CONFEDERATE PRISON CAMP ART: ELMIRA PRISON 1864, EX-TEXAS CIVIL WAR MUSEUM

CONFEDERATE PRISON CAMP ART: ELMIRA PRISON 1864, EX-TEXAS CIVIL WAR MUSEUM

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Item Code: 1268-1226

Soldiers in camp often used what leisure time they had in crafting small mementos that might be sent home or retained as souvenirs. Prisoners of war had the additional incentive of selling or trading curios to guards or visiting civilians. This is a small mother-pearl square, the material likely scavenged from something else, crudely engraved on the face with a Confederate battleflag and fitted on the back with a small brass wire spring pin soldered to a small metal disk set into the back. The solder gave way, but the pin has been preserved with it.

The face has a small “A” visible, but the soldier seems to have exhausted his artistic abilities at that point and not gone on to supply the “C” and “S,” unless they were too lightly incised to be readily visible now. On the reverse, however, “CSA” can still be read on one edge, “1864” on another, “ELMIRA PRISON” on a third and what appears to be a first initial and last name on the fourth edge, which has been crossed out with a series of fine lines, but appears to read, “J. PARANS” or “J. PARAN’S. We have not identified him to our satisfaction. We find, for instance, a “J. Paran” in the 7th South Carolina who died in as prisoner of war, though his name appears also as “Ravan” and he does not seem to have been at Elmira. (We also do not see anything close in the roster of Confederate dead at Elmira.) It might yet be possible to read the name differently or narrow down the possibilities among spelling variations in the records. Please see our photos.

Established in July 1864, the Elmira Prison Camp used the grounds of Barracks #3 of the military rendezvous point for various mid-state New York regiments and was in operation for about fourteen months, the last of some 12,000 who passed through there departing in late September 1865, though disease, malnutrition, bad weather and poor shelter took the lives of almost 25% of its inmates, who lie in a national cemetery at the site. Decoration of this pin with the Confederate battleflag and the presence of the soldier’s name on the reverse might indicate the soldier made it for himself rather than for trade, perhaps as a small act of defiance.  [sr] [ph:L]

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