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Pike, 1859
Accession No. 1997.167.1
Artist/Maker Blair, Charles. (manufacturer)
Dates 19th C. (1851)
Credit Bequest of Lee A. Wallace, Jr.
Description:

In 1857, abolitionist John Brown contracted with Charles Blair, a Connecticut blacksmith, to make 1,000 pikes. These became part of a stockpile of weapons Brown planned to use to support his raid against the federal arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry. Although Brown’s mission ended in failure and the Commonwealth of Virginia executed him for treason, the event sent shock waves through the nation. Brown became a martyr for the antislavery cause in the North, but to southerners he personified the hostile intentions of northerners toward slavery. Virginia secessionist Edmund Ruffin sent a pike to each governor of a slaveholding state as a symbol of "the fanatical hatred borne by the dominant northern party to the institutions & people of the Southern States."

One of John Brown's pikes (serial #213), one of the 954 manufactured by Charles Blair of Collinsville, Connecticut, 1857-59 to be issued to free-state settlers in Kansas for self-defense, but used instead by Brown for arming slaves in the raid on Harpers Ferry. However, none of the slaves attempted to use the pikes. After Brown's capture, the governor of Virginia sent some of the pikes to the governors of other southern states as warnings to be vigilant against northern aggression.

Painting, “Slave Hunt”
Accession No. 2000.161
Artist/Maker Moran, Thomas.
Description:

Painting of the "Slave Hunt" by Thomas Moran; oil on paper mounted on board and signed in the lower left corner. This picture is closely related, but not identical, to Moran's "Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia," a monumental canvas measuring 34 x 43 3/4 inches that is in the collection of the Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Tulsa canvas was painted during Moran's period of study in England in the early 1860s. Moran sold it in England for nine pounds, money that he put towards his freight home. The Virginia Historical Society's "Slave Hunt" was probably painted in 1864, after Moran's return to his hometown of Philadelphia. Its deviation from the larger painting suggests that it was painted from memory and that it was neither a direct copy nor a preliminary study. A photograph of the "Slave Hunt" in the Moran Archives is inscribed in the hand of the artist's daughter: "Small picture in oil in an album collection of Phila, Painter–1864 Sanatary {sic} Commission of Slave Hunt not the same composition owner Mr. John F. Braun 314 Otis Blgd. Phila Pa." In 1928, Mr. John Braun of Merion, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, did indeed own the larger work and the inscription seems to indicate that he owned the smaller work as well. What is most interesting and revelatory about the inscription, though, is the reference to a picture album and Sanitary Commission of 1864. The size of the smaller work as well as the fact that Moran painted it on paper certainly would have made it suitable for inclusion in some sort of volume with other paintings. oil on paper

Sword and scabbard belonging to Union general George H. Thomas
Accession No. 1900.1.A-C
Artist/Maker Ames Manufacturing Company. (manufacturer)
Dates 19th C. (1840)
Description:

1840 pattern sword (a) and scabbard (b) presented by the citizens of Southampton County, Virginia, to native son Captain (later General) George Henry Thomas (1816-1870) for gallantry in Florida (the Seminole War) and the Mexican War. The sword has a wooden case (c). A diary entry of 22 July 1847 by Daniel W. Cobb indicates that a resolution to procure the sword was made "on Munday our last Cort day the people noticed our neighbour Loutenant Thomas who has been so sucksuccessfull in the Flordia war and also Texas war." The Ames Factory scrapbook (Michael Bremmer Collection) indicates that William H. Horstman of Philadelphia placed the order on September 17, 1847, and that it was delivered [to Philadelphia] on December 29, 1847. In a letter of 25 October 1848, upon an impending visit to the county, Thomas wrote "I hope they will not enact the absurd ceremony of presenting me with the sword for in truth it has already been presented and accepted by letter some months since."

Thomas is known to have worn the sword only once, at his wedding on November 7, 1852, to Miss Frances Kellogg. Afterward, however, perhaps because the Thomases moved from post to post, he left the sword in the safekeeping of his sisters. However, when in 1861 he refused an offer to become Confederate Chief of Ordnance and remained loyal to the Union (becoming the "Rock of Chickamauga" and victor at Nashville) rather than to Virginia, his sisters treated him as if dead. His letters were returned unopened and his appeals for the sword ignored. They were never reconciled to their brother, who died in 1870. When the last sisters died in 1900—Judith E. Thomas and Fanny C. Thomas—the sword was bequeathed to the Virginia Historical Society. They attributed his apostasy to his having married a woman from Troy, New York, where he is buried. For further information, see Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XL (1932), 331.

Merrimac Sextant
Accession: 1965.1
DATES: Late 18th C.
ARTIST/MAKER(S): Biggs, Thomas (Manufacturer)
Description:

Sextant, ebony, ivory and brass. It is marked with the makers name, "Thomas Biggs, New York, New York, 1785." Sextant taken from the Confederate Ironclad "merrimac." The sextant came into the possession of Major Dixon Eckles, 39th Regiment, 15th Brigade, 1st Virginia Militia, following the battle between the merrimac and the monitor. Maj. Eckles along with a Major Black and others offered to retrieve ammunition and valuables from the ironclad before it was blown up. The sextant stayed in the family until it was donated by his granddaughter. See newspaper article "Local Woman has Prized Sextant from Confederate Ship, Merrimac" in the Daily Progress, July 18, 1942.

Williams Minié Ball
Accession: 2009.60.1
Description:

Williams Minié Ball, .58 caliber. Three square cut grooves. Found in the 20th century near Chamberlain's line (Federal V Corps—185th New York) near Appomattox. Union forces removed the minié balls from their rifles following the surrender of General Lee's forces at Appomattox.

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