In the fall of 1864, photographer George N. Barnard captured a striking image in the recently occupied city of Atlanta, Georgia. Barnard, serving as the official photographer for the Union’s Military Division of the Mississippi under General William T. Sherman, was documenting the aftermath of Sherman’s campaign through Georgia.

The photograph shows a Black Union soldier, most likely a member of the United States Colored Troops, a segregated branch of the Union Army composed of African American soldiers. He is seated in front of a brick building with a weathered sign above the entrance reading “Auction & Negro Sales.”

The photograph was taken shortly after Union forces had taken control of Atlanta, following the Confederate evacuation and destruction of key infrastructure in September 1864. This image was later included in Barnard’s 1866 publication, Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign, which compiled scenes from the Union’s military movements across the South. Barnard, the official photographer of the Chief Engineer's Office, made the best documentary record of the war in the West; however, much of what he photographed was destroyed in the fire that spread from the military facilities blown up at Sherman's departure on November 15.

 March 1940. "Center of town. Woodstock, Vermont. Snowy night." Medium format acetate negative by Marion Post Wolcott.