A Virginia collector has donated to the Library of Congress the largest trove of Civil War-era photographs depicting average soldiers that the institution has received in at least 50 years, officials said last week.

The stunning photographs - small, elegant ambrotypes and tintypes - show hundreds of the young men who fought and died in the war, often portrayed in the innocence and idealism before the experience of battle.

The pictures, almost 700 in all, make up the bulk of the collection of Tom Liljenquist, 58, of McLean, who operates a chain of Washington area jewelry stores and with his sons has been buying Civil War photographs for 15 years....