Rosefiend asked folks to post a picture or two of their pocket watches, so here is one of mine, my latest acquisition.
My watch is a Waltham Model 1857, "Appleton, Tracy & Company" Grade, serial number 107,296, manufactured in February of 1864. The movement has 15 jewels and a temperature compensated balance, and it is in its original 18 karat gold case, which was sold by J. R. Reed & Co., a prominent Pittsburgh jeweler of the CW period. The inside of the rear lid is engraved: "Presented to J. T. Copeland, Brig. Gen. Vols, by the Officers of Camp Copeland, 1864."
J. T. Copeland was born in Maine in 1813, studied law at Harvard and clerked for Daniel Webster. In the 1840s, he served in the Maine militia, rising to the rank of colonel. Subsequently he moved to Michigan, where he operated a sawmill for a time near Bay City, later serving on the Michigan State Supreme Court from 1852-7. When the CW broke out, he volunteered for service, and on account of his prior military experience, was commissioned as a Lt. Colonel in the 1st MI Cavalry Regiment. Shortly thereafter, Copeland was promoted to a full colonel and put in command of the 5th MI Cavalry. When his two original regiments were combined with a third regiment and consolidated into the 1st Michigan Cavalry Brigade (the "Wolverines"), Copeland was given a star and placed in brigade command. (Some of the attached pictures of Joseph Copeland likely were taken before his promotion to brigadier. The one of him in a frock coat with two rows of eight buttons in pairs definitely was taken after his promotion to brigadier.) Copeland was one of the first Union general officers to recognize the practical importance of the Spencer repeating carbine ("that damned Yankee rifle you loaded on Sunday and shot all week"), and his brigade was one of the first federal cavalry units to be equipped with it. At the Battle of First Kernstown on March 23, 1862, one of Stonewall Jackson's rare tactical defeats, Copeland's brigade captured two to three hundred confederate prisoners.
The Wolverines passed through Gettysburg on June 29, 1863. Then amidst a larger, well-known shake-up in the federal command structure, it was decided that Copeland, at age 50, was "too old" for field command. He was replaced as commander of the 1st MI Cavalry Brigade by George Custer two days before the Battle of Gettysburg, in which, according to one source, the Wolverines suffered greater losses than any other federal cavalry unit engaged. General Copeland was reassigned to the command of large recruit collection and training camps, first in Annapolis MD, then in Braddock, PA, outside of Pittsburgh. The camp in Braddock Field was subsequently renamed "Camp Copeland" in Gen. Copeland's honor. I pass within sight of Braddock each morning on my way to work. Much of the former camp site is now a cemetery, but there is still a Copeland Street along part of the former boundary of the camp. Apparently, the general was popular with his officers there, who presented him with this gold watch. The watch is in great shape and keeps excellent time. Copeland's last commission was as commandant of the Union camp for confederate POWs at Alton, Illinois.
Copeland settled in Orchard Lake, MI in West Bloomfield Township, near Pontiac after the war, but eventually moved to Orange Park, Florida, where he served as a Justice of the Peace. His home on Orchard Lake, "The Castle," became, sequentially, a resort, a military academy, a Christian seminary, and the nucleus of St. Mary's College and Preparatory School. Gen. Copeland died in 1893, on his 80th birthday.