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FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY TABLE MEDAL WITH CASE FOR SERVICE IN 9th NYSM, 83rd NY VOLUNTEERS, INSCRIBED TO CHARLES W. DOWERS, COMPANY C

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This is a very good condition die-struck bronze table medal inscribed to a Civil War veteran on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of his old unit mustering into service. The medal is in its original pushbutton leatherette case, lined in white silk at top and crimson velvet in the bottom.

The regiment was an old NY militia regiment in New York City and was initially mustered into federal service under special authority of the War Department, but then turned over to the state in September 1861 and assigned a numerical designation as part of the state’s volunteer force, the “83rd” NY Vols, in December 1861. The face of the medal bears raised lettering in three concentric circles around the central motif of the regiment’s corps badge. The outer ring of lettering includes the militia designation of unit at top and the volunteer designation at bottom, with a line just inside those top and bottom giving its original date of organization for the volunteer force, MAY 27th, 1861 at top, and the date of its fiftieth anniversary, and occasion for the medal, at bottom: MAY 27^th 1911. A third, innermost ring of text reads “MUSTERED FOR THE WAR” and at bottom “RETURNED JUNE 11^th 1864,” having served three years (the usual alternative in enlisting for “three years or the war.”)  The central motif is a prominent Maltese Cross, the badge of the 5th Corps, superimposed on a disk, indicating the regiment’s prior service in the 1st Army Corps, which was dissolved in March 1864, with its units amalgamated with the 5^th Corps.

The reverse reads, VETERAN’S SOUVENIR” in an outer ring of raised letters, with “GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY” at bottom, with a second ring reading “WAR FOR THE UNION” the regimental motto, at top and “RATIONE AUT VI” (By Reason or Force,” the regimental motto. At the center is a raised wreath with “COMRADE” inside it at the top over the script engraved name “Charles W. Dowers / Co. C” with a small “28” at bottom, likely the issue number of the medal.

The regiment saw some heavy fighting under Pope beginning in Fall 1862, with the Second Bull Run Campaign, and then joined the Army of the Potomac, with whom it fought at South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. It was honorably discharged and mustered out in June 1864, having lost 8 officers and 103 enlisted men killed in action, another officer and 53 enlisted men who died of their wounds, and 390 officers and enlisted men who were wounded, but recovered to some degree. Dowers gave his age as 18 when he enlisted at New York City and mustered into Co. C as a private on October 7, 1861. He was discharged for disability on June 15, 1862, which puts him with the regiment in some of their early campaigning in the Shenandoah. A James Dowers, age 20, signed up the same day in the same company. We assume they were brothers. Dowers seems to have been born in 1845, making him actually 16 when he signed up in the army. He does not seem to have served in any other unit. He married in 1868 and in 1870, 1880 and 1900 census records is listed as working as a wood turner in NY City. By 1915 he is retired and living in New Jersey, where he passed away 3/14/1927 at East Orange.

This is a nice token of wartime service to the country and physical reminder of the comradery of veterans that lasts many decades after their service.   [sr] [ph:L]

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