![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/GG0708_Collections_04-1-733x1100.jpg\")
Photo: Yvonne Boyd<\/p>
<\/p>
Collector David Vaughan<\/p> \n <\/div>\n\n
It\u2019s documents like this that keep Vaughan searching to improve his collection of Civil War portraits\u2014particularly images taken of Georgia-based troops. \u201cOriginally, when I began collecting Southern historical and Civil War artifacts about twenty years ago, I was buying things. A gun. A sword. A knife. A couple of pistols. But I didn\u2019t think I had anything interesting. It all felt cold. Then I went to a show and saw my first portrait image: a photograph of a Yankee, clad head to toe in his uniform and holding a Springfield rifle\u2014and wearing a regulation kepi on his head. And while I didn\u2019t buy that photo, it spoke to me. I thought: This is what I\u2019m after.\u201d Since then, Vaughan has scoured the big Civil War memorabilia shows and has made himself familiar to other period collectors. He has built a renowned collection of Civil War portraits that numbers in the hundreds.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I buy a new portrait, I\u2019m off on a new tangent,\u201d he says. \u201cI research each one, so I get to learn and grow. I chase down their history, their letters, their thoughts. It\u2019s enriching. And it\u2019s surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s a trip Vaughan is constantly ready to take. He considers a two-man portrait of the Hawkins brothers, from Oglethorpe, Georgia, who were attached to the 38th Georgia Infantry. The brother on the left\u2014the lieutenant with bushy sideburns who is drawing his sword in the photo\u2014was killed at the Battle of Winchester. The other brother, pulling his knife, survived the war. And then there is the tinted ambrotype of James M. Stedham, from Company F, 25th Alabama Infantry Regiment, Army of Tennessee. Decked out in a slouch hat and an eight-button tunic, he carries a rifle, a bowie knife, and a single-shot boot pistol. Captured at Resaca, Georgia, on May 15, 1864, he died of \u201cacute dysentery\u201d at a prison camp in Indiana the following year.<\/p>
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/GG0708_Collections_03-1-733x1100.jpg\")
Photo: Yvonne Boyd<\/p>
<\/p>
Civil War pistols<\/p> \n <\/div>\n\n
Another of Vaughan\u2019s favorites is the portrait of the Patillo brothers: four Atlantans who joined Company K of the 22nd Georgia Volunteer Infantry. All four are shown holding their unsheathed bowie knives vertically; each knife\u2019s D-shaped hand guard is shaped slightly differently from the others. \u201cThat\u2019s because bowie knives were made by local blacksmiths, who fashioned their D-guards differently,\u201d Vaughan says. \u201cAnd look\u2014John, the brother on the right, is also holding an Enfield rifle, while the brother on the left is holding a Confederate hand grenade. It\u2019s the only photo of a Confederate hand grenade I know of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three of the four Patillo brothers survived the war and returned home to have large families. \u201cThose families are now spread out all over North Georgia,\u201d Vaughan says. \u201cAnd when this photo was published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/em> a week before the opening of a museum exhibit devoted to the collection, I got a dozen phone calls from Patillo family members. With each of those calls, I thought: You see, these images aren\u2019t just history. These men, in their own way, are all still very much alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo: Yvonne Boyd<\/p> <\/p> Drummer boy Tommie Wood<\/p> \n <\/div>\n\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Collector David Vaughan keeps the memory of Civil War soldiers alive – and on display<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":53873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1782],"tags":[170,103],"authors":[1822],"issue":[2371],"recipe-type":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-and-garden","tag-civil-war","tag-collections","authors-donovan-webster","issue-dec-08-jan-2009","location-georgia","rubric-collections"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/GG0708_Collections_06-731x1100.jpg\"){kind=spacer}