By Donovan Webster | Dec 08/Jan 09 | 

A Life in Pictures

Collector David Vaughan keeps the memory of Civil War soldiers alive—and on display

View a gallery of David Vaughan's photographs

The boy—just seventeen years old—stares into the camera, his eyes blank or perhaps a little sad, hands open on his legs. Sweat has matted the hairline along his temples. He wears a gray wool uniform, and the brass buttons down its front glint slightly gold. On the bill of his soldier’s cap, called a kepi, are written the letters “T. G. W.” They stand for Thomas G. Wood. And days after this photo was taken, he was dead. Tommie Wood, of Social Circle, Georgia, was drummer boy for Company H of the 11th Georgia Infantry in the Army of the Confederate States of America.

"This one is among my favorites,” says Atlanta collector David Vaughan of the Civil War portrait. “Mainly because I have a son of my own.” Vaughan pauses to read a scrap of Wood’s history, originally published in the Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, January 11, 1862. “Wood was the pet and idol of his regiment, but was struggling with pneumonia, that terrible scourge of the camp and the hospital. When asked whether he was afraid to die, he calmly answered: ‘No; I joined the church when but eight years of age; my father and mother are both in heaven and I would rather go and be with them there than to stay and suffer here.’”

It’s documents like this that keep Vaughan searching to improve his collection of Civil War portraits—particularly images taken of Georgia-based troops. “Originally, 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’t 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—and wearing a regulation kepi on his head. And while I didn’t buy that photo, it spoke to me. I thought: This is what I’m after.” 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.

“Every time I buy a new portrait, I’m off on a new tangent,” he says. “I research each one, so I get to learn and grow. I chase down their history, their letters, their thoughts. It’s enriching. And it’s surprising.”