Check out fabulous artifacts in Pennsylvania 'time capsule'

Mounted on a board, this Confederate bullet wounded Union cavalryman John Boyce in the leg.

                PANORAMA:  Captain Thomas Espy G.A.R. Post No. 153, Carnegie, Pa.
                                     (Click at upper right for full-screen experience.)

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Spend an hour at the Captain Thomas Espy Grand Army of the Republic Post No. 153 room in Carnegie, Pa., and you can easily imagine cigar smoke wafting in the air as white-haired men with huge mustaches swap war stories while clinking glasses of whiskey. Beginning in 1906, the second-floor space in the Andrew Carnegie Free Library served as a meeting area for Espy Post members as well as a repository for artifacts the old soldiers had gathered during and after the Civil War.

The last Espy Post member died in 1937, the room eventually was shuttered and the collection inside it forgotten and neglected. Some of the post's Civil War artifacts apparently were stolen. Thanks to a fund-raising effort spearheaded by the Andrew Carnegie Free Library in the 2000s, the memorial hall and artifacts were restored, and the room was officially re-opened in 2010. Today, it's billed as the best preserved and most intact G.A.R. post in the United States. Some call it a time capsule.

Daniel Rice of the 102nd Pennsylvania claimed he
plunged this bayonet into a Confederate 
at Flint Hill, Va.

Decorated in rich, brown decor, the room includes an organ used to entertain veterans, a massive illustration of the Andersonsville prisoner of war camp, a case filled with a complete, original set of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies as well as G.A.R paraphernalia.

On a wall near four large windows, a huge image of the post's namesake, resplendent in his militia uniform, overlooks his domain. Wounded and captured at Gaines' Mills on June 27, 1862, Espy died behind Confederate lines on July 6, 1862; the body of the 62nd Pennsylvania officer was never found. A large image of President Lincoln, G.A.R hero, commands a prominent spot on the wall above and to the right of Espy,

But it's the war-time relics, many of which crowd the shelves of cases, that are stars of Post No. 153. And that's just as the veterans intended.

"When every veteran of the Espy Post has answered his last roll call," they decreed early in the 20th century, "we leave for our children and their children, this room full of relics hoping they may be as proud of them as we are, and that they may see that they are protected and cared for – for all time.”

In 1911, a pamphlet of artifacts owned by the post was written by William H. H. Lea, who had served in 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery.  Entries, such as these for a bayonet and a bullet, are quite detailed:

"Carried by Daniel H. Rice, Company I, bayonet 102d Regiment, Pa. Vol. Infantry, from July 11, 1862, to June 28, 1865. Was brought home by him and was in his possession over 44 years. Mr. Rice says that at the battle of Flint Hill, Va., in a charge, it came to a hand to hand conflict. He killed a rebel by plunging this bayonet into his body. Secured from Mr. Rice January, 1906, for Memorial Hall."

"This is a Confederate bullet that wounded Corporal John M. Boyce, Co. K, 1st Pa. Cavalry, at the battle of New Hope Church, Va., November 27, 1863. When taken to the hospital and his boot removed, the ball fell on the floor, his pants being inside his boot. The ball, after passing through his leg, had not force left to go through the pants and fell into the boot. Has been in his possession over 47 years. Presented by him to G.A.R. Memorial Hall, March 3, 1911."

On Saturday afternoon, Espy Post curator Diane Klinefetter and docent Martin Neaman gave me a guided tour of the fabulous collection at the Carnegie Library, about six miles southwest of Pittsburgh. I photographed artifacts from the post collection, each numbered to correspond with a description in Lea's 1911 pamphlet. (Click on images to enlarge.)

(Espy Post hours: Ongoing tours on Saturdays between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.. Admission is free. Call 412-276-3456 for weekday appointments.)

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"CANTEEN: Was picked up by Wm. P. Mansfield, then a boy eight years old, canteen on the battlefield of Chancellorsville, Va., some time after the battle while in company with his father and grandfather, their home being only 10 miles from the battlefield. The canteen was painted some years ago by his sister, to keep it from rusting. Was procured from Wm. P. Mansfield of Washington, D.C., January, 1906, in his possession over 40 years."

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"SHELLS: Three pieces of shell were found by Matthew Quay Corbett on the battlefield of Gettysburg in August, 1906, in the field over which General Pickett charged, July 3, 1863. Secured from him for Memorial Hall, March 16, 1909. Shell fragments; 1 triangular with part of band on it; one circular piece; one with fuse threads inside."

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"HAND GRENADE: Secured at hand grenade government sale of army supplies in Pittsburgh, Pa., January, 1906, by W. H. H. Lea. The shell was patented August 20, 1861. Was used to defend forts and breast work by throwing them by hand among the charging columns when near the fort or breast works. Placed in Memorial Hall January, 1906."

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"COTTON: Was picked from the cotton bushes in 1881 by W. H. H. Lea, late Lieutenant of Co. I, 112th Reg., Pa. Vols., while on a visit to the Virginia battlefield, from the narrow strip of ground between the Union and rebel lines and directly in front of the rebel fort at Petersburg, Va., blown up July 30, 1864. Over this ground the charging columns passed. Almost every foot of this ground was covered with Union dead or stained by as brave blood as ever flowed from the veins of American soldiers. Has been in possession of W. H. H. Lea for 25 years. Secured from him January, 1906, for Memorial Hall."

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"SIX BULLETS: Were secured by W. H. H. Lea, Co. I, 112th Regt., Pa. Vet. Vols., while visiting the battlefield of Fredericksburg, Va., October 23, 1909. Had laid on the field for over 40 years. The bullets were collected from different parts of the field. Placed in Memorial Hall January, 1911. One .69 caliber; four .58 caliber;
one .54 caliber."

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"PINE WOOD AND BULLET: Wood was cut from the battlefield of Cold Harbor, Va., in 1889. Bullet was found while working into flooring boards at the planing mill of Thomas Stagg, Cary Street, below 14th Street, Richmond, Va., in 1890. Was worked by a Confederate soldier, and by him turned over to D. E. McLean of Wilcox Street, Carnegie, who was working in the mill at the time. Has been in D. E. McLean’s possession 16 years. Secured from him for Memorial Hall, May 10, 1906. Tongue-in-groove molding, approximately 2″ x 4″."

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"MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTION OF U.S & AND C.S. RELICS: From the battlefield of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Travillians, Va. Found by Wm. P. Mansfield, a resident of Spottsylvania Co., Va., now of Washington, D.C. Secured from him January, 1906, and were in his possession over 40 years."

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"PINE KNOT WITH GRAPE SHOT: Pine knot with grape shot embedded was found on the battlefield of Chickamauga, Tenn., in 1900, by A. B. Pitkens of Providence, R.I. Was by him presented to James J. Brown on March 26, 1900. Several years later, when Mr. Brown [was] removing south, he presented it to Dr. R. L. Walker, Sr. Secured from Dr. Walker for Memorial Hall, May, 1906."

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Saying goodbye to 'home base,' 321 Old Farm Road

Moving on: Banks family "home base" for nearly 50 years.

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When my mom first saw our new house in Mount Lebanon, Pa., in the summer of 1968, she cried. The living room walls were a god-awful shade of purple and the house sorely needed some TLC. No way the place felt like home.

But those ugly walls were soon covered with a new color of paint, and the house at 321 Old Farm Road indeed became an amazing home for John and Peggy Banks and their three kids. For nearly 50 years, the red-brick house on the best tree-lined street in town was our "home base." For us, it was as easy to slip into as a favorite pair of old shoes.

Numbers embedded in my brain for decades.

This morning, the Banks Era ended. The sale to a terrific young couple was completed. Now it's time for them to create their own memories on Old Farm.

My sister, who bore the brunt of getting the old place prepared to sell, was ready to let go. So was my brother, the financial brain of the family who helped make the real estate deal happen. My wife said it's time for me to pass the torch, too. But it may take more than a nudge for me to let go of the past.

The memories are numerous and wonderful. In freshly fallen snow in the front yard, we celebrated the Steelers' first Super Bowl victory. In the backyard, I played catch after school with my dad, once snapping off a curve ball so hellacious that I thought I was destined for The Show. (That pitch was never duplicated by me, and I never came within a billion miles of MLB. But it sure was fun to dream big as a kid.)

In the basement, we played pool and darts with such characters as "Flea," "Booby" and Ernie B, laughing and brawling much of the time. More than once we closed the porch awning to avoid detection and rolled a keg of beer or two into the backyard while our parents were on vacation. We thought no one knew.

My dad, who died in July 2016, was a longtime NRA member.
He put this sticker on the basement door.

In our small, second-floor bedroom, my brother and I built a 22-story house of baseball cards, aiming to set a world record. There's a Polaroid of that stashed in a drawer somewhere.

The place has quirks and a little magic. We'll never forget the sound dirty clothes made hitting the bottom of the laundry chute from the second floor. If you didn't have a laundry chute as a kid, you missed out on a cool slice of life.

Heads-up, new family: The doors for two of the bedrooms stick. It will take time to master opening them without making that odd "thump" sound.

The upstairs bathroom still has a funky pink-and-blue floor and tiles -- that look may date to 1951, when the house was built. Every time I gazed into the mirror in that bathroom I felt much better looking. Now THAT'S magic.

Damn, I'm really going to miss the sound the little knobs on the railing leading upstairs make when they slide up and down.

Here's what else I'll remember: taking photos of our beautiful, young daughters in the fall leaves in the front yard; my lovely wife in the rocking chair in the living room; deliveries by the long-ago milkman in that aluminum box by the back door; cherry trees and my dad's tremendous garden (rhubarb!) in the backyard; the antenna for my shortwave radio stretched from my bedroom to the huge tree in the side yard; the thwack of a plastic, sock-filled hockey puck hitting the wooden garage door; Mom sitting on a porch chair, the sound of wind chimes the only background noise; reading my first book about the Civil War and stumbling on the pronunciation of Antietam; our cocker spaniel's intense dislike for my friend Bob Gannon; and great neighbors such as the Pelusis, Fosters, Garrisons, Rinalds and so many more.

And, most of all, we remember Mom and Dad, the heartbeats of the house. When my sister, brother and I moved away, they made sure their doors were always wide open for us and our families. Our great hope is that this transition would meet their approval.

So see ya, 321 Old Farm Road. It has been a tremendous run for us. Although we won't be there physically, we know the great memories we cherish will always allow us to touch "home."

A final visit to the bathroom with the funky pink-and-blue tiled floor.

An old-time laundry chute, one of the cool features I will miss.

I'll miss the sound made by sliding these knobs up and down the railing.

Heads-up, new family: This door is a little quirky.

A view of the backyard, where memories were made.

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'Beyond belief': 1909 dedication of monument to Henry Wirz

Monument in memory of prison commandant Henry Wirz in Andersonville, Ga.

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On a wickedly hot late-spring day, nearly 3,000 people gathered in the center of sleepy Andersonville, Ga., for the dedication of the most controversial Civil War monument ever erected. In memory of Captain Henry Wirz — the long-dead commandant at the notorious POW camp located less than a mile away — the granite obelisk was the brainchild of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Reviled in the North and cast as a "martyr jailor" in the South, Wirz was in a white-hot spotlight on May 12, 1909, nearly 44 years after his hanging in Washington for "wanton cruelty" and murder of Union soldiers at Andersonville.

Andersonville prison commandant
 Henry Wirz was hanged in Washington 
on Nov. 10, 1865.

In the rural village in southwestern Georgia, flags of the old Confederacy "were everywhere and floral designs literally covered the shaft" of the monument. As a UDC chorus sang Dixie, Wirz's only living daughter, Julia, pulled a silk chord to release a huge flag, revealing the 36-foot monument. Later, a chorus sang Maryland, My Maryland, and a military company from Americus, Ga., fired off a salute.

Carefully crafted text — some would call it flat-out fraudulent — was also unveiled on panels on each of the four sides of the monument. "In memory of Captain Henry Wirz, C.S.A. born Zurich, Switzerland, 1822, sentenced to death and executed at Washington D.C. November 10, 1865," read one of them. "To rescue his name from the stigma attached to it by embittered prejudice this shaft is erected by the Georgia division, United Daughters of the Confederacy." Attendees couldn't miss Wirz's last name in large block letters near the base of the monument.

According to an Associated Press account of the dedication,  "the national significance of these exercises was not lost" upon the huge crowd, which strained to hear some the speakers. Sprinkled among them were men and women from the North. Sadly, some of them had lost relatives at Andersonville — those soldiers may have been buried in the national cemetery just outside the boundary of the old camp.

"Those from beyond the Mason Dixon line looked on in silence," a newspaper reported. "while this tribute was paid to the memory of the prison commander."

At least two of the speakers told of a kindly Wirz — the same man who ran the prison camp where nearly 13,000 Union POWs died of disease, malnutrition, and other inhumane treatment.  "Wirz was commanding many desperate men, some of them brave and good." Pleasant A. Stovall, editor of the Savannah (Ga.) Press, said under a canopy of U.S. and Confederate flags near the monument. "But others were recent arrivals from abroad, who barely spoke the English language, who were without understanding of the causes of the war, merely mercenaries. He was hampered at every step by the exigencies of his government."

The scene at Old Capitol Prison in Washington shortly before Henry Wirz was hanged 
on Nov. 10, 1865.  This is one of at least five images of the hanging taken  by Alexander Gardner.
 (Library of Congress Civil War collection)

Another speaker said the Swiss-born Wirz once had traveled to Macon, Ga., seeking food and medicine for Union POWs at Andersonville. The Atlanta Constitution even quoted a former Andersonville guard, who was brought to tears when he heard of the unveiling of the monument to his former commanding officer. "He was unjustly executed," said R.L. Meadows, who added he would have given anything to have attended the dedication.

Unsurprisingly, Southern newspapers praised the effort to honor Wirz and burnish his reputation.

Headlines in Atlanta Constitution
on May 13, 1909.

"No intelligent person at this day blames Captain Wirz [for Union deaths at Andersonville]," the Goldsboro (N.C.) Daily Argus wrote days after the dedication. "He was unjustly treated. He died a martyr to the cause he believed to be just, and the dedication of a monument to his memory, erected by the women of Georgia, is a well deserved tribute to his worth as a man and his courage and sincerity as a soldier."

Wrote the Richmond (Va.) Dispatch in an editorial:

"Wirz is publicly honored in the South now less for what he did than for what was done to him. He was made the scapegoat for things not of his doing and this monument stands to embody the Southern sense of the great wrong put upon him by the United States. The angry and resentful mob loves a visible sacrifice. Wirz was a propitiatory offering to popular indignation over the sufferings of Northern soldiers in Southern prisons. But Wirz was in no way responsible for these sufferings. They were caused by grim conditions which the racked South was powerless to better, and which the deliberate policies of the North greatly aggravated."

But Northerners, especially Union veterans, would have none of it. Well before the monument dedication, they were aghast about the effort to honor Wirz. At a gathering of former Union prisoners of war in Hartford, Conn., in April 1908, a pastor received applause after he excoriated the UDC's Wirz monument plan.

"Oh, woman of the Southland," Pastor E.S. Holloway told the group, "build your monument to [Stonewall] Jackson because he had pure heart; to [Robert E.] Lee because when he laid down arms he said to his comrades, 'We have but one country now'; to Alexander Stevens, for a self-sacrificing life; but God forbid that a monument of shame be built to the butcher Wirz, and if it be built may the lightning of heaven strike it into a thousand pieces.'"

Civil War veteran Joseph Foraker, a former
U.S. Senator, was aghast by the
monument to Henry Wirz. He would not
shed a tear, he said, if an "old indignant
patriot would blow it up."

Less than a week before the dedication, Joseph Foraker, a former U.S. Senator from Ohio, expressed outrage over the monument. The Civil War veteran, who had enlisted in the Union Army when he was only 16, said he "would not shed any tears if some old indignant patriot were to place under that monument enough dynamite to blow it up."

In the days following the monument dedication, anger seemed to spike in Northern newspapers, which referred to Wirz as a "brute," "foreign prison-keeper," "murderer" and the "Andersonville monster."

"If Wirz deserves a monument," a New York World editorialist fumed, "there should be a public memorial to Mrs. [Mary] Surratt, whom the verdict of history has acquited of real criminal complicity in the assassination of Lincoln."  An Ohio newspaper likened memorializing Wirz to "honoring Nero for burning Christians at the stake."

"It passes all understanding," another Ohio newspaper wrote, "how women could be the agents to pay for or erect a monument to such a man. There can be no palliation or defense for the damnable record of Andersonville. Its horrors make it a black page in history, a blot upon civilization."

An Ohio veteran said the monument was a "disgrace to the nation." Complained another vet: "The women of the south who got subscriptions for that monument are worse than the men of the south. No honest American can have a hand in such a proposition." Another old soldier said he wasn't in favor of blowing up the Wirz monument, preferring instead that it be destroyed by a lightning strike.

And in a scathing editorial, the Fort Wayne (Ind.) News said the monument was "beyond belief:"

"... Wirz was in nothing representative of the splendid and chivalric south. He was an alien, a hired mercenary, who as a soldier of fortune espoused the cause of the confederacy and, while braver and better men did battle for the principles they held sacred, he stayed behind and far from harm, and kept jail. And how he kept it! Hell's harshest story has not parallel to an iniquity that tongue and pen alike must fail to chronicle for very lack of power. Crowded in a malarious swamp, though healthful hills were close at hand, whole regiments of prisoners of an honorable war were held, the victims of starvation and disease ... "

Union veterans condemned the Wirz monument in Andersonville, Ga.

In a speech to a high school graduating class in Akron, Ohio, days after the monument dedication, a Union veteran referred to Wirz as an "arch fiend," and "the tormentor and butcher of Andersonville prison, whose delight it was to starve our brave comrades."

In condemning the monument, an Ohio Grand Army of the Republic post urged national authorities to "take cognizance of the monument in order that such steps as may be necessary, lawful and proper be taken to wipe out this stain on American justice, to the end that our national government may not hereafter be held guilty of deliberate judicial murder in the case of Captain Wirz."

Perhaps channeling Foraker, another Union veteran got so fired up at a G.A.R. gathering in West Virginia that he offered a reward to anyone who would blow up the Wirz monument with dynamite.  "His statements created a big sensation," The Washington Post reported, "and in a moment the convention was in an uproar, and several of the old soldiers offered their services to accomplish the destruction of the monument."

"No action, further than the sensational discussion," the newspaper reported, "was taken by the veterans."

Post-script: Andersonville, Ga., population about 230, is still the same sleepy town it was in 1909. The Wirz monument still stands on Church Street.

(To read more about Andersonville, go here.)

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SOURCES

• Clarion (Miss.) Ledger, May 13, 1909
• Daily Press, Newport News, Va., May 13, 1909
• Fort Wayne (Ind.) News, May 13, 1909
• Goldsboro (N.C.) Daily Argus, May 19, 1909
• Hartford (Conn.) Courant, April 18, 1908
• Mansfield (Ohio) Journal, May 15, 1909
• New York World, May 13, 1909
• The Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, May 6, 1909, May 13, 1909, May 29, 1909
• The Atlanta Constitution, May 13, 1909
• The Daily Republican, Monongahela, Pa., May 20, 1909
• The Salem (Ohio) News, May 13, 1909
• Washington Post, May 13 and 14, 1909

Masterpiece: What Maine private's wife created in his honor

Ambrotype of 21st Maine Private Adoniram Judson Trask of Noblesboro, Maine.

A shell-encrusted parlor memorial on display at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

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Eliza Trask

Of the 101 soldiers from tiny Nobleboro, Maine who served in the Union army, 17 died during the war. Thankful her husband was not among them, Eliza Trask created a remarkable work of art to commemorate his military service and celebrate his return. Fashioned from an old candle stand, the 50-inch-high parlor memorial is topped with a wooden pyramid encrusted with hundreds of seashells – some from Maine, others found by 21^st Maine Private Adoniram Judson Trask while he served in the Deep South, probably in Louisiana. The unique artwork, known as "memory ware," also includes an ambrotype of Adoniram himself, perhaps taken in Bangor, Maine before the 29-year-old soldier's regiment departed for Washington in August 1862.

Trask's service in Company I of the 21st Maine, a nine-month regiment, was brief -- he was discharged for disability on Feb. 18, 1863. Adoniram, whose post-war claim to fame was for receiving a patent for a boot/shoe ventilator, returned to his life as a farmer in Nobleboro (pop. 1,438 in 1860). He died in 1897.

Eliza, who is believed to have made the parlor memorial between 1865 and 1870, also made room on it for images of their children and other family members. On one side of the memorial there’s a cracked ambrotype of Frank and Adoniram Trask, no older than six, with their cheeks tinted red by a long-ago photographer.  On another side of Eliza’s creation is a photograph of a couple holding two young children. And inches above the ambrotype of Adoniram is the most curious image of all: a tintype of a young woman, the plate scratched to make her almost unrecognizable. Perhaps she fell victim to mischievous children or somehow fell out of favor with the Trask family.

You can mull that yourself by checking out this beautiful folk art at Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Purchased in a Maine antiques store, it was donated in 1986 to the museum, where it’s on display in an exhibition of American art.

SOURCES:

-- American Civil War Research Database.
-- Find A Grave.
-- Scientific American, Feb. 7, 1885.

A cracked image of the Trask children, Frank and Adoniram, their cheeks tinted red.

The parlor memorial includes images of the Trask family of Maine.

A close-up of seashells on the memorial, also known as "memory ware."

A scratched tintype of a young woman. Who did this dastardly deed?

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A remarkable gift in honor of 'poor, poor John' Bingham

The name and date of the bloodiest day in American history appear on the front of the secretary.
(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

Crafted to honor Private John Bingham, the secretary is on display at the Wadsworth Museum of Art.

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UPDATE: The secretary mentioned in this post was exposed in 2018 as a forgery.

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The story of a remarkable piece of handcrafted furniture on display at a Hartford museum involves the death of a teen-aged soldier at Antietam, a piece of a flag that may have been secreted away at a notorious Civil War POW camp, a suicide in New Jersey in the summer of 1904 -- and plenty of questions.

Carving of Lincoln in cattle bone
on the front of the secretary.

This tale began for me in November 2011, when antiques dealer Harold Gordon e-mailed about an unusual soldier memorial he had purchased in 2006 from descendants of Civil War soldiers John and Wells Bingham, brothers from East Haddam, Conn. Eager to show off his impressive acquisition, Gordon invited me to see the secretary in the cramped living room of his small house in central Massachusetts.

 A 17-year-old private in the 16th Connecticut, John Bingham had been killed in the 40-Acre Cornfield on Sept. 17, 1862. His 16-year-old brother, Wells, broke the awful news to his father.  "It is a sad tale which I am about to tell you," the private in Company H of the 16th Connecticut wrote three days after the battle. "Poor, poor John is no more." (See interactive panorama of 40-Acre Cornfield on my photo blog.)

As he went to view John's body on the battlefield, Wells was so overcome by the gruesome death scenes in the vast, rolling field just outside the village of Sharpsburg, Md., that he couldn't bear to look at his brother. "I thought that if he looked like any of them which I saw there," the teenager wrote, "I did not want to see him."

Left: 16th Connecticut Private John Bingham, 17, was killed at Antietam. Right: His 16-year-old
brother Wells survived. (Photos courtesy of Military and Historical Image Bank)

A small plaque on the front of the secretary was made from a shard of John Bingham's knife.

A typewritten note inside the front drawer of the secretary is signed by Wells Bingham's son, Edgar.

About 1876, 16th Connecticut veterans gave Wells an impressive gift in John's memory: a beautiful, 8-foot secretary made predominantly of walnut and oak. Spelled out in cattle bone on the ornate front are the words "Antietam" and "Sept. 17, 1862" as well as John's first two initials and last name. A Ninth Corps badge is mounted between the "18" and "76," which are also made of cattle bone. The knobs are bird's-eye maple with bone inset circles. A clock, crowned with an eagle and including the words "The Union Preserved" near the base, is mounted on top. When the inside right front door is opened, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" plays on a music box.

A newspaper story about the 16th Connecticut's 
reunion at Antietam in 1889 appears under
glass inside a secretary door.

On a small plaque on the front of the secretary are these words:

"Presented to Wells A. Bingham by his friends. The secretary a rememberance of his brother John F. Bingham who offered up his life at Antietam, Maryland Sept. 17, 1862. The encased star a remnant of the colors carried that day by the 16th Infantry. The memory plaque made from a shard of his knife."

Old newspaper clippings about the 16th Connecticut flag and a regimental reunion at Antietam are mounted under glass inside doors on the front of the secretary, now on display at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. An unsigned note from 1900 found in a drawer of the secretary references "battlefields' thunder and flame." And glued inside another drawer is this typewritten note signed in ink by Wells Bingham's son, Edgar:

"This desk made for my father Wells Anderson Bingham. A tribute to his brother John killed September 17, 1862 at the battle of Antietam. They both served in the Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Company H. Both enlisted August 17, 1862 at South Manchester. The cased part of the regiment's flag was givin [sic] in honor by my father's close friend and comrade Sergeant Edgar C. Wheeler. I am proud to carry his name. The knife handle was in the possession of my father and with great sadness taken from the body of his brother after the battle." 

-- Edgar M. Bingham
Northhampton, Massachusetts
September 22, 1972
Age 93

Antiques dealer Harold Gordon (right) examines the 16th Connecticut flag in the Hall of Flags
at the State Capitol Building in Hartford in 2013.

A canister attached to the secretary may hold a piece of the 16th Connecticut regimental flag..

A Vietnam veteran and an Abraham Lincoln lookalike, Gordon was especially intrigued with the small canister on the front of the secretary. If it indeed held a piece of the the 16th Connecticut's regimental flag, it would be an amazing find. After the regiment was captured nearly en masse at Plymouth, N.C., on April 20, 1864, hundreds of 16th Connecticut soldiers were imprisoned at Andersonville, the deadliest prison camp of the war. On detached duty, Wells luckily was not among them. "Could not have been happier or more envied," he wrote after the war, "if I had been chosen to be a Major General."

After the war, pieces of the 16th Connecticut regimental flags were gathered by Andersonville survivors, sewn together to form a shield and scroll and mounted in the middle of a new silk flag, which was created by Tiffany and Co. in New York. During a 2013 visit with me to the State Capitol Building in Hartford where that flag is displayed, Gordon aimed to match his piece of flag with the shield and scroll on the flag made after the war. His comparison was inconclusive, but it merits an expert investigation.

Like his brother, Wells Bingham met a sad end. Alone in his Bloomfield, N.J., house at 58 Monroe Place while his wife, two sons and a daughter were away, the 58-year-old businessman inhaled "illuminating gas," killing himself on Aug. 16, 1904. An employee from his wallpaper company discovered his body. Bingham had $238.70 in his pocket. A suicide note to his wife "said his business worries prevented his sleeping and advised his sons never to enter the same business."

John Bingham's name appears prominently on the front of secretary.

Ill and eager to sell the secretary, Gordon, whom I had lost contact with since 2013, sold it to an Connecticut antiques dealer for a handsome profit in 2014. That winter, the asking price at a New York show was $375,000. In March 2015, the secretary was acquired by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. On Saturday morning, Brandy Culp, museum curator of decorative arts, showed me the secretary -- the first time I had seen it since Gordon showed it off in his cluttered living room nearly six years ago. "Patriotic symbols and mottoes cover this secretary," reads the placard next to Wells Bingham's long-ago gift, "dangling like medals on a Civil War veteran's uniform."

An inkwell mounted on front.

A student of history herself, Culp is as eager as I am to find out more about the memorial to a 17-year-old soldier who was killed at Antietam. We have many questions:

Who crafted this impressive piece of furniture?

Who were the 16th Connecticut veterans who gave the unique piece of American folk art to Wells Bingham? What was so special about Wells that he merited such a beautiful gift?

Does the small canister on the front of the secretary really contain a remnant of the 16th Connecticut regimental flag? Was it part of the regimental flag at Antietam?

Who was Edgar Wheeler, namesake of Edgar Bingham, who gave the "cased part of the regiment's flag" to Wells? Where did he get the small piece of "flag"?

Did the horrors Wells Bingham witnessed at Antietam have anything to do with his suicide?

And, finally, how did this amazing work of art ever get out of the Bingham family's hands?

We'll keep you posted.

An unsigned note from July 1900 found in the desk drawer.

A clock, crowned with an eagle and including the words "The Union Preserved" 
near the base, is mounted on top.

Pencil scrawling, perhaps by a child, on a secretary drawer.

The secretary on display at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford.
(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

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SOURCES:

-- Marquis de Lafayette GAR Post No. 140 Record Book, April 13, 1904.
-- New York Times, Aug. 17, 1904.
-- Private Wells Bingham's letter to his father, Sept. 20, 1862, Antietam National Battlefield Research Library.

Antietam: Re-examining Gibson's image of Middle Bridge

Middle Bridge over Antietam Creek (James Gibson | Library of Congress)
(CLICK ON ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE)

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Days after the Battle of Antietam, Alexander Gardner and James Gibson photographed the Middle Bridge, also known as Antietam Bridge, on the Boonsboro Pike. Although little fighting took place in this area, thousands of troops crossed over Antietam Creek here, perhaps the reason the photographers chose it for subject matter. (The bridge, built in the early 1800s, was destroyed by flood in 1891. A modern bridge crosses the creek today.)

On initial inspection, this Gibson image, taken from a steep bluff on the east bank of Antietam Creek, is unremarkable. But cropped enlargements of the photograph, available in high-resolution format on the Library of Congress web site, reveal cool details you may not have noticed. Click on the image above to enlarge -- the famous East Woods, where fighting raged on Sept. 17, 1862, appear in the right background, just above the farm buildings. Traveling west (to the left), the village of Sharpsburg is about two miles down the turnpike.

What else do you see?

... the ghost-like image of a man, his elbow resting upon the bridge near its east end. To his right, a large piece of cloth or canvas. What could that be?

.... several feet from the man leaning against the bridge, another ghost-like figure and what appears to be a barrel resting on some type of implement ....

.... toward the west end of the bridge, we find three human-like forms, each looking like the grainy figures that appeared in a Nov. 22, 1963 photograph of that infamous grassy knoll in Dallas. ...

.... at the far west end of the bridge, a covered wagon and a horse ...

... at the bottom of the image, this unusual object appears. What was it used for?

... a skiff on the eastern bank of Antietam Creek ...

... and on land in the background, on the west side of the creek, split-rail fencing, apparently with little damage ...

... and in the middle background, more fencing, apparently undamaged. A short distance over the ridge, a sunken road infamously known today as Bloody Lane ...

... and in the upper right, the farmhouse, barn and outbuildings used by tenant farmer Joseph Parks.  During the battle, the farm was well within Federal lines, but no significant action took place there. The farm may have been used as a hospital after the battle, although definitive information could not be found. Accessible to battlefield visitors, the farm is rarely visited. Below are present-day images of the Parks barn and farmhouse (in background). To visit the farm, park at the war-time Joshua Newcomer House on the west side of Antietam Creek and follow the signage for the 3 Farms Trail.

The barn and farmhouse are believed to have been constructed in the 1830s.

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