Outdoor group portrait wet collodion glass plate negative. Berlin, Maryland: Alexander Gardner, 1862. 4 3/4 x 3 3/4 in., mounted and framed to 9 3/4 x 11 3/4 in. Informational plaque to frame recto reads: "From the Estate of Shelby Foote / Circa 1862 Alexander Gardner / Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of The War / Plate #28 Scouts And Guides To The Army of The Potomac." WITH original inscribed wrapper the plate came in. 

Plate 28 from Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the War, Vol. I by Alexander Gardner (Philp & Solomons, 1866). According to the Smithsonian, this plate shows individuals who were attached to the Army of the Potomac's Secret Service Department, led by Allan Pinkerton. Normally based at Gen. George McClellan's camp in Cincinnati, these scouts moved to Maryland on the eve of the Battle at Antietam to help Union forces defeat the Confederacy. 

Shelby Foote (1916–2005) was an American novelist and historian best known for his sweeping three-volume narrative history, The Civil War: A Narrative, published between 1958 and 1974. Born in Greenville, Mississippi, and long associated with the literary culture of the modern South, Foote brought a novelist’s eye for character, scene, and dramatic pacing to historical writing, helping to popularize Civil War history for a broad audience. He became especially well known late in life through Ken Burns’s 1990 documentary The Civil War, in which his reflective, conversational commentary made him one of the film’s most memorable voices. 

Originally born in Scotland, Alexander Gardner (1821-1882) immigrated to the U.S. in 1856, where he initiated contact with Mathew Brady after seeing one of his exhibitions in London. Gardner became Brady's assistant in New York, then moved in 1858 to head Brady's gallery in Washington, D.C., where he became well-positioned. This helped him become the staff photographer for McClellan's army after Gardner and Brady decided to begin documenting the Civil War. Gardner captured the Battle of Antietam, then was relieved of his duties at the same time McClellan was. Since Brady was wont to credit Gardner's photographs as his own, Gardner left him and continued to document the Civil War, capturing the Battles of Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, as well as the Siege of Petersburg, among other important events. He also photographed Lincoln seven times while the president was alive, as well as his funeral train and some of the conspirators involved with his assassination. 

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