A relaxed General Custer sits next to a Confederate prisoner

Daily Mail

A fascinating collection of images from the American Civil war representing both armies have been brought to life via colorization, giving further insight into the most studied episode of U.S. history.

The selection of images taken over the course of the war which ran from 1861 to 1865, show some famous faces including General George A Custer, a commander who rose to fame as an officer during the war.  

In of one of the historic photographs, a young Custer sits alongside Confederate prisoner Lieutenant James B. Washington, who was one of his classmates at U.S. Military Academy West Point before the conflict broke out. 

It has previously been reported that when Custer heard about the apprehension of his friend, he appealed for Washington to be his aide while in captivity under the Union army.

Also pictured in the collection is President Abraham Lincoln, considered to be one of the great American leaders he steered the nation through the war while defining it as a struggle to save the Union.

In January 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in areas still under Confederate occupation, an vital gesture that identified the Union’s struggle to end slavery.

Almost all of the images show the soldiers posing in their uniform, sometimes holding a form of weapon such as a gun or knife, while another depicts the 7th Illinois Infantry Regiment holding their color guard.

The pictures were colorized by Irish artist Matt Loughrey, who has been adding vibrancy to black and white images for years, with some of his work featuring in National Geographic. 

See them here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6495649/A-relaxed-General-Custer-sits-Confederate-prisoner.html