Capt. Norton's Relics

[John Hartwell]

I just posted an entry in my local history blog {http://hauburn.blogspot.com/} with some ACW content.

Charles Norton had been wounded several times and discharged as disabled as a Sergeant in the 1st Maine Cavalry. Recovering, he later was commissioned as Captain in a New Hampshire regiment. Wounded at Fort Fisher, his arm was amputated below the elbow, and he was invalided out. As the blog points out, he augmented his income by his relic-illustrated lectures.

The description of his collection I paraphrase from period newspaper accounts:


"First set out a fragment of the first shell fired at Fort Sumter; a spur worn by Gen. Grant at Vicksburg, and a part of the chain that bound the last slave sold in Washington, D.C. The cavalry saber borne throughout the war by Gen. George A. Custer, and carried by him at the time of his death at the Little Bighorn, was a special treasure of Capt. Norton's. And a mahogany stand, placed in the corner, held the ships bell from the Confederate ironclad Merrimac, which had faced the USS Monitor at Hampton Roads.
"Several other items he placed on a large table next to the podium, and beside that, he stood a large American flag: the one General Phil Sheridan had raised over the Capitol in Columbia, S. C., after the occupation of the "Birthplace of the Confederacy". So large was the flag that, despite the longest staff he could fit into the Hall, the end trailed onto the floor."

It occurs to me that a number of things about this assemblage make it seem rather questionable. How likely are any of these to be genuine (as described)?

Cheers!

jno

 

[Monitor]

I just posted an entry in my local history blog {http://hauburn.blogspot.com/} with some ACW content.

Charles Norton had been wounded several times and discharged as disabled as a Sergeant in the 1st Maine Cavalry. Recovering, he later was commissioned as Captain in a New Hampshire regiment. Wounded at Fort Fisher, his arm was amputated below the elbow, and he was invalided out. As the blog points out, he augmented his income by his relic-illustrated lectures.

The description of his collection I paraphrase from period newspaper accounts:


"First set out a fragment of the first shell fired at Fort Sumter; a spur worn by Gen. Grant at Vicksburg, and a part of the chain that bound the last slave sold in Washington, D.C. The cavalry saber borne throughout the war by Gen. George A. Custer, and carried by him at the time of his death at the Little Bighorn, was a special treasure of Capt. Norton's. And a mahogany stand, placed in the corner, held the ships bell from the Confederate ironclad Merrimac, which had faced the USS Monitor at Hampton Roads.
"Several other items he placed on a large table next to the podium, and beside that, he stood a large American flag: the one General Phil Sheridan had raised over the Capitol in Columbia, S. C., after the occupation of the "Birthplace of the Confederacy". So large was the flag that, despite the longest staff he could fit into the Hall, the end trailed onto the floor."

It occurs to me that a number of things about this assemblage make it seem rather questionable. How likely are any of these to be genuine (as described)?

Cheers!

jno

While the sword may well have been Custer's, I doubt it was worn by him when he was KIA at Little Bighorn. From what I have read, all the swords were left in the baggage train in boxes before Custer's force set out.

 

[ErnieMac]

Phil Sheridan was in Virginia when Sherman captured Columbia, SC.