Cartes de visite — from the French for "calling card" and pronounced "cart-de-vee-zeet" — abound even today because of the extremely high number of them made. The daguerreotype was introduced in 1839, but by the time of the Civil War, photographs were cheaper and more accessible. The 1851 invention of the negative/print process, which used glass plates for negatives and printing paper coated with egg white ("albumen paper"), meant that duplicate prints were possible.

Since albumen prints were printed on thin, smooth paper, they were mounted on cardboard to make them sturdier. The size of the mounts varied depending on the size of the prints. The smallest, the carte de visite, was favored for portraits like this image of the Bu-fords. The size — 4¼× 2½ inches — made it popular to use as a calling card. These cards quickly became collectibles, as evidenced in the fact that this example — showing Brig. Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte Buford and his wife on Aug. 6, 1864 — was part of a set collected by Col. John G. Hudson of the Union soldiers and officers stationed at Helena, Ark., in 1863 and 1864.