He’s a young boy with an angelic face. But his uniform suggests that he’s seen the hell of war. And now the members of the Sally Tompkins chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy are trying to find out just who he was.

The faded portrait of the man (actually, little more than a child) wearing a gray Confederate shell jacket and trousers has hung on the wall of the Mathews historic courthouse for quite some time, but with no name or other identifying mark.

"He’s just adorable, whoever he is … and I’m dying to know" his identity, said UDC chapter vice president Christine Anthony. She was struck by how all the other portraits in the courthouse have corresponding name plaques, save this one.

At the February meeting of the Mathews County Board of Supervisors, the UDC chapter received permission to take the young man’s portrait, along with the chapter’s original 1908 charter (spelled "Sallie" Tompkins), to get the document and phot...