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EDWARD WOODWARD GETTYSBURG DESK SET FROM GAR SKELLY POST #9, GETTYSBURG
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$2,750.00
Quantity Available: 1
Item Code: 286-1439
Shipping: Determined by Method & Location of buyer
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Call 717-334-0347,
Fax 717-334-5016, or E-mail
The set consists of a rectangular block of Sycamore wood sawn on the battlefield and mounted with a burl type wood center piece affixed with a .69 caliber round ball on top. The top of the wood base is painted “Gettysburg” and the cross hatched wood front is painted “July 1+2 3 ‘63”. Next to the center piece is a 4 ½” section of an Enfield socket bayonet painted “Culps Hill”. A section of a shell fragment and a 1 3/8” iron canister shot are flanked on the corners. They are surrounded in turn by relics from the battlefield: a Virginia state seal two-piece button with generous gold gilding, a fired 3-ring Minnie ball with dirt in the base, a small iron case shot, a .58 caliber CS Gardner bullet, a large coat size enlistedman’s eagle button and another small iron case shot. A small section of granite type rock is also inlayed in the block. The bullets and buttons are anchored by small nails or tacks. The rear of the center wood piece has the remnants of a paper tag affixed. Scattered letters are visible including the name James. The very lower section is still intact and reads “Post 9 G.A.R.”, which is the Jack Skelly Gettysburg Post on Middle Street. These sets were thought to have been sold at the post for fund raising events.
This type of Gettysburg desk set / relic display originated with Edward Woodward, a British born gunsmith living in Baltimore when the war broke out, who reportedly refused Confederate offers to supervise a gun factory in favor of aiding wounded US soldiers as a member of a Union Relief Society and later moved to Gettysburg after the battle to aid the wounded as a member of the US Christian Commission. He remained in town and is known to have been selling similar desk sets as early as September 1866 and by 1870 was advertising his gunsmithing and his relic business from a shop on Carlisle Street near the train depot. After Woodward’s death in 1894 these popular desk sets continued to be made by John Good and Joel Danner, though in simpler form than Woodward’s. This set is a good example of an early battlefield souvenir that might be brought home even by a visiting veteran of the battle. See O’Donnell, Hazard and Boardman, Gettysburg Battlefield Relics and Souvenirs for the story of these and similar creations that often sought to create something combining the artistic, the historic, and the useful. [stp] [ph:L]
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