[GretchenM]

I'm just finishing Ulysses Grant: Personal Memoirs, which has prompted me to look online for Civil War photos. Look at these Federal Scouts and Guides, Army of the Potomac - Brandy Station, VA, March 1864, and then picture Kerry with his comrades, his Band of Brothers (the non-Swift Vets for Truth kind), and see if you can detect a difference.

This was taken 11 months before the end of the Civil War, after three years of hard, hard fighting.

[GretchenM]

Oops - photo taken in March 1864; war ended in April 1865 = 13 months more or less.