Allan Spoor, a musician in Company E, is identified by inscription as the subject of this CDV, photographed by C.L. Hamilton at Fort Randall, Dakota Territory. Hamilton's printed imprint appears on the reverse of the mount. Hamilton worked as a photographer and post trader at Fort Randall from about 1865 into the 1870s before relocating his studio to Sidney, Nebraska, situating this sitting within that period.<BR><BR>Spoor stands in a dark frock coat with two rows of buttons over lighter colored trousers, a kepi style cap bearing a company or corps insignia, and dark boots. He holds an upright brass cornet by its bell, its valve cluster and coiled tubing clearly rendered, resting the instrument's flared mouth near the studio floor. A small wooden stand or prop table is visible at his left.<BR><BR>Hamilton is best known for his portraits of Sioux subjects taken at the nearby Yankton and Santee Agencies, as well as a series depicting officers and enlisted men stationed at Fort Randall, making his studio one of the more historically documented on the upper Missouri frontier in this period. The presence of a company musician among his subjects reflects the routine military portraiture that supplemented his better known ethnographic work.<BR><BR>The reverse bears the printed imprint C.L. Hamilton, Photographer, Fort Randall, D.T., along with a pencil inscription reading Allan Spoor, Co. E musician, Cornet, followed by additional partially legible notation.<BR><BR>From the collection of James Lee Soffer