Question of the Week: What was the first Civil War artifact that you encountered?
What was the first artifact from the Civil War that you ever owned, touched, or saw in person?
What was the first artifact from the Civil War that you ever owned, touched, or saw in person?
I saw, and was able to hold 9with gloves), an authentic, mint condition Civil War weapon that one of the members of our Capital District Civil War Round Table had recently acquired. I was a new Round Table member and that was a spine tingling experience I have never forgotten.
My first and only artifact that I have saw and touched was a mangled minie ball that I found on Little Round Top. Its nose was completely smashed in which made me conclude that it hit the rocky face of the hill and tumbled to the surface. Upon my further examination of the bullet I noticed that instead of the Union manufactured three rings on the side of the minie ball, this one only had two rings. So I concluded that this round was shot by some Rebel attempting to climb and conquer the Hill.
An ear of corn from the Perryville Battlefield in Kentucky. The 21st Wisconsin sustained heavy losses there 8 October 1862..
My wife’s great grandfather was in the 21st Wisconsin infantry, Company G. He was there.
When i was 12 or 13, i ran across a crossed cannon cap device and a set 1st LT arty shoulder straps at a flea market … they lanquished in a box for 40 years until i did a little research and found them to be Smith Patent brass stamped shoulder straps … popular because they were sturdier than the straps made from cloth and bullion.
A book that family passed down, inscribed to an ancestor: Cpl. Samuel Dunkerly 48th PA
When I was about 11, on my first battlefield visit, we stopped at a roadside relic shop near Perryville, Kentucky. My dad bought me a minie ball and a bayonet. I later learned that the bayonet was for a Trapdoor Springfield (post Civil War) which was disappointing, but I still have that bullet.
At Petersburg when my elementary school class took a tour there. We got to hold spent rifle ammo that had been found over the years there. And we got to “touch” cannons and other items.
When I was 9 years old, we were in my grandmother’s attic and came on my ancestor’s fatigue cap. GAR kepi, tintypes, writing slate, coffee pot, Confederate paper money left on the field at Antietam, diaries for 1861-1864, and a spent minie. The life-long “addiction” had started.
Growing up, there were several cannonballs on a shelf in my grandparent’s basement. My great grandparents lived close to Antietam and after the battle drove a horse and buggy there to see what happened and picked up some 6 pound solid shot. My uncle inherited the house and we think sold them. I wish I would have asked for one before they disappeared.
One of the cannon at Gettysburg.
Back in the ’70’s, I built a house in a subdivision at Gloucester Point VA that was reputed to have been the location of Confederate and Union encampments during the Civil War. I tilled up a small garden plot to raise some tomato plants and a few other veggies for our family. Between the squirrels and an occasional deer my adventure into agriculture was a disaster. The only thing that I harvested was a mini ball that popped up on the top of the row of carrots after a hard rain event. That mini ball has followed me now for over a half century.
When I was young, I saw the deringer Booth used to assassinate Lincoln at the Ford’s Theater museum. Even for a child, it was sobering.
I was five, and my grandfather showed me his grandfather’s US belt buckle and Grand Army of the Republic badges (the latter in pristine condition), and he and my grandmother began telling me about the 26 boys from their two families who served in the Civil War. My grandpa, the namesake of his grandpa, told me the artifacts were mine, and would be given to me when I was old enough to properly care for them.
George Washington Mohney (Mani), Sergeant, Company F, 67th Pennsylvania Infantry, 3 years, 7 months’ service. Handsome as a movie star and “one tough cookie” I was told by my grandpa and great-uncle, who grew up with this soldier in their home. When he passed in 1919 the local newspaper stated, “He was known throughout the region as a man of the greatest integrity.”
My Greatgrandfather J. B. Foard’s sword and scabbard, 5th NC Cavalry, 63rd Rgt., Co. H. It (and he and his horse) went from briefly to Eastern NC, then to Brandy Station and north with Lee (specifically Robertson) through Middleburg and Aldie to Gettysburg, then through two years to Petersburg, Five Forks, and Namozine Church where Sheridan and Custer overtook Barringer and the 5th dispersed to Danville expecting to meet Lee’s train, but then went home. It’s now on my mantel, just in case…..
The cannon at Gettysburg National Park. Although I played on a Civil War era cannon at Fort Knox in Maine, a post far from the fighting.
Has to be minie balls, shells, or cannons from Port Hudson, or maybe the two cannon from Fort Sumter gifted to LSU by W. Tecumseh Sherman postbellum.
I was 17 years old, and got to shoot an 1863 rifled muzzle loader. My friend’s father had two of them. They loaded the weapon by first pouring a measured amount of gunpowder; then the ball with a wad of cloth. I aimed at a gallon paint can about 20 yards away, and hit it dead center. A great way to start my enjoyment of Civil War history.
Standing in my great grandfather’s barnyard that held the cattle owned by farmers on the western side of the Susquehana River during the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania, driven across the river on the Wrightsville-Columbia bridge before it’s destruction by Pennsylvania militia stop Gordon’s Confederate brigade from getting to the eastern side of the river where my great grandefather’s farm was located. That prevented the cattle from being slaughtered to feed Lee’s army advancing on Gettysburg. My grandfather told my father that he never saw so many cattle in such a small space whilethe battle raged on the other side of the river.