© 1995, 1996, 1997 Steve Knoblock. All rights reserved.
Why do we think the subjects are Miles and Susan Barnum? They were married 6 Aug 1865 in Union County (probably in Anna). Miles was discharged a month earlier in July 1865 at Little Rock, Arkansas. There he had a carte de visite made of himself, no doubt sent to Susan in a letter. In that portrait, he shows the start of a beard much like the one in this photograph. His general appearance matches that carte de visite and an unidentified tintype made later on. It is the only photograph among Susan's photographs depicting a wedding and was identified by her granddaughter (unrlieable as that may be from a person who never saw her) as being her, and was (as all these photographs were) among the possession of Susan's son Abijah Jackson Barnum. He ceratainly could have passed along knowledge to his daughter of at least some of the subjects.