It shows three bushwhackers in the band of William Clarke Quantrill. They are (1) Arch Clements, (2) Dave Pool, and (3) Bill Hendricks. As you can see they are well armed with pistols and bottles of liquor.
This was taken in Sherman, Texas, where the band was wintering. As the leaves fell and the underbrush thinned, bushwhackers would leave Missouri for their homes or for Texas. In my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness, the young bushwhackers Jimmy and Morgan discuss wintering over in Texas instead of going home as they usually do.
Those two dangerous but otherwise honorable teenagers wouldn't have fit in. The three real bushwhackers shown here sat for their photo right after shooting up a hotel on a drunken spree. They didn't like this picture and trashed the photographer's studio, although Quantrill later made them pay for damages.
Dave Pool makes a brief appearance in A Fine Likeness. A real firebrand, he is absolutely fearless in the face of the enemy, yet is very afraid of what some of his band are trying to summon in the woods of Missouri. Another member of the gang was a young Jesse James, who has a larger role in the novel.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
The mix of real history and fiction in your novel sounds fascinating.
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