We are trying to identify these two soldiers from an old photo album belonging to a family who lived in Iowa during the war. The family members at that time didn't write down the men's names, now a few generations later their identity is lost. The family needs help from folks with some knowledge of uniforms and swords to allow them to hopefully put some names to these relatives.

Thanks to some very knowledgable people on these sites we now have good leads about the second photo.

I wonder if anything can be learned about the soldier in the TOP photo. Does the uniform or sword reveal anything about him that might be useful in helping us learn who he is?

Here is the link:

http://webpages.charter.net/normg/FelterPage/Indo/Porto/GroupVets.html