- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Location
- Central Massachusetts
Autograph quilt, otherwise known as a signature quilt: a type of commemorative quilt composed of squares of a set pattern, each of which includes the name of a family member, friend, or a member of some other group. In the 19th century, the signatures were normally added in indelible ink.
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We have no idea what the quilt in question actually looked like. Its squares could have been any of a wide variety of patterns, simple or complex. They were probably the former, being the work of young girls at the North Wing District school of North Bridgewater (now the city of Brockton), Massachusetts about the year 1860. The story, as it comes to us, is entitled “A Checkered Career,” so, it may well have looked something like that pictured above.
When the quilt comes to our attention, it was already in Newport News, Virginia. Very probably it had been sent off in April, 1861, as a gift to one of the four North Bridgewater men who served in the 4th Mass. Militia, which regiment had occupied the village of Hampton during the first months of the war. Somehow, it had been lost, and fallen into rebel hands … it would change hands (and sides) a few more times during the course of the next few years.
The story appears in the Brockton Gazette, early in February, 1884:
A CHECKERED CAREER
Being that of an Autograph Massachusetts
Soldier’s Bedquilt
Soldier’s Bedquilt
Among the various contributions of North Bridgewater to the soldiers during the war, was a certain bedquilt made by little girls, who, twenty-three years ago, constituted the school at North Wing, and in blocks written on that quilt in indelible ink were the names of thirty-eight or more.
Who was the first to enjoy it, and how it happened to be in the place found, is unknown. In the month of July 1862, during the seven days’ fight before Richmond, Burnside’s men were forwarded from North Carolina to Newport News, and while encamped there, a soldier of company F, of the 21st Massachusetts regiment, on the search, found on board a steamer a box, and in that box a quantity of rifles and sabers, and wrapped around them this album bedquilt. If it was, with these implements of war, on the way to give comfort to the Johnnies at that time, it reached not its destination, but was confiscated in behalf of the United States Government, and for the benefit of Charles E. Simmons, to whom it gave friendly comfort in the campaign about Cedar Mountain, and the march on Manassas.
On the afternoon of the 29th of August, General Reno, commanding a part of the 9th Army Corps, gave orders for immediate attack. So, to be less hampered, and ready for any emergency, the knapsacks of the men were unslung and piled up at the outskirts of a dense piece of woods, and a guard left with them for safety. This was the last seen of the guard and knapsacks. The quilt now was to furnish comfort to the enemy.
From the last of August in 1862, to the 13th of December, the same year, to whom this bedquilt left on the field at Bull Run ministered comfort and gave shelter is unknown. It must have passed into Maryland with Lee’s army, done duty at South Mountain and Antietam, and got back to Fredericksburg, at which place it was picked up during the battle, and fell into the hands of the original confiscator, doubly prized as a friend long lost, but now rescued after many days. This fickle but trusty companion followed still the fortunes of the 21st Massachusetts regiment in the campaign of the Army of the Ohio in Kentucky, through the conflicts at Blue Springs, Lenoir, Campbell Station and the siege of Knoxville, Tenn. It re-enlisted at Blain’s Cross-roads with its owner, but on its arrival in the city of Worcester for a furlough of thirty days, it was judged best to retire this quilt to civil life as a servant having well done.
Since its retirement from the Warpath it has been friendly in its ministrations to that soldier boy, besides two more, who, if time should come again when the sound of strife is heard in the land, would be able to vie with the daughters of those young misses of 1861, who in contributing their album bedquilt gave such comfort to a soldier and a blessing to his children.
Those knapsacks left behind “in a little grove beside the road near the Henry House Hill on the Bull Run battlefield” were encountered a couple of more times in the travels of the 21st regiment. Cpl. James Madison Stone reports that, at Antietam, his was returned to him, having been “found and identified by the man who painted the initials of my name, company, regiment and state on the side of it. He was a Company K man who was detailed in the hospital department. He found it in going over the field gathering up the wounded and burying the dead after the battle.” Again, in December 1863, a full year after Simmons’ retrieved the quilt, the 21st was engaged in the siege of Knoxville, Tenn. “The 1st South Carolina regiment, of Longstreet’s corps, … sent word over the line to the 21st Massachusetts regiment, that if they wanted their old knapsacks, they should come and get them.” [J. M. Stone, Personal Recollections of the CW , 1918][Hartford Seminary Record, 1917]
Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/98477071/charles-edward-simmons
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