New bust honors little-known Illinois Medal of Honor recipient

Clear skies greeted Civil War reenactors, history fans, Boy Scouts and politicians who gathered Saturday to unveil a new bust dedicated to a Medal of Honor recipient who came from Galena, Illinois. Sgt. Henry H. Taylor was the first man to plant Union colors on enemy works in Vicksburg, Ms., in June 1863. -- Article

Sultana Disaster Museum: Arkansas city closes in on $10M fund-raising goal as it continues work at larger location in old high school

The overcrowded Sultana just hours before the explosion  (Library of Congress)

Backers of a new museum that will tell the compelling story of the steamboat Sultana disaster are racing to raise enough money so that FedEx, headquartered not far away in Memphis, Tenn., will donate the final $1 million to complete the fund-raising.

John Fogleman, head of the Sultana Historical Preservation Society, told the Picket in an email this week that the project has donations and pledges totaling $8.316 million. If the society garners another $684,000 by May 31, FedEx’s contribution would bring the total to $10 million for the museum in Marion, Ark. [May 15 update: The tally currently is $8.67 million]

The city, close to where the vessel exploded and caught fire at the Civil War’s end, in November broke ground for a museum that will honor soldiers who died in the disaster and residents who helped save others plunged into the Mississippi River.

About 1,200 passengers and crew perished. Hundreds of Federal soldiers, many recently freed from Confederate prisons, including Andersonville and Cahaba, were on their way home.

The 1865 disaster is remembered at a small museum a few blocks from where working is going on now in the gymnasium-auditorium at Marion’s old high school. 

Haizlip Studio's museum rendering depicting moment of explosion (SHPS)

Abatement of lead paint and asbestos at the gym was recently completed, Fogleman said. Request for bids for construction will go out around June 20. The society is currently looking for an executive director.

Organizers have launched a new GoFundMe page in recent weeks to augment large donations and funding from governments, foundations and other groups. “We all have our fingers crossed,” said Gene Salecker, a Sultana author and collector who serves as historical consultant for the museum.

The museum is sponsoring a fund-raiser on April 27, "Bluegrass on the Levee," on the anniversary of the Sultana’s sinking.

Abatement work at the old gym in mid-March (SHPS)

“John and I will be attending the annual reunion of the Association of Sultana Descendants and Friends (Sultana Association) being held this year at Lexington, Kentucky, on April 28 and 29, with a visit to the Perryville, Kentucky battlefield, where at least 100 soldiers that eventually ended up on the Sultana saw their first big battle,” Salecker said.

Officials in Marion -- a bedroom community just a 15-minute drive from Memphis -- say it’s important that the Sultana’s story of greed, fraud, valor and sacrifice be told in a bigger way than what’s covered in the tiny museum that opened in 2015.

No one was formally held accountable for putting too many men on the Sultana, despite documented concerns about the safety of one of the boat's boilers. Accounts of the largest maritime tragedy in U.S. history were overshadowed by headlines about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Banners for survivor reunions in the late 19th century (Sultana Disaster Museum)

The Sultana Historical Preservation Society, which has spearheaded the project in collaboration with the city, believes a compelling museum and effective marketing can bring in up to 50,000 visitors a year who collectively will spend millions of dollars to support the economy in Marion and nearby communities.

The larger venue will include scores of artifacts or memorabilia related to the disaster and exhibits on steamboats on the Mississippi River, the Sultana’s service, Civil War prisons, corruption involved in its overloading, the explosion, the struggle for survival, rescue efforts and the disaster’s aftermath.

Many of the artifacts have been donated by Salecker. He is attending an annual Civil War show in Mansfield, Ohio, in May and hopes to pick up items related to the Sultana, as he has in the past.

Previous Sultana coverage:

• Documentary, events mark 150th anniversary

• Descendants drop flowers in memory of the lost

• Model captures every detail of Sultana
• Disaster took lives of those who had endured so much

• Siblings recall learning of disaster

Gettysburg unveils bronze markers that feature braille, 3D landscapes. The idea came from a giant map that has aided park guides for generations.

New tactile marker at Virginia Memorial includes braille (click to enlarge, GNMP)

Three new Gettysburg National Military Park markers – featuring landscape elevations that visitors are encouraged to touch – were inspired by a massive topographic map created more than a century ago and on display at the park’s visitor center.

Park officials on Friday said two bronze relief tactile tables have been installed at key tour spots and another is on the way. The three-dimensional tables feature braille and raised lettering, making them the first such additions to the park.

“Visitors will now have access to better understand the landscape across which the battle was fought and how terrain influenced the movements of the two armies at Gettysburg in July of 1863,” the park said in a news release.

One table is on the plaza at the Virginia Memorial (Auto Tour Spot 5, photo at left) and other at the National Cemetery parking lot (Auto Tour Spot 16). Another is coming soon to the Eternal Light Peace Memorial (Auto Tour Spot 2).

Gettysburg spokesman Jason Martz told the Picket in an email that visitors who are visually impaired can read them by touching the table and its key. “The raised lettering, along with the braille, allow those with visual impairments to gain a better appreciation for the park landscape,” he wrote.

Martz said the idea for the three tables was based on a giant relief map of the battlefield produced by Emmor B. Cope, an engineer who was at the battle and returned a few months later to help survey the ground.

Cope was instrumental in the creation of numerous battlefield monuments and features and was the park’s first superintendent.

His bronze relief map -- 12.5 feet by 9.5 feet and 4 inches deep – is considered an indispensable tool for historians of the early battlefield, according to the Gettysburg Daily website.

It was displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. It includes tiny buildings and avenues that were built after the war. The map created by Cope (right) was laid flat at St. Louis and at the old Cyclorama building at Gettysburg; it is now propped vertically against a wall near the bookstore at the Gettysburg visitor center.

Park ranger Troy Harman, in a 2021 video posted on Facebook, explained why he considers the incredibly detailed Cope map to be the most important artifact at Gettysburg.

“It has always fascinated me and I have relied on it heavily in doing programs on the battlefield because it is so meticulous in its design and its precision of the Gettysburg battlefield.”

Since the Cope map caught a moment in time – when Cope and others surveyed the battlefield soon after the battle -- historians and others can turn to it to see what the area looked like before development and park features altered the landscape.

The behemoth Cope relief map in the visitor center (GNMP)

“If you want to see what the ground was originally like, come back to this map,” Harman said. “The ground is pristine, as it looked like at the time of the battle.”

Speaking of the much smaller tactile tables, Martz told the Picket the elevations were taken from existing GIS maps and further refined by utilizing historical information from the Cope map and others made by those working for Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Warren, chief engineer for the Army of the Potomac.

The three tables were created by Pannier Graphics and cast at an American Bronze foundry.

The creation of the tactile tables is part of a larger project to update interpretive signage throughout the park, officials said.

New tactile table in parking area of Gettysburg national cemetery (GNMP)

Seats available for May bus tour of NW Georgia Civil War sites: Former military institute, Resaca and Rocky Face Ridge

Sketch of the Georgia Military Institute made by a Union soldier before it was burned.

The Civil War Round Table of Cobb County in northwest Georgia is inviting members of Civil War or history-related organizations to join them in a May 6 bus tour of three sites.

The 8:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. program begins in Marietta at the site of the former Georgia Military Institute, which operated 13 years until it was destroyed by the Union army.

Local historian Michael Hitt will lead the walking tour and the bus will pass GMI-related sites on the way to Resaca, which is between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tenn.

GMI graduates joined Confederate units and cadets fought at the front line during the May 1864 Battle of Resaca. Participants in the tour will see the railroad depot where cadets arrived in Resaca and where they skirmished on May 9, 1864.

Among the tour guides is David Wynn Vaughan, a noted collector of Civil War portraits, including those of GMI cadets.

Lunch will be at Resaca Battlefield Historic Site, just off Interstate 75 in Gordon County,

Reproduction 3-inch ordnance rifle at Rocky Face Ridge Park (Picket photo)

The third stop is Rocky Face Ridge Park in Whitfield County near Dalton, about 20 miles north of Resaca. The May 7-8, 1864, battle was the first in what became known as the Atlanta Campaign. About 1,400 men from both sides became casualties in the fighting over several days. The park opened last summer.

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park staff historian Jim Ogden will provide an overview and lead a walking tour at Rocky Face Ridge Park.

The cost for the trip is $99, which includes the charter bus, box lunch, tour guides, talks and handouts.

Contact Terry H. Kingery, 770-906-5635, tkingery2@bellsouth.net for more information and to make a reservation. Only a few seats remain.

Treasure trove: Capt. James Lile Lemon kept spoils of war and all his belongings. Descendants got to see them at Atlanta History Center

Gordon Jones with drum, a revolver and James L. Lemon's prize watch (Picket photos)

Last weekend, dozens of Civil War-period items were laid out on tables in the Atlanta History Center’s Cox Room. Almost all related to a single soldier -- a curator's dream.

There were personal items, a captured drum, revolver, letters, canteen, photographs and much more. Many artifacts were labeled with handwritten notes by Capt. James Lile Lemon of Company A, 18^th Georgia Infantry, who fought in the Virginia theater and survived a year and a half in Union prison camps.

“I am speechless at this entire collection, to see it all together, said Heather Spann, of Kennesaw, Ga., a third great-granddaughter of Lemon (left).

“It is amazing how meticulous he was in keeping records,” said Fred Aiken, a member of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table.

Aiken, along with about 20 members of the Lemon family, most living in northern Georgia, were invited to the AHC to see the impressive collection the institution purchased from the widow of a Macon, Ga., collector in 2020. The set includes three wartime diaries.

“He literally saved everything,” said host Gordon Jones, senior military historian and curator at the AHC. Lemon was “an individual who was thinking ahead about his own legacy.”

Jones told the Lemon family that their ancestor is a quintessential example of the human experience in the Civil War. “This is storytelling stuff. People love it.” It is the history center’s fortune to have such a complete collection, he added.

Lemon descendants and others before seeing collection (Picket photo)

Before the Atlanta Cyclorama painting was moved to the AHC a few years ago, visitors filed through the exhibit “Turning Point: The American Civil War.” Many of the artifacts were collected by an Atlanta father and son team decades ago.

While “Turning Point” still attracts visitors, the AHC believes it is a dinosaur, and it is raising money for a new exhibit that will offer newer, fresher and more inclusive perspectives of the conflict. The Lemon collection, Jones said, will be shown to the public as part of that effort.

When the war broke out, Lemon was living in Acworth, about 30 miles northwest of Atlanta. His family had seven enslaved persons, and Lemon wrote in his memoirs that he freed them. There is some dispute over the claim, according to the AHC.

Descendant Mark Lemon lives in the Acworth home 

Early in the war, the 18^th Georgia was part of John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade. Lemon enlisted as a second lieutenant in 1861 for a three-year term in the Confederate army. 

The regiment fought in numerous Eastern battles – including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Second Manassas and Chancellorsville. The farmer and merchant had a close call at Gettysburg, when a Yankee bullet struck his canteen, causing it to strike his head.

His combat days came to a close in November 1863, when Lemon was severely wounded by a Minie ball in the pharynx and taken prison after an assault on Fort Sanders in Knoxville, Tenn. 

Mark Lemon (left) brought sword given by Union NCO to J.L. Lemon (Picket photo)

By the time he arrived at Fort Pulaski near Savannah, in October 1864, Lemon had already been at three Federal prisons: One in Louisville, Ky; Camp Chase in Ohio and Fort Delaware, Delaware. 

The captain’s brief time at Pulaski is part of the story of the "Immortal 600", a fascinating footnote to the conflict. The story is involved, but here’s a summary:

In summer 1864, Confederate Maj. Gen. Samuel Jones essentially used 600 captured Union officers as human shields, in a section of Charleston, S.C., in the line of fire. The North retaliated by transporting 600 POWs from Fort Delaware to Morris Island, S.C., in direct line of Rebel guns.

“For nearly three months, the stalemate continued. It wasn’t until yellow fever broke out in the city of Charleston that the Confederacy removed the Union prisoners to newly erected prison camps further inland,” the National Park Service says. “With the Union prisoners removed from Charleston and no longer under fire from Union artillery, there was no need to keep the Confederate prisoners on Morris Island. With this realization, the next phase of their journey began and the Immortal 600 began the journey south, to Cockspur Island and Fort Pulaski.”

While held at Fort Pulaski, Lemon etched his name into a wall. (At right, blanket near top of photo was given to Lemon while he was held there. Click to enlarge)

Lemon and other prisoners were returned to Fort Delaware toward the war’s end.

He earned the respect of one of the prison staff, who also had the name Lemon. Sgt. Lemon Kline of the 215^th Pennsylvania Infantry gifted him an NCO sword when the Confederate was paroled. Lemon, who somehow managed to get the weapon back to Georgia, wrote a notation about it, as was his practice.

Mark Lemon, great-great grandson of Lemon and author of “Feed Them the Steel!”, a history of Lemon and his regiment, brought the sword to the AHC, eliciting much excitement from Jones. The book, written as a narrative, includes many battle and POW accounts written by James Lile Lemon.

Lemon lives in the home built by his ancestor in 1856.

At war’s end, James Lile Lemon refused to take an oath of allegiance to the United States, citing his treatment, but he eventually did take it in June 1865. Family today considers him a “diehard” Confederate.

In his journal, Lemon wrote: “I have done the unspeakable but I am now paroled & to day set out for home. My duty to my country is done, mine to my family remains.”

The officer returned to Acworth and had 11 children with his wife Eliza. He was a retail merchant and then a bank executive, serving as president of the bank when he died on June 12, 1907, at age 72. Lemon had published a compelling memoir in 1886, the same year the Cyclorama was painted.

For Jones, Lemon’s meticulous record-keeping has paid off. “The story was there. It was just matching it to the artifacts.”

Here are some highlights from the AHC’s Lemon collection that were shown to the family:-

(Picket photo of sketch)

-- Original pen and ink sketch by Harper's Weekly artist Theodore Davis of the Lemon home in Acworth when used by William T. Sherman as his headquarters in early June 1864. “This is the only original Davis wartime sketch I have ever seen,” says Jones

-- An Adams revolver with “JL” and “18^th GEO” carved into the grips (see photo at top of this post). Jones believes the officer gave the gun to his brother Smith, who used it while serving in the Georgia State Line. It saw action at the Battle of Atlanta in July 1864. (Lemon’s gun that he lost at Knoxville is today in a private collection in Milwaukee.)

-- Lemon’s engraved gold watch, made in Liverpool, presented by his brother Smith Lemon on October 27, 1861. Lemon lost the watch when he was wounded at Knoxville, but later spotted it on a Union soldier and managed to retrieve it, according to his memoir. (See photo at top of this article)

(Picket photo)

-- Knife/ fork/ spoon set Lemon took from a dead Federal soldier on the battlefield of Salem Church in Virginia, May 1863. He wrote in his memoir: “That evening, as we rested near the church, I had occasion to walk the field nearby. The ground was fairly strewn with every conceivable article of war, hundreds of Yankee dead and wounded lay everywhere, as well as scores of muskets, bayonets, accouterments of every type, haversacks and canteens ... As for myself, I allowed myself but one trophy, a nice little penknife with several blades and attachments, which an unfortunate Yankee corporal would no longer need. (It afterwards served me well and I have it still.”

-- Union canteen (below) Lemon picked up in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg after his own canteen had been ruined by a bullet (a Yankee bullet hit the canteen, and it struck the head of Lemon, who thought he had been shot). The strap bears Lemon's initials, date and initials of the dead 4th Michigan soldier from whom he got it.

(Picket photo)

-- Drum captured from two frightened young Pennsylvania drummer boys the day before the Battle of Sharpsburg (September 1862). Lemon tells the story of its capture by Pvt. Frank A. Boring in his memoir. The drumhead bears Boring's name in ink. This is James Lemon's handwriting, as indicated by pages in the diary and maps of battles shown in the memoir, according to Jones.  

Lemon wrote Pvt. Boring's name into drumhead (Picket photo)

Here is Lemon’s colorful account of the drummer boys, as written in his memoir:

“On the evening of the 16th our briggade was ordered to form line of battle & we advanced into a cornfield & into a piece of timber where we met almost by accident a force of the enemy. We drove them with style back through the woods, capturing some Yanks from the 1st & 3rd Penn'a Reserves. Among this bunch were a couple of drummer-boys, about 12 or 13 years old who were trying hard to "put on a brave face," but who were clearly terrified.

"Col. Ruff ordered their drums confiscated & then released as we were not equipped or inclined to care for children. Our drum had been damaged & thrown away at Groveton, so we took theirs as "spoils of war." Private Boring captured the boys. As he was driving them to the rear at point of bayonet they heaped so much abuse upon him -- out of their fear or nervousness -- that he had to be restrained from striking them with the clubbed musket.

"Of course, instantly the target of many wags among our company who joked with him about "scaring little boys" & etc. He replied that he would be d---d if he'd take such abuse from "d---d Yankee whelps." The boys were release(d) & "beat a hasty retreat" back to their lines, with Boring giving them a rite hard look as they went.”

One of James Lile Lemon's journals (Picket photo)

USS Montauk, other monitors get bigger story at Fort McAllister in panels created by gaming and interactive design students in Savannah

Wall panels at the museum at Fort McAllister (Picket photos)

Students at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) dreamed big in a project they hoped would add some pizzazz for visitors to Georgia’s Fort McAllister State Historic Park in nearby Richmond Hill, Ga.

Their goal was to create compelling interpretive panels, a 3D ship model and film that explained the role of USS Montauk and other innovative Federal monitors in the siege of Confederate outposts on the Atlantic Ocean, specifically Fort McAllister.

The plan turned out to be too ambitious, given graduations and the complexity of work that ran up against limited class time. Still, a half dozen panels were installed late last year in an exhibit dedicated to the clashes between Federal ships, the fort and the Rebel raider CSS Nashville, which was sunk by USS Montauk near the fort in 1863. I paid a visit to the site a couple weeks back.

The new panels in the park museum cover these topics: Civil War monitors, the Passaic class of monitors, armament, ironclads versus an earthen fort, commanders of Confederate and Union vessels and what happened to the Montauk and the others at Fort McAllister after the fighting. Near the panels are enlarged blueprints of the USS Montauk.

The panels feature photographs, drawings and illustrations. Park officials created a dock scene (left) with cotton bales to increase the effect.

The Picket, which first wrote about the SCAD project in March 2022, recently contacted Greg Johnson, interactive design and game development professor at SCAD, to get his perspective on the endeavor. The responses have been edited. 

Q. Were you pleased with how the panels worked out? How do they complement the rest of the exhibit on the monitors and the Nashville?

Greg Adams: Yes, I was pleased by how that portion of the project turned out. The new panels do a much better job of teaching the public about the fort and the historic events there than the previous displays did.

Q. What are the key takeaways on all the work, planning and production to create the panels? Was it harder than the team first thought?

Greg Adams (right): It was much harder than the team first thought, mainly on a time management level. Partly this was due to classes being only 10 weeks long. Partly due to students graduating from SCAD. Partly it was due to simply trying to do too much in too short of a time. I was very pleased by the persistence of the student teams who worked on the wall panels. That group of students truly went above and beyond the expectations of the class.

Q. What skills from this project will most benefit your former students in the years ahead?

Greg Adams: The most beneficial thing was the chance the students got to work on a professional project with such a fine institution. The project really demonstrated to all of my students how they can apply their skills in ways they had never considered before.

Q. The large blueprint/sketch and top view of the Montauk, both on the wall near the panels. How specifically did you and your team produce those?

Greg Adams: That was created by photo documenting the blueprints at a high resolution. We used a custom-built camera rig to enable us to slide the blueprints underneath a high-end camera. These images were then processed, enhanced and stitched together using photo editing tools to make the panels.

Renderings of USS Montauk and other items meant for film (Courtesy of SCAD)

Q. Is the Montauk 3D model still in production? I know you expected it to be completed by now. Why has it not been finished?

Greg Adams: That part of the production is paused. The student(s) responsible for making the model graduated and are now working full time and no longer have the time to work on the project. While the model got quite far along, it remains unfinished. If the museum is interested, that portion of the project may yet be able to be completed, but it would require an investment in a new group of students.

Q. Same for the film. Will that happen at some point?

Greg Adams: Unfortunately, the film production crew did not get very far and the students simply ran out of time. While a number of wonderful assets, such as the CSS Rattlesnake, were built, the film itself was nowhere near finished by the end of the class at which point these students graduated. 

Q. Any other thoughts?

Greg Adams: Overall, the results were good. The students got the most critical elements, the wall panels that the museum needed, produced and these have been installed at the museum.

The whole project was a wonderful learning experience for all of the students involved and everyone greatly enjoyed working with the museum on the project. I am very pleased that SCAD was able to help the museum create a new display.  

(Civil War Picket photos)

Rolling the dice: Discovery of piece of gaming object at Georgia's Camp Lawton an example of the 'shadow economy' at POW sites

Views of the remains of the die, which may have had numerous sides (Camp Lawton Project)

Somewhere at an archaeological site in Georgia are the remains of a sutler’s cabin, where captured Federal soldiers could buy a whole range of goods, temporarily lifting them from misery that took the lives of 800 comrades.

The Camp Lawton sutler’s cabin and the grounds around it offered more than food and clothing. It was part of the prison’s shadow economy for six weeks in autumn 1864. Soldiers -- either with U.S. greenbacks they still held, or equipment and personal items – could obtain alcohol from guards, tobacco and play games of chance.

Ryan McNutt, who leads the Camp Lawton project at Georgia Southern University, and a couple dozen students have spent the spring looking for evidence of the cabin. Thus far, there have been no definitive finds. Maps produced in the 19th century gave different positions for the structure.

Patrick Sword and Audrey McGill at dig site (Picket photos)

On one bright note, part of a carved die was found a few weeks ago during digging, evidence of apparent gambling in the trade-and-sell part of the stockade.

Patrick Sword, a graduate student from the Atlanta area, is studying the shadow economy at Lawton. I met him and other students in late March during a brief visit to the site on the fenced grounds of an old federal fishery adjoining Magnolia Springs State Park.

The stockade was laid out in a grid fashion (left, click to enlarge) and much of the commercial activity took part on Market Street, Sword said. He is hoping to find more evidence of the shadow economy, but the team in recent weeks has found mostly modern stuff, including trash dumped by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, who helped construct the state park in the late 1930s.

McNutt says the die is made of lead, probably fashioned from a small caliber round, likely a pistol or a .54-caliber ball. He says the artifact is probably one-half or one-fourth of the original die.

“Six-sided die are the most common, but there are also 10-sided, 32-sided, and 20-sided. If it's from a six-sided die, it is a half, split down the center to leave a quasi-pyramid shape,” McNutt wrote in an email after my visit.

In its six weeks' existence, the 42-acre Confederate stockade held about 10,000 men before it was closed when Union forces approached. Over the past dozen years, teams from Georgia Southern have found evidence of the stockade wall, Rebel officers’ quarters, brick ovens and sleeping areas for the POWs. Thus far, they have been unable to find the hospital or burial area.

Camp Lawton was one of several prisons in south Georgia that briefly held Federal prisoners sent from the larger Andersonville camp. They were moved back and forth because Confederate officials feared they would be freed by Sherman’s March to the Sea.

McNutt and his students in their spring dig have found a lot of postwar material, but also have come across cut nails, buckles, a bullet and files from the Civil War period. On the day of my visit they were working near a stream that divided the camp, and served as a drinking source and latrine a bit downstream.

“We get good historic Civil War stuff and then a modern fishing weight,” the associate professor tells me.

McNutt (right, on site) believes much of the area they were working on is where Union prisoners who served as an internal police force operated.

Not many prisoner items have been found here, unlike in the hill above. “No one is allowed to camp right near the stream.”

The professor is interested in the relationship between guards and prisoners. They were known to have traded at here and other sites, and morale among the former was low at Camp Lawton, not surprising given the Confederacy’s decline. Guards sometimes foraged away from the property.

Prisoner of war camps are “excellent places to hide contraband, personal items you are not supposed to have," McNutt told me several years ago when he became project director. 

The National Park Service, which maintains the much larger site at Andersonville, has an online page detailing life and diversions for Federal prisoners held there. It, too, had a sutler’s cabin, but it had other shops selling items to the captives as well.

Food, of course, was always on their minds.

Sutler's cabin in rear at Andersonville in 1864 (Library of Congress)

Here is an NPS description of Andersonville:

“Many of the Andersonville prisoners who arrived in the stockade in April and May were well supplied with money. The Federal armies were reclothed and paid off in the spring of 1864 for the spring campaigns. Many of the new recruits and reenlisted veterans had bounty money with them when captured. Greenbacks could be pressed into the sole of a shoe, or placed inside a brass button. Money was concealed about the person in various ways. Some swallowed their rings and others put their money into bowls of large Dutch pipes with a little tobacco sprinkled on top. When searched, they would pretend to be busy lighting their pipes and thus escape suspicion.

“Gambling was carried on quite extensively; faro, dice, and $10.00 stakes were commonly played for. Trade was carried on with the guards on the outside of the wall by talking through the cracks and throwing articles over the fence. Another trade was carried on as well, as noted by prisoner John Northrup, Co. D, 7th Connecticut Infantry: "There is one commodity never had in any market. It is ahead of any Dutch brewery extract; it is meal beer made by letting corn meal sour in water. The vendor cries, 'here is your nice meal beer, right sour, well-seasoned with sassafras.'"

POWS trade new rations for something more palatable (NPS)

McNutt believes there may be beer and rum bottle remains at the Camp Lawton site.

Trade, bartering and gambling were common at virtually all Civil War prisoners, both North and South, though there appeared to be some restrictions later in the war.

At Point Lookout in Maryland, where Confederates were held, a prisoner made compelling illustrations of camp scenes. All depicted guards were African-American soldiers.

“The drawings highlight the concerns and experiences of prisoners of war; most scenes show prisoners playing cards, buying food, or engaging in barter with food vendors,” the historical society says in a description of its collection.

Exchanging buttons for pepper at Andersonville (Library of Congress)

Confederate officer Henry Clay Dickinson wrote about gambling he witnesses while a prisoner of war at Fort Delaware, Delaware, in 1864, according to a Civil War Monitor article on gambling.

“The gambling saloons were a curious feature in prison, and were not only numerous but well patronized. Captain Coffee, of Mississippi, was the prince of faro dealers, being always gentlemanly in his manners and always attracting the greatest crowd. He never played cards until he was captured, except for amusement, and I am told that a Yankee guard was his first victim. The bettor wagered either in Confederate or Yankee money. He always had a large and anxious looking crowd around his booth. Some quartermasters having been captured, the amount of Confederate money in prison was very large, and changed hands frequently.

“I heard that Coffee once sent to Dixie from Point Lookout ten thousand dollars. How much United States money he (Coffee) made I cannot say, though at one time, when the Yanks were about searching quarters and persons, he hid in the grass one hundred and eleven dollars in gold, a gold watch, and several hundred dollars in notes, which, of course, some Yank, who knew he was flush, had seen him hide and took care to not let him find it again.”

Rusted metal likely from the 20th century (Picket photo)