David Deitcher provides a context for thinking about these photographs:
Romantic friendship between American men acquired a different kind
of social prestige and meaning within the context of the Civil war.
No sooner did young recruits leave the shelter and ties of home and
family than they were thrust into mutual dependence, care, and collective
terror of being comrades in arms. Intimate ties were tacitly encouraged
as a result of the soldier's need to steel himself for battle, to
prepare emotionally for the prospect of injury and death, and for
having to inflict suffering on others. (Dear Friends: American
Photographs of Men Together, 1840-1918, 87)
