A New Look at Old Abe’s Color Guard

Abstract

Many images of the American Civil War exist today and allow us to gain insight into the lives’ of those involved in the conflict. Unfortunately, these images also pose questions as many of the soldiers they depict are unidentified or identified with unknown reliability. One such image is that of the Wisconsin Infantry Color Guard and their bald eagle mascot “Old Abe.” One of the men in the color guard has been identified as George W. Riley due to an inscription on the back of the image. We perform state-of-art biometric-facial analysis of this soldier and several candidate identities. Through this biometric analysis and corroborating historical documents, we present compelling evidence that this soldier is not George W. Riley, but is more likely Walter J. Quick.