Backroads says Vaughan’s “photos are terrific and have drawn a lot of interest from readers.”

Vaughan, as a freelancer, provided a photograph of a Union soldier for the spring 2011 issue of Georgia Backroads. Pvt. Rasho Crane, a musician with the 7^th Wisconsin Infantry, was captured at the Wilderness and died at Andersonville prison in Georgia. His grave marker gives his last name as Cram.

Crane was only 15 when he died, just a few months after enlistment. The magazine says it chose Crane for the cover as representative of the huge human loss at Camp Sumter (Andersonville).

The publication of Crane’s photo inspired writer Emma Cottrell, then in her 80s, to drive to Andersonville, find Crane’s grave, lay two roses on it and then write a poem about the photo and his story, says Roper. 

Cottrell’s poem reads, in part:

“I stand before your grave, Rasho Crane,
far from Wisconsin and the waters of Lake Michigan:
the green fields of Kenosha.
I saw your photograph in a magazine;
a Union boy, a stranger, someone’s son.
Pathos struck my heart and I could not choose
but follow you to this place. In the strange
silence growing round me, I close my eyes
and see you again; young, hot-blooded,
impatient -- lured from home to fight,
not knowing your real enemy was Fate.

-- Emma Cottrell and Georgia Backroads

Who is this man whose photo was put in Macon time capsule?

Civil War-era photos of identified soldiers, of course, are a premium for collectors and that’s who Vaughan generally acquires.

“You can find out so many nuances of the images, based on the identity of the soldier,” Vaughan told me. “You can find where it was made, when it was made. It could be a first- or second-issue uniform.”

He does occasionally buy unidentified images and has been able to learn their names in about a half dozen cases. But it’s tough.

Officials hope to verify the identity of this man (Historic Macon Foundation)

The Cannonball House in Macon, Ga., reached out to Vaughan for help identifying a man whose ambrotype or tintype image was in a time capsule placed under the base of a Confederate monument in 1878. (The monument was moved in 2022 and the weathered time capsule was opened.)

The man likely was a Civil War veteran, given the monument was topped by a marble Confederate soldier holding a rifle, and he appears to wear a uniform. Are the crutches he holds the result of a battle injury or did the need to use them rise after war’s end?

Vaughan says the crutches stand out and raise many questions. He believes the man is possibly wearing a Confederate jacket, but it’s tough to tell whether it has military buttons. There is no insignia, but Vaughan believes it may be a navy-use coat.

“He was probably lucky to be alive. He was convalescing. It could have been made in a studio or could have been in a camp. It is important for him to be photographed with crutches.”

Research leads enthusiasts down many rabbit holes as they seek an identity. “We don’t know who he is. More times than not you are so far off-base,” says Vaughan.

Cheryl Aultman, executive director of the Cannonball House, confirmed on March 17 the man remains unidentified.

Tough battle to identify the unknown photo subjects

Ronald S. Coddington, editor and publisher of Military Images, explains why so many Civil War photographs pose identification challenges.

“Hard-plate photos, including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes, tend to be less identified because it was not easy to do so. The most common practice was to tuck a note, and maybe a lock of hair, poem, or other items, into the case behind the image,” Coddington wrote in an email.

“Less common is writing on the back of the image plate, or scratching a name into the surface emulsion. Paper photographs, including cartes de visite and other albumen prints, were much easier to identify because identifying information could be written directly on the print surface, or, more commonly, the mount. I estimate maybe 5 percent of hard plates and 20 percent of paper photos are identified, though not all are airtight.”

Ron Coddington at the Chickamauga Civil War Show in 2018 (Picket photo)

Cartes de visite (CDVs) were easier and cheaper to produce and were given out in larger numbers.

Internet sites, notably Civil War Faces on Facebook and Civil War Photo Sleuth, are a boon to professional collectors and amateurs wanting to put a name to a face.

Civilwarphotosleuth.com has made it possible to use face recognition in combination with classic photo sleuthing techniques to identify soldiers and sailors, says Coddington, who recommended I upload the Macon image there.

I did so in November 2022, asking others to weigh in. I compared his face to possible matches, but have had no luck thus far in identifying him.

David W. Vaughan at last spring's Phoenix Flies talk (Civil War Picket)

A Georgia photo collector uploaded the photograph on Civil War Faces. An inventory of the 1878 time capsule lists H.C. Tindall of Macon as the donor of the photograph and a miniature Confederate flag worn by a soldier. Another source gives his name as M.C. Tillman.

That post did not yield any concrete answers, and it’s not certain whether the subject is a Tindall or Tillman – or someone else.

Another contributing factor to the high number of unidentified portraits is they were never intended for public consumption.

“These were personal, family artifacts to be cherished. In many cases, names were not required because the recipient knew the sitter,” Coddington writes.

Concerns about loss of context and provenance

Those who want to get into serious collecting can expect to spend significant money.

Vaughan tells the Picket he rarely discuss prices “because it opens up a Pandora's box of possibilities.” Many factors determine value and it can be difficult for the beginning collector or dealer to grasp because every image is an original and the price is greatly determined from the subject matter, he says.

“Some of the first images I purchased over 30 years ago were in the hundreds of dollars. Quality Confederate and Union images have continued to climb in value. Expect to pay several thousand dollars for a clear, armed and identified image.”

Part of a very big collection (Courtesy of David Wynn Vaughan)

Coddington points out that collectible items can lose their context – and perhaps identity -- over time.

“As images became separated from families and moved into the marketplace they often became separated from diaries, letters, uniforms, weapons and equipment. Breaking up these personal items resulted in more money for the sellers, who could find more buyers for single items rather than a single buyer willing to spend a lot of money to buy an entire intact collection. As a result, many single artifacts made their way into collections of those who really appreciated them, but at the cost of destroying the provenance and context.”

Vaughan says he wants his collection to be kept together, wherever it ends up. “It would be hard to put it back together again” if they were sold off individually, he says.

The collector acknowledges he is in essence a custodian of the photographs. “I only own them for a while.”

Vaughan’s talk Wednesday at the Atlanta Preservation Center, 327 St. Paul Avenue SE, Atlanta, Ga. 30312, begins at 7 p.m. You can register for free admission here. Event capacity is limited.