Handsome silver pitcher with lid, handle & spout, measuring 7.5” in diameter at base, 5.375” at top. Brass Maker mark, attached to bottom: “Meridan Brittania Co. / No. 25 / Double Wall Pitcher.” Pitcher is girdled with etched panels, with presentation inscription below spout, and two brass, Roman helmeted vignettes on side, with small gilded swan atop the lid. Pitcher exhibits medium outer tarnish, & the outer rim displays slightly bent three inch section along the bottom outer flange. Else VG, with sharp clear presentation inscription.

As detailed in the CIVIL WAR TIMES ILLUSTRATED magazine article that accompanies this pitcher [July 1962 issue] the story behind the Mississippi River shipwreck of the side-wheel steamer “Ruth” is a tale and a half.

The steamer Ruth was a civilian riverboat chartered by the Federals to transport cargo and passengers. On night the August 4, 1863, the Ruth left Cairo, Ill., carrying a cargo of supplies, livestock, bituminous coal. It also carried 200 passengers, among who were 7 army paymasters, and 30 troops guarding 2.5 million dollars in Federal paper currency in three wooden boxes.

Shortly before midnight, eight miles south of Cairo the steamer suddenly caught fire in the stern section and was soon completely aflame. It was run to the nearest bank, at full speed, where it careened back out onto the Mississippi, and eventually sunk, a complete wreck in 25 feet of water. Some thirty lives were lost, and the money, which went down with the ship, was found by a salvage crew to have been burnt to a crisp.

A subsequent investigation indicated the possibility of Confederate sabotage. The speed with which the fire had spread led to immediate suspicion of Confederate incendiarism. One paymaster testified that the RUTH docked in Cairo earlier that night, having come from St. Louis where it had picked the money, a Union paymaster recalled hearing a voice from ashore saying, “here comes the paymasters boat!”, an indication that someone waiting had advance notice of the trip. One of the mates, James Patterson had left the boat in Cairo, and another mate testified that Patterson had been in the Confederacy and had been arrested and imprisoned as a Rebel on coming north to St. Louis. A boat chambermaid stated she noticed a short white man with a lantern moving in among the mules quartered in the stern section near to where the fire broke out. She went on to say said that, as the flaming boat careened into the riverbank, the same man had jumped ashore, shouting “Hurrah for Old Abe Lincoln’s boat burning up!, “ and hoped that “all the goddamned n______ would get burned up.”

In the shipwreck, the US government had not really lost the money, as these were new treasury notes which had never been in circulation. Aside from loss of life, and property, the most serious consequence of the wreck was that troops in the lower Mississippi would have to wait a bit longer for their June 30^th pay. A board of Inquiry, headed by General David Hunter concluded that the fire was incendiary in origin, not necessarily to destroy the money, but as part of a policy of crippling Union water transportation. The paymasters were cleared of negligence.

Confederate sabotage was never proved, but three years later the surviving ships officers remembered the RUTH and presented Captain “Ben” Pegram with this remarkable pitcher. In all, an extraordinary Civil War artifact with a tale behind it that Mark Twain would appreciate. Invites further research.

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