The album is bound in light-blue cloth with a stippled surface with an embossed decoration of a scrolled frame with a medallion at center. The cloth shows light wear and fading on the covers but it is heavier on the spine where there is some material loss. However, the binding is good. The mounts for the brass closure plates are present but the plates themselves are not.

Inside are twelve images, three are tintypes and the other nine are CDV’s. Except for one tin and one CDV, all appear to be wartime images. All back marks are either Massachusetts or Rhode Island. The photos show men, women and children, some in groups and some singly.

Two CDVs are named. One is a bust view of a man in dark civilian suit identified in period pencil as “CHARLES WOOLSEY.” The back mark is for F. J. AIKEN… MAMMOTH TRAVELING SALOON which was out of Concord, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, there are six Charles Woolsey’s that served in the Union Army, none are from Massachusetts or Rhode Island, and since this fellow is in civilian clothes, he may not even be a soldier.

The other identified image is of William H. Rugg. The photo is identified in period pencil and in the same hand that wrote the ID on the previous image of Woolsey. Rugg is shown seated in front of a painted backdrop with tents and a US flag. He wears a dark frockcoat with corporal chevrons and light trousers. In his lap he holds his forage cap.

Contrast and clarity are good. The mount and paper have some light surface dirt. Upper left edge of the paper has lifted a bit from the mount. Reverse has a photographer’s imprint for W. H. LANE… HAVERHILL, MASS.

William Hazen Rugg was born in Massachusetts in April of 1840. He enlisted as a private in Company F, 12^th Massachusetts Infantry on July 8, 1861. He was promoted to corporal on November 1, 1862 and captured at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. He was confined on Belle Island in Richmond until January 29, 1864 when he was sent to Andersonville, Georgia. He was paroled at Vicksburg, Mississippi in April of 1865 and spent several weeks in the hospital at Benton Barracks, Missouri and was then sent to Parole Camp at Annapolis, Maryland on May 14, 1865. He was mustered out at Boston, Massachusetts on May 20, 1865.

Sometime after the war Rugg moved out to California and settled in Petaluma. He was an active member of the GAR and attended the 50^th Reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913. During the return trip he got as far as Stockton, California when he became ill and died. He was buried in Washington Soldier’s Home Cemetery, Orting, Washington.

During Rugg’s time with the 12^th Massachusetts they saw action at Ball’s Bluff, Gaines Mill, Cedar Mountain, 2^nd Bull Run where they lost heavily, South Mountain, Antietam and Fredericksburg suffering major casualties in both, and then at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.  [ad] [ph:L]

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