Liljenquist collection

The bulk of the collection comprises ambrotypes, tintypes, and cartes de visite of individual soldiers and officers from both sides of the conflict.

The family assembled the first 700 items in the archive through online auctions and visiting Civil War memorabilia vendors.

[2] Research into a drummer boy from Maine who served three years "with the greatest army that was ever known" and died at age 21 from malaria complications inspired the Liljenquists to donate their assembled collection to the Library.

[5] Many of the photographs have been dispersed over time from their families of origin and lack identifications, so the Library of Congress created a Flickr stream and has a contact email for the collection, as it is actively soliciting potential IDs from genealogists and volunteer Civil War researchers.

[6] Community identifications have been made, either tentatively,[7] or conclusively, such as a "famous" photo of a Confederate, initially cataloged as unidentified but familiar to hard-core Georgia historians,[8] and a group photograph that was connected with Company H of the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry—an image including both a future Congressman and a Medal of Honor winner.

This now-iconic image of the family of Sgt. Samuel Smith, an African-American soldier wearing an Abraham Lincoln campaign pin, is a featured photo on Wikimedia Commons and was donated to the Library of Congress as part of the Liljenquist Collection
Unidentified soldier in Virginia Volunteer uniform and secession badge
This image of A. M. Chandler and Silas Chandler was purchased from Chandler descendants and owned by the Liljenquists "for about 10 minutes" [ 1 ] before it was donated to the Library of Congress