This is a Civil War period wooden crutch with a leather horsehair filled pad at top. The crutch meas. approx. 49.75 inches tall with a shaft that is 0.75 of an inch in diameter. The wood has some slight wear and the leather pad at top is torn but present. The pad was originally anchored by a row of small tacks which still remain in the wood.

During the battle of Antietam the Poffenberger farm was behind the Union right wing represented by Major General Joseph Hooker’s 1^st Corps. This crutch was recovered from the Poffenberger barn which used as a field hospital during and after the battle. This barn was also the site of a hospital run by the famous Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.

This crutch came from the collection of a now closed museum in Florida.

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