The Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia

Not to be confused with the America Civil War Center also located in Richmond at Tredagar Ironworks, (see the post, "The Virginia Trapper," from October 2011), The Museum of the Confederacy is privately operated. It is the first piece of Civil War history we've seen that was done chronologically.  But to get to that, we have to get past the interesting things just outside the front door:

Now you know as much as we know about that fancy fish...  They also have the anchor off of the C.S.S Virginia.  An anchor is an anchor, so we won't trouble you with a photo of that.

This may be the fanciest saddle I've ever seen.  It belonged to Confederate Brigadier General John H. Morgan, veteran of the Mexican War and commander of the Lexington Rifles militia company before the Civil War.  During the war he was a colonel of the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry and commanded a cavalry division in the Army of Tennessee.  It is what was called a "presentation saddle," so I don't know if it was ever put on a horse.  Seems like a lot of wasted saddle leather and silver to me...

This is more like it.  This he used every day.

In the recent post, "The Last Confederate Cemetery," I related the story of one of the men, Jesse H. Hutchins.  He enlisted only a few days after the firing on Ft. Sumter, and was killed in the last few hours before the Army of Northern Virginia was surrendered by Lee.  Below is the jacket of one Captain John Quincy Marr, organizer and officer of the Warrenton Rifles.  He became one of the first Confederates to die in battle.  You can see where the bullet went through to his heart, killing him instantly.

I don't know what to think about J.E.B. Stuart's saddle below:

All I can think of is "Ouch!" because that is NOT a padded leather seat - that's wood!

Someone has expressed to me that if I show pictures of what's in a museum others will believe they don't need to go there because they've already seen it all.  How can that be?  There are HUNDREDS of items in these museums.  I can't even begin to share all that we've seen in any particular one.   Besides, what is of interest to me may not be the thing you're interested in - and what I ignored may be THE thing you would want to see. We hope our blog posts encourage people to go to museums locally and when traveling.  there is always something new!