A recent addition to the Military Collection is a hand-colored tinted ambrotype of a sergeant of an antebellum militia company. It is in a glass and gold metal frame 14 x 11 cm. behind a brass mat all contained within in a large carved wooden frame 32 x 28.5 cm.
This striking studio portrait taken sometime in the decade prior to the Civil War depicts a seated figure wearing a bright scarlet coatee festooned with gold buttons and adorned with epaulets. His trousers are navy blue or black with a wide stripe of white. Across his chest are two shoulder belts with a distinctive rectangular belt plate bearing a shield. His left hand cradles a sword, and on the table to his right rests a tall bearskin with white plume.
While the uniform is similar to that worn by the Albany Burgess Corps of New York, it is more likely to be a member of the First Light Infantry of Providence, Rhode Island, a prominent militia unit which was chartered in 1818; it furnished two companies to the Rhode Island Detached Militia in 1861 when war broke out, and became a regiment in 1863.