Carte-de-visite album of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment

An album of cartes-de-visite featuring men of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Volunteers, assembled by John Ritchie, the regimental quartermaster. The book has a tooled black leather cover with gold painted details. There is a floral decoration on the front cover and filigree on the spine. There are a pair of metal bands fixed to the front and back of the book, which are connected to clasps for holding the book closed. The lower clasp is missing. The interior of the book is composed of 25 stiff sleeves of paper which are open on the top for photo cards to be inserted. Each page is white and has a curved printed gold frame around an arched opening in the page. The book has 49 cartes-de-visite inserted into these sleeves which feature soldiers, officers, musicians, and other people or scenes related to the 54th Regiment. A number of the images have the name of the individual written beneath the photo on the sleeve in blue ink, which seem to be later additions. The backs of many of the cartes-de-visite have photographer information and handwritten notes identifying the sitter or year.