Civil War Discovery Cart
This cart consists of three themed baskets, although two of the “baskets” are currently combined in one physical basket. Each allows visitors to explore a different aspect of the Civil War, using reproductions of related objects. All baskets can be tied to the stories told in the Fredericksburg at War exhibit, but are designed to extend beyond the exhibit and to give visitors a chance to learn using multiple senses. The focus here is on engaging the visitors and helping them make connections using the objects as a mechanism or launching platform. Gallery Assistants should act as facilitators, not lecturers.
To help the Gallery Assistants, each basket has its own guide sheet. These sheets include a statement of the basket’s theme, an inventory of the objects, photographs of objects where necessary (come on, who doesn’t know what a tin cup or a deck of cards looks like?) with a brief description/historical background, and suggestions for ways to help visitors explore the objects and their stories.
Slavery and Reconstruction Basket (combined with Military Objects Basket)
Theme
It is impossible to explore the Civil War without dealing with slavery. Before the Civil War, Fredericksburg served as a transfer point for slaves being shipped for sale to the deep south, where the explosion of cotton cultivation generated an ongoing demand for slave labor. The fear of being sold away hung over every slave’s head, even urban slaves like those in Fredericksburg. While some slaves, such as John Washington, lived somewhat comfortable lives and were allowed to make their own money, slaves were always vulnerable to the whims of their owners.
Union victories in the Civil War, including the taking of Fredericksburg in April of 1862, provided opportunities for slaves to escape behind the Union lines and then make their way to freedom. John Washington’s memoire reveals an inside view of the dangers, hopes, and rewards involved in fleeing to freedom. After the War, the period known as Reconstruction allowed newly freed African Americans opportunities that they had never had previously. Some achieved political office, others started businesses. Often they were supported by northerners who came south to take advantage of the need literally to reconstruct the economy. Some were con men or charlatans out to make money any way they could, others were idealists hoping to build a better society, but to defeated southerners they were all villains. They were labeled “Carpetbaggers” after the type of luggage they often carried.
Object Inventory
1 set of shackles
1 osnaburg shirt
Cotton in boll form
Tobacco in pressed hunk
1 set of marbles (to be purchased)
1 pencil (also to be purchased)
Paper (to be purchased)
1 carpet bag
Object Photographs and Descriptions: Please note—the information here is to help you answer questions visitors might have, or to assist you in your visitor dialogue. You do not need to give out all of the information to visitors.
Shackles (reproduction)
Shackles like these represent the grim reality of people as property. This particular type was used to bind a slave’s wrists and required a key to be screwed in to unlock them. Slaves were most often shackled during the sale process, when they were also kept locked in a jail until the auction. Fredericksburg had a slave jail, as well as auction houses that specialized in slave sales.
Osnaburg Shirt (reproduction, no photo) Osnaburg (or Osenberg) is a cheap, coarsely woven cloth popular from in the late 1700s into the 1800s (originally linen or hemp, then cotton). The name comes from the origin of the cloth in Osnabruck, Germany, although Scotland became the chief source of the fabric. It is durable and so became the cloth of choice for slave clothing, particularly shirts. This shirt is a reproduction of a typical work shirt from the 1800s. Slaves could occasionally earn money for themselves, and archaeological evidence suggests that some used it to buy things such as buttons or beads to individualize the clothing issued to them by their masters.
Cotton Boll
Cotton, or more accurately, the cotton gin, accelerated the use of slave labor in North America. Once the seeds did not have to be removed by hand, processing cotton became much faster and cheaper. This development, along with the continued improvement of mechanized spinning and weaving, made what had been a luxury fabric into a widely used and highly sought commodity. States in the lower south, such as Georgia and Alabama, became central sources of cotton for the Americas and Europe. Planting and harvesting were still very labor intensive, so plantation owners in the southern states bought increasing numbers of slaves to work the fields. These had to come from other slave states, such as Virginia, because the U.S. had outlawed the importation of slaves from Africa in 1807. Note: People may see cotton fields today in eastern Virginia and North Carolina, but for the most part, this is the result of the need to replace tobacco with other crops suited to the sandy soil of the eastern regions.
Pressed Tobacco (reproduction of period packaging)
Tobacco was one of the primary cash crops of Virginia, and tobacco planters were among the earliest users of slave labor. Virginians also processed tobacco for use. Although urban slaves did not work in the fields, some, like John Washington, were hired out to assist with processing the dried leaves. Washington describes this work in his memoire (the quotation is included in the suggestions for engaging visitors). According to his observations, work in the factories could provide income for the slaves, but only if the met their daily quota of work first.
Carpetbag (reproduction)
Carpetbags may have originated from the use of worn carpets to create cheap luggage to meet the increasing demand with the rise in travel in the 1840s. Whatever their origin, by the 1850s, these large capacity, sturdy bags were in common use by travelers everywhere. They gave rise to the derogative term “carpetbagger” in the post Civil War period to designate northerners who moved south in the wake of the Confederate’s defeat and the wide-spread destruction caused by the war.
Helping Visitors Explore the Basket
Encourage visitors to pick things up, put things on (where possible), smell things, and use things. As they do so, use these questions to guide the discussion.
Shackles
- Invite visitors to put their hands through the shackles and feel the weight.
- Ask them to imagine standing in the hot sun or the fierce cold confined with the iron bands on their wrists and ankles.
- How would the experience make them feel? What type of people did society usually put in shackles?
Quotations from John Washington’s Memoire (use to explore how slave life was restricted, even if not by physical shackles—punctuation and grammar has been left as he wrote it)
“I had now arrived at the age of between 11 and 12 years, and had began to see some of the many trials of slavery. Mother lived alone and maintained us children for about a year, perhaps. When Mrs. Taliaferro [their owner] came to the conclusion that mother, with my sisters…and brother…would have to be sent to Staunton, Virginia, to be hired out to one R.H. Phillips.”
“Who then could I complain to When I was persecuted? Who then would come early the cold Winter mornings and call me up and help me do my hard tasks? Whose hand (patting) me upon the head would sooth my early trials….Then and there my hatred was kindled secretly against my oppressors, and I promised myself that If ever I got an opportunity I would run away from these devilish slave holders–…”
Osnaburg Shirt
- If there is someone in the group whom the shirt would fit, invite him or her to put it on, if not, invite visitors to feel the fabric and investigate the basic style
- Ask them how they might try to individualize the shirt if they were able to. Would they add fancier buttons? Would they sew beads on it? Etc.
- How do we try to individualize our clothing? Would we like it if someone else determined what we had to wear?
Quotation from John Washington’s Memoire (gives insight to urban slave’s clothing, and the restrictions on their lives)
“I was dressed every morning…in a neat white Apron and clean Jacket and Pants and sent up to the Bank to see what mistress might want me to do, possibly she would have nothing at all for me to do, and if so, I would be ordered to sit down on a footstool, in her room for hours at a time when other children of my age would be out at play.”
Cotton Boll
- Have visitors think about how prickly the dried husk of the cotton is and what it would be like to pick it.
- As they feel the cotton mass, have them imagine trying to separate seeds out of it (cotton gin put an end to this task)
- How common are cotton clothes now? Why do people like them? (lightweight, wick away moisture etc.—same reasons for popularity in 1800s)
Quotation from John Washington’s Memoire (illustrates consequences to slaves of the rise of cotton cultivation in the deep south)
[There is a quote in the complete memoire about his early memory of watching slaves who were to be sold south. It is not included in the laminated pages, so I’ll need to add it later]
Pressed Tobacco
- Invite visitors to smell the tobacco. Ask whether it brings back any memories. Have any of them worked in harvesting or processing tobacco?
- Ask whether any of them have seen tobacco growing in the fields. Describe the labor intensive process of checking the plants for tobacco worms, stripping the leaves off of the plants as they reach maturity, bundling and tying the leaves to poles for hanging in the curing barn, tending the fires that provided the smoke for curing, and packing the cured leaves for shipment (if your visitors have done any of this, let them talk about it)
- Ask whether the visitors have gone through the “Portal, Passage, and Power” exhibit and point out that it includes a discussion of the role of tobacco export in Fredericksburg’s growth as a city.
- Use the quotation from Washington’s memoire below to discuss the role of slaves in the production of finished tobacco products.
Quotation from John Washington’s Memoire
“January 1st, 1860 I went to live with Messieurs Alexander and Gibbs, Tobacco Manufacturers. where I, in a month or two, learned the art of preparing tobacco for the mill. We were all tasked to twist 66 to 100 lbs per day. All the work we could do over the task we got paid for, which was our own money (emphasis his)…But if any one failed to have completed his tasks the lash would be generally resorted to.”
Carpetbag
- Invite visitors to examine the bag and estimate how much they could put in it.
- How does it compare with our luggage today?
- Can they come up with a modern version of the name “carpetbagger?” Is there an equivalently prevalent form of luggage today? (perhaps the roller bag?)
- If they lived in the north, what might have made them decide to go south after the Civil War?
- If they lived in the south, why might they have felt about the “northern invasion?” Are we seeing some similar trends today?
Military Objects Basket (combined with slavery basket)
Theme
These objects speak specifically to life and death on the battlefield. They can be linked to the weapons in the gun cases and to the information on Fredericksburg as a “city of hospitals.”
Object Inventory
2 Union kepi caps
2 Confederate kepi caps
Fife
1 bag of paper cartridges
1 tin cup
7 buttons (1 navy, 1 artillery, 1 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 engineer, 2 musician) in tin cup
3 Minnie balls (in tin cup)
1 round ball (in tin cup)
1 haversack
Object Photographs and Descriptions
Kepi Caps
This style of soldier’s cap was usually given the French term “kepi” because it was modeled off of the caps first worn by Napoleon’s troops and developed to suit the heat of desert campaigning. In America it has come to serve as a symbol of the Civil War. The French kepi has straight, stiff sides rather than the more slouchy appearance of the American version. Some also refer to it as a forage cap, but others argue that there are actually two distinctive types of hat, with variances in the crown, brim and buckle. Their basic traits, however, are very similar. Both Union and Confederate soldiers wore the kepi or forage cap, with the Union wearing blue and the Confederates usually wearing grey or tan. One of the Union repro caps in the basket is a forage cap. Look for the one that has a higher, tapered crown when extended. At least one source claims that forage caps were more common in the Union ranks, but this sort of thing is difficult to document.
Objects continued on next page.
Fife
Music and musicians have been part of armies for centuries. By the 1700s, the primary form of military music was the fife and drum corps, whose tunes assisted in keeping units in formation when marching. At the Civil War’s beginning, the army ran a school for fifers and drummers on Staten Island in New York. Over the course of the war, full brass bands began to replace the fife and drum corps, giving us the modern army band.
Paper Cartridges
Cartridges like these were used to hold a bullet and the proper amount of powder for a shot. Cartridge types differed somewhat depending on the firearm for which they were intended, but the most common were probably those used in muzzle-loading percussion rifles. The bullet would be placed at one end with the powder allotment separated from it by a paper covering. When needed, a soldier would tear it open, most often with his teeth, pour the powder into the barrel, then push the paper covered bullet into place with the ramrod. In both the Union and Confederate territories, female factory workers produced cartridges by the millions.
Bullets
Minnie ball Round ball
Until the invention of the minié or Minnie ball, bullets were literally balls. Round projectiles worked well in muskets which had smooth barrels because they could be loaded quickly (no grooves to have to worry about), but hitting the target was as much a matter of luck as skill. The development of barrels with grooves, or rifling, put a spin on the bullet that gave it much greater accuracy. The tradeoff was that because the ball had to fit tightly against the grooves in order to be spun it was difficult to load. That problem was solved by the minie ball (named for one of its French inventors, Claude Minié). These projectiles had a hollow, grooved base that expanded under the force of fire to fit snugly into the rifling. This design allowed for more streamlined projectiles and eased the loading process. Both smoothbore muskets and rifles were in use during the Civil War and both types of bullets can be found on battlefields.
Buttons
Musician Engineer Navy
Just as today, a soldier’s affiliation and rank were reflected in the decoration of his uniform, often including the buttons. These reproduction buttons represent those worn by musicians (harp), engineers (fortification and banner), and navy or marines (eagle with anchor). Members of the cavalry, artillery, and infantry had to settle for an initial (C, A, or I). Women and children often aided the war effort by sewing buttons on uniforms. Due to their relative durability, buttons also survive on (or more precisely, under) battlefields.
Tin Cup (no photograph)
A soldier never wanted to be without water or the means to obtain water, particularly on the march. Cups made of tin, also referred to as dippers, were lightweight and durable. They could be easily stashed in a soldier’s pack or attached to his belt.
Haversack
The haversack was a large capacity canvas bag that could be carried across the body while on the march. It originated as a means for horsemen to transport oats (old English “haver”) for their mounts, and thus was called an “oat sack.” As a form of luggage it made it easy for a soldier to carry all of his personal items while in the field. These items could include such things as writing implements, soap, razor, food, or playing cards. The U.S. army still issues haversacks as part of a soldier’s gear.
Helping Visitors Explore the Basket
Kepi Caps
- Invite visitors to investigate the caps; ask whether they see any differences in them (one of the Union caps is definitely a forage cap=it tapers toward the crown and has a buckle band))
- Engage visitors in conversation about the reasons all uniforms were not standard (difficulties with supplies, use of private contractors to raise troops)
- Invite them to try on a cap and imagine being a soldier; would they have volunteered?
Buttons
- Encourage visitors to examine the buttons; can they guess which one is the musician? Navy? (don’t tell them the answer, these can be figured out fairly easily, especially if you help them see the eagle carrying an anchor; the engineers button is too obscure for most folks=fortress and banner)
- Why do we use uniforms?
- Have any of them every worn a uniform? Did they like it?
Fife
- Talk with the visitors about why musicians might have been part of the army (role of music in marching and in battle charges)
- Have any of them ever played in a marching band? How hard was it?
- Use the antiseptic wipes provided and invite any visitor who would like to play the fife
Paper Cartridges
- Ask a visitor to put one of the Minnie balls into one of the cartridges (goes in point side up; the powder would be packed on top, with the bullet wrapped separately)
- Have them try to imagine loading it into a rifle in the heat of battle; you can tie this to the weapons cabinet and encourage them to explore the different types of guns used
- Ask them to imagine preparing the cartridges in factories (primarily women did this); need for care and precision to prevent accidents or ammunition that didn’t work
Bullets
- Encourage visitors to examine the Minnie balls and try to figure out how they worked (powder fire expanded the hollow base so that it fit into the rifling of the barrel)
- Ask them to compare the round bullet with the Minnie ball and imagine trying to load a tightly fitted round ball into a rifle barrel (remember that it had to fit snugly in order to engage the rifling or grooves)
- Round bullets slid easily into a smooth barrel musket, but why would a rifled barrel be more accurate? (simple physics=spin on the bullet to keep it aimed at the target)
Note: the last question is not suitable for younger children (under age 10 or so) who have trouble with abstract concepts.
Haversack and Tin Cup
- Ask visitors if they have ever used a tin cup (camping maybe)?
- What would be the advantage of using this type of cup when camping or hiking?
Invite visitors to examine
The Museum Doctor 