© 1995, 1996, 1997 Steve Knoblock. All rights reserved.
Several valuable cluse were used to identify the subject as Miles J. Barnum. Typically, a carte de visite with a full head vingette portrait of a soldier will show only a jacket and collar identifying the subject as a soldier. The imprinted decorative frame was popular in the mid-1860s. From his discharge and pension papers we know Miles J. Barnum was in Arkansas during the last years of the war and that he was discharged at Little Rock in July 1865. The pension papers relate that Miles visited his father in Paola, Kansas and lived at James W. Fuller's house in the month after his discharge. He was then married. A Little Rock historian confirms that Henry Slatter's studio was indeed across from the Union Army headqurters. Miles had a brother, Amos W. Barnum who was killed at Vicksburg, so by the late date of this carte, we know it must be the surviving brother. You can see in this photograph the beginings of a beard, which in his wedding photograph AJB:8, looks to be about a months growth. Miles was discharged in July of 1865 and married a month later in August 1865. His beard growth is a clue to the identity of this portrait. The style of a man's beard usually remain constant out of habit and personality. We see the start here, the development in his wedding photograph, and later we see the same beard in a tintype.