The perfection of the ambrotype process by Frederick Scott Archer around 1850 brought genuine improvement beyond the earlier daguerreotypes. For the first time, photographers were able to really perfect their art, capturing the subtleties of light and tone in their images, and at reduced cost. With ambrotypes, a glass plate was coated with a light sensitive emulsion, and while still wet, exposed through the camera. Exposure times were now faster, but still ranged from five to sixty seconds.  As the image was a negative, ambrotypes achieve a positive appearance due to a black backing housed behind the emulsion coated glass plate.

After processing in the darkroom, the resulting negative was sandwiched against a black backing. It then appeared as a positive image, further enhanced by artistic photographers who occasionally added color tint to areas of the image. By the early 1860’s, the more durable tintypes replaced the glass plate images, and ambrotypes faded from popularity, after only a decade of use.

The first example above is a ¼ plate (4¼" X 3¼") ambrotype of two infantrymen, both wearing 9-button enlistedman’s coats. One holds a bugle with lanyard, the other stands with his musket at ease. Of particular note are the second soldier’s denim jean trousers with turned-up cuffs. Denim fabric trousers first saw use in the gold fields of California in 1850. Although available by the Civil War period, they were certainly not military issue, but could have been privately purchased by this soldier. The glass plate is held in place with a simple brass matte and kept in a leatherette case.

The second example is also a ¼ plate ambrotype, shot in horizontal format.  The subjects are likely a family, the father an infantry private, posing in his near-new uniform.  He is joined by his wife and three children, with the younger son holding his kepi.  The black backing is a piece of fine weave black fabric housed in the thermoplastic case behind the image.

This is the only known tintype of William Frank Browne, who made the earliest known photographs of George Armstrong Custer as a Brigadier General. It was formerly in the Mark Katz collection.
Browne was born in Northfield, VT. He entered the Union Army from Berlin, VT as a private in Company C 15th Vermont Volunteers. He served until August, 1863 when he mustered out of service. Brown then shows up at the Stevensburg winter encampment of Judson Kilpatrick’s 3rd Division, with a photographer’s studio in the camp of the 5th Michigan Cavalry. In addition, to taking the albumen of Custer seen elsewhere on this website, Brown took many of the photographs in the Major Robert C. Wallace 5th Michigan collection; see the "Finding Major Wallace” articles.

Towards the end of the War, Browne became a photographer for Alexander Gardner. A collection of 120 photographs taken by Browne were published by Gardner under the title "View of Confederate Water Batteries on the James River.” Following the War he returned to Northfield where he died of consumption on 12 September 1867.

The carte-de-visite was a small visiting-card portrait, typically measuring 4½” x 2 ½" and mounted on card stock. CDVs, as they are called, were occasionally given as gifts to friends or family, and were often signed. Some soldiers wrote brief notes on the back, or penned sentiments beneath their signatures. It was a common practice in the mid 19th century to collect CDVs of notable personalities, or family members, and place them together in albums.

CDVs were originally introduced in France in 1854, where cameras had been adapted to record a number of photographs on one plate (usually eight). Multiple images of the same photo could be produced economically, bringing photography into the affordable range of the soldier. Some CDVs were mass marketed to raise funds for various causes. Others, of notable persons, were printed for sale to interested admirers or for collector’s albums.  But most were made for the personal use of the soldier to share with comrades or to send home.

CDVs of military subjects are an excellent resource for study of war-period details of uniforms, accouterments, weaponry, and other particulars of soldier life. Many photographers placed their name and studio location as a "backmark” on the card stock. These backmarks are often helpful in tracing the travels of soldiers identified in the images.

By the middle of the 19th century, photography was becoming affordable to the average American. In its earliest forms known as ambrotypes and dagguerotypes, images were captured on glass plates. The results were fragile and lacked contrast.

In 1853, a Frenchman named Alexandre Martin introduced the tintype process by placing a sensitized collodion emulsion on a metallic sheet that resulted in a direct positive image which was both fast and inexpensive to produce. It also yielded much higher quality photographs, which were sold in various sizes, the most common of which was known as the 1/6th plate, and was 2 ¾” X 3 ¼”. The positive image was a one-of-a-kind with no duplication process involved. Innovative photographers retouched the emulsions, adding rose to the subject’s cheeks, color to their trousers or uniforms, and gilt to their buttons, buckles or headgear insignia.

Most such plates were held in a leather or thermoplastic carrying case under protective glass, fastened in place behind a brass matte. Now, the Civil War soldier could carry an image of his loved ones into the field. In turn camp photographers produced many images that the soldiers sent home to family.

Original direct contact albumen print of Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer. It was taken on or about 25 January 1864 at Stevensburg, VA by William Frank Browne, the 5th Michigan camp photographer. Custer is wearing the uniform in which he would be married to Elizabeth "Libbie" Bacon on February 9th in Monroe, MI; he also had just gotten his hair cut. This photograph is #K-25 in Mark Katz's "Custer in Photographs". It is one of four known to exist and is the most representative of the General while he was in command of the Michigan Brigade.