Various American Photographers, including E. & H. T. Anthony, Alexander Gardner, J. Gurney & Son, and others (active 19th century)

a carte-de-visite album containing 114 cartes, albumen prints, most of Confederate Officers, Politicians, and Notables, inserted into window mounts, most titled in various hands in ink or pencil on the reverse or on the mount, 1860s.  Thick 4to, elaborate tooled full morocco, all edges gilt, double brass clasps, inscribed ‘A. H. Scales, Greensboro, N. C.’ in an unidentified hand in ink on the front pastedown, a manuscript list of sitters in the hands of James Duncan Graham and others in ink and pencil, 4 pages 4to, laid in

This carte-de-visite album, comprised almost exclusively of Confederate portraits, is believed to have been compiled largely by James Duncan Graham himself; most of the meticulous manuscript list of portraits which accompanies the album is in his hand.  Although there are window mounts throughout the album which are empty, the manuscript list of portraits indicates that the album is essentially complete as planned.  The empty window mounts correspond to gaps in the manuscript list; perhaps cartes of other sitters were slated for inclusion at a future date.   

Among the cartes which are likely first, or at the most second, generation photographs, are ones of Jefferson Davis, Matthew Fontaine Maury, Franklin Buchanan, Sam Houston, Alexander Reynolds, Gustavus Smith, John Maffitt, and John Magruder.  Among other good cartes in the album, although not necessarily first-generation, are ones of A. P. Hill, Charles Henningsen, William Walker, Roger Hanson, Jeff Thompson, Jack Hays, and vignetted cartes of William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, John Breckinridge (signed), and George Pickett (signed).  The Pickett carte carries the imprint of Rockwell & Cowell of Petersburg and a cancelled tax stamp on the reverse.  There is a composite carte of the portraits of ‘Forty-nine Officers of the C. S. Army and Navy’ with a printed list of sitters on the reverse.  The album also includes a first-generation carte of Union general Philip Sheridan.  The largest number of portraits of Confederate officers are third or fourth-generation vignetted cartes, with the imprint of E. & H. T. Anthony. A complete list of cartes in the album is available upon request.

The ownership inscription of A. H. Scales on the front pastedown refers to Rear Admiral Archibald Henderson Scales (1868 -1952), the husband of Harriett Pierce Graham, daughter of William Montrose Graham and granddaughter of James Duncan Graham.   Scales, who hailed from Greensboro, North Carolina, was superintendent of the United States Naval Academy from 1919 to 1921.  Scales’s uncle, Alfred Moore Scales (1827 – 1892) was a brigadier-general in the Confederate army, and governor of North Carolina from 1885 to 1889.

Although both of James Duncan Graham’s sons and Graham’s brothers fought for the Union during the Civil War, Graham’s second wife, Frances Wickham, was a Virginian.  Her brother Williams Carter Wickham (1820 – 1888) was a brigadier general in the Confederate army.