In his fantastic collection of over 300+ plus images of Tar Heel soldiers of the War Between the States, Greg Mast has done the NC reenacting community a tremendous service. Volume I of State Troops and Volunteers; a Photographic Record of North Carolina's Civil War Soldiers, (Raleigh: State of NC, 1995) covers the period from before secession through Fredericksburg and consists of a wide variety of portrait images (with some images of the NC dead at Sharpsburg). Most of these images are of men in their initial uniforms, taken before going off to war, but some are taken later.
The subject of this issue's analysis is an interesting late war soldier's image, that of 1st Sergeant Neil Alexander Maultsby, of Company H "The Columbus Light Infantry" (his brother Samuel White Maultsby was the company's captain),51st NCT
1st Sergeant Maultsby enlisted as a private on 29 April, 1862 when the 51st NCT was formed, was promoted to 1st Sgt on 1 January, 1864 and served until his death on 17 July, 1864 from a wound receive just 30 days earlier. This image was taken sometime after his promotion (on the original image, his white or light blue stripes are faintly visible). He is, obviously, posed for the photographer.
He wars a NC state issue jacket made of jeans cloth. His trowsers appear to be either dark gray or dark blue. His forage cap is distinctly darker than his trowsers (based on the shading) and is either a Federal cap or black. As it has no slide buckle on the very thin chin strap, it is most likely a state issue forage cap (which I believe to have been black), common to the images of NC troops in Mast.
He has a leather roller buckle belt with a shield front style cap pouch and carries his cartridge box on a sightly narrower than normal sling (which may be painted canvas, as it does not reflect the light like his belt - or it may be an imported English sling as these measured 1.5"(1)).
His six metal buttons are indistinct, but the shape indicates either NC state seal or Federal eagle buttons.
He is armed with an 1853 Enfield that looks very much as if it is struck bright . There is insufficient detail to tell if he is carrying an English made Enfield cartridge box.
1. Johnson, Paul D., Civil War Cartridge Boxes of the Union Infantryman (Lincoln, RI: Andrew Mowbray, 1998) 171.