National Heritage Museum

Legal Tender or Civil War Souvenir?

One of the most interesting parts of working with objects in the collection is that you think an item might be one thing, but then it turns out to be something completely different.  For example, this coin appears to be an 1863 Indian head penny, but when we turn it over, we see it is a Civil War-era token.

In response to the hoarding of United States silver and gold coins between 1862 and 1864, merchants hired private minting companies to make these tokens, which were used by Americans as a form of currency.  To prevent the stockpiling of these tokens, most were made out of non-precious metals, such as bronze, tin and copper, which were common and held little monetary value.  From 1862 to 1864, more than 10,000 varieties of Civil War tokens were created and the total number of coins made numbered into the millions.

This token, which the National Heritage Museum recently acquired, includes the name of the merchant that had it made: J. Wightman at 188 Washington Street in Newark, New Jersey.  Other tokens made around the same time have patriotic insignia, like the American flag, or slogans, such as “Union For Ever.”

Although the American public widely accepted these tokens as currency, they were only used for a short time.  Merchants could refuse the tokens.  In 1864, after legal tangles around the acceptance of these coins, Congress passed the Coinage Act.  Most notably, this Act introduced the phrase “In God We Trust” onto coins.  It also changed the metal composition of the one cent and two cent coins, giving them the same weight and feel as the familiar Civil War tokens.  As a result of these changes, people hoarded the newer currency less than the old gold and silver coins and accepted it more than the Civil War tokens. 

J. Wightman Civil War Store Token (front and back), 1863, Newark, New Jersey. National Heritage Museum, gift of Ursula Endress, 2006.012.278.  Photograph by David Bohl.

Sources:

Q. David Bowers, The History of the U.S. Coinage as Illustrated by the Garrett Collection, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire: Bowers & Merena Galleries, Inc., 1984.

Q. David Bowers, United States Copper Coins: An Action Guide for the Collector and Investor, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire: Bowers and Merena Galleries, 1984.

George Fuld and Melvin Fuld, U.S. Civil War Store Cards, Lola, Wisconsin: Civil War Token Society, 1972.

POW Powder Horn

Thirty years ago, when the Museum was just beginning to build its Masonic collection, staff purchased a Civil War-era powder horn decorated with Masonic symbols.  It also bore this evocative inscription: “H. S. P. Rollins Prisoner of War Tyler Texas Captured at Sabine Pass Sept 8th 1863.” Purchased at a New England auction, the horn came to the museum with no known history. Our files contained descriptions of the battle at Sabine Pass--where fewer than fifty Confederate soldiers captured two U.S. gunboats and several hundred soldiers and sailors-- but it did not tell us who H. S. P. Rollins was or where he came from.

Drawing on some of the great resources available on the Internet (thank you, Google books!), museum and library staff not only identified the powder horn’s maker as Henry S. P. Rollins of Exeter, New Hampshire, but also discovered that he played an important role in the battle that led to his imprisonment. During what was, in many ways, a badly managed battle on the Union side, Rollins’ performance earned him special notice.  In his report on the battle, Frederick Crocker, the Acting Volunteer Lieutenant in charge of the U.S.S. Clifton, commended Master’s Mate H. S. P. Rollins and a fellow shipmate “for the gallant manner in which they fought their guns and performed every duty.” 

In spite of  his efforts, Confederate troops captured Rollins and marched him to the prison camp   along with 350 other Union men. One prisoner later described the Camp Ford as: "… four acres-barren of timber and grass. Sand blows desperately." 

Rollins survived his imprisonment, only to die of stomach disease in New Hampshire a few years after the war.

Powder horn, ca. 1863, Henry S. P. Rollins (1832-1869), Tyler, Texas, National Heritage Museum, 77.11.2.  Photo by David Bohl.

References:

Texas Beyond History, “From Training Camp to Prison,” University of Texas at Austin, http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/ford/prison.html

"Capture of the United States Steamers Clifton and Sachem: Report of Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Frederick Crocker," Edgartown, Mass., April 21, 1865. In Annual Reports of the Navy Department: Report of the Secretary of the Navy, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1865, p. 401-2

Meet Zoeth Knowles

Among the people visitors met in “Remember Me:  Highlights from the National Heritage Museum” is a young Civil War soldier, Zoeth Knowles (bn. 1843).

Knowles’ bold gaze, relaxed posture and handsome Zouave uniform do more than suggest youthful confidence--he projects it.  The twenty-one-year-old Knowles may have commissioned this daguerreotype, along with another in the NHM collection, when he joined the war effort in 1864.  With these images, his parents and five siblings would have something to remember him by during his absence or if he did not return home to Boston.

A member of the Signal Corps, Knowles sent messages between armed forces personnel using flags and codes. Standing on towers or other high points waving flags, signalmen were particularly vulnerable to sniper fire. 

In spite of his work, Knowles survived his sixteen months of service.  Afterward, he returned to the Boston area where he was a cabinetmaker for many years.

Zoeth Knowles, Gift of the Cloues Family, 96.045.4

A Union Soldier's Masonic Book

In the front of an 1859 edition of Thomas Smith Webb's The Freemason's Monitor are some interesting ownership marks that reveal evidence of a Union soldier who owned this book during the American Civil War.

The book once belonged to Hartwell L. Lattime of Newburyport, Massachusetts. As you can see in the photo here, he has written "Roanoke Island, Dec 13, 1862" on the inside cover and drawn the Masonic square and compasses with a G set in it, below that. On the opposite page he has written his name and hometown.

A little research reveals that Hartwell Lattime enlisted as a Private on August 24, 1862 at the age of 22. He belonged to Company A of the Massachusetts 8th Infantry Regiment. According to a history of this unit, Companies A and C of the 8th Regiment detached from the regiment and were stationed at Roanoke Island, N. C., December 4, 1862 to July 12, 1863.

The Battle of Roanoke Island was fought on February 7-8, 1862, ten months before Lattime arrived. The Union Army, after winning the battle of Roanoke Island, quickly occupied the island. Hartwell served with the Massachusetts 8th Infantry Regiment until August 7, 1863, when he and the rest of the regiment mustered out after having been ordered home on July 26, 1863.

By looking at all of the evidence above, we can conclude that it appears that just a week after his arrival at Roanoke Island, Lattime wrote the date, his location, his name, and his hometown in the book. But when did Lattime become a Mason?

According to the records at the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, Lattime was raised and became a member of St. John's Lodge in Newburyport on November 6, 1862. At a time when there was usually a one-month delay between receiving each of the three degrees, Lattime received all three degrees in one day. By looking at the history of the regiment that Lattime belonged to, we can see that he became a Mason while still in Massachusetts, stationed at Camp Lander in Wenham, Massachusetts, just a few months after enlisting, and just a couple of weeks before the 8th Regiment boarded the steamship Mississippi in Boston on November 25, 1862 to head down to Morehead, NC. While we don't know for sure, it's possible that Lattime became a Freemason on a visit home while his company was stationed at Camp Lander where the 8th Regiment was stationed from September until late November.

Naturally, there is much more that could be explored about Lattime's time while on Roanoke Island if further research were conducted. Seeking out possible regimental histories or diaries of other soldiers stationed on Roanoke Island at the same time as Lattime would go a long way in pulling the thread that started with just a few notations that a Union soldier wrote in the front of a book one day in 1862.

As it turns out, the history of Roanoke Island after the battle in February becomes quite compelling. Lattime's time on Roanoke Island overlaps with the beginning of an interesting community that was established on the island:

"During the first few months of the Union occupation of Roanoke Island, over 250 former slaves settled in a camp close to Union headquarters. By the end of the year, the number had grown to 1,000. Most of the former slaves had escaped to the island from the North Carolina mainland; many were strangers to each other. Nevertheless, they set about to establish a thriving community, including their own school and several churches."

The quote above is from Patricia C. Click's website about the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, where you can go to find more information about this interesting period in the history of Roanoke Island and the Civil War.

If you're looking or more information about Civil War regiments and soldiers, a good place to start online is the National Park Service's Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System.

Today's illustration is the inside front cover of:

Webb, Thomas Smith. The Freemason's Monitor : or, Illustrations of Masonry. Boston: Abner W. Pollard ; Brown, Taggard & Chase ; Geo. C. Rand & Avery [printer], 1859.
Call number: 14 .W368 1859
Gift of the Lattime Family of Newburyport, Massachusetts and West Port, New York