This sixth-plate tintype shows a seated soldier posed in front of a painted backdrop with a tree at right and conical military tents at left. He wears a forage cap pushed back slightly on his head so as not to shade his face. His coat is a regulation enlisted frock coat showing its collar piping, and he has donned a pair of white dress gloves for the occasion.

Not often seen in Civil War photos is the regulation, issue bugle this fellow hold on his knee. The bugle is angled so that the single loop is plainly visible for the camera, as is the removable “pig-tail” loop that could be added to change the key. The clarity of the image is excellent. You can even make out the brass ferrules on the bugle’s copper body, and see the plainly increasing diameter of the tube that marks it as a bugle rather than a trumpet. This is the classic, regulation Civil War bugle that every collector would like to find.

Our man is also equipped with sword and shoulder belt. The clarity is good enough to make out the eagle on the belt’s round breast plate and to tell that the sword is actually an 1840 pattern sergeant’s (NCO) sword rather than a musician’s sword (it seems to have a counterguard,) but that is not unparalleled in Civil War photographs. He, or the photographer, was aware of the reversal of the image that is characteristic of the tintype process and the soldier has moved the belt so as to appear to be correctly on his right shoulder.  Similarly, he has turned his belt plate upside down, which in this case was probably done out of habit by the photographer than out of sense. Turning a belt and buckle upside down had some purpose with an oval US plate, to make at least the “S” appear normal, or to make a sword appear to be on the wearer’s left, but with just a rectangular belt plate, really serves no purpose at all. To add to the photos interest, however, the plate seems clearly (once flipped again both vertically and horizontally) to be a New York state rectangular plate using an Old English “NY” inside a wreath, giving our bugler a state of origin.

The photo is not cased, but would fit any period sixth-plate case and comes with glass, mat, and frame in place. This is a very clear image with very good content and would certainly be a nice companion to a regulation bugle or a New York rectangular belt plate.

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