A full-length portrait of Captain McClure, an Iowa Civil War officer, presented as an albumen CDV produced at Brady's National Photographic Portrait Galleries, with studio addresses listed for both Broadway and Tenth Street, New York, and No. 352 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., placing the sitting during the war years of the early 1860s. The Brady imprint on this card type dates to the period when Mathew Brady's studios were among the most prominent destinations for Union officers seeking formal portraits.

McClure stands in a double-breasted frock coat with a single row of nine buttons, shoulder straps, and a leather sword belt with visible belt plate, his left hand resting at his side while his right arm bends behind him, a cavalry-style saber hanging at his hip. His full beard and direct, slightly upward gaze give the portrait a composed, commanding quality, and a draped studio table occupies the lower left of the frame.

Brady's National Photographic Portrait Galleries documented hundreds of Union officers throughout the Civil War, producing a visual record of the officer corps that remains among the most important collections of American military portraiture. Captain McClure's Iowa affiliation connects him to one of the Union's most actively recruited midwestern states.

The reverse bears the ornate printed imprint of Brady's National Photographic Portrait Galleries with dual locations in New York and Washington, D.C. An ink inscription on the reverse identifies the subject as Captain McClure of Iowa.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer