Charles Cotton, circa 1864

Both images appear to have been taken at the same time, in a studio run by the Manchester Brothers....  in 1864.  This date is handwritten on the revenue stamp affixed on the back of the second card displayed here.  The tax on the photograph industry supported the war effort.  So many photographs of soldiers were taken during this period, the studios ran out of stamps.  The photographers were resupplied with stamps originally intended for the sale of playing cards (as is printed on the stamp) while awaiting new issues.  The tax on photographs was abolished in 1867.

The Manchester Brothers photographic studio was located at 73 Westminster St., in Providence, R.I.  The two different card stocks used to mount this pair of photographs suggest that the photographic studio was in transition... from  sole ownership (by the brothers, Henry and Edwin), to a partnership (with Angell). There is a brief description of the evolving careers of the Manchester Brothers in a past publication of the Rhode Island Historical Society:  see Maureen Taylor, "''Nature Caught in the Twinkling of an Eye': The Daguerreotype in Providence," Rhode Island History, 42:4, 1983, pp. 118-119.

In 1864 Charles Cotton was a 30-year-old veteran, with a wife, two daughters, and what would be lifelong, bowel complaints.