August 18 & 19, 2020 Edged Weapons, Armor, & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/18/2020
This comes from the well known Hazard collection, portions of which may be seen in several books on Civil War and Gettysburg relics. This exact relic is pictured on page 176 of "Gettysburg Battlefield Relics & Souvenirs by O'Donnell, Hazard & Boardman. This piece was originally in the Lee’s Headquarters Museum, the contents of which were sold 1999-2000. This bears both the original pencil inscription of the finder, A.B. Koser, who salvaged it from a tree cut down on Culp's Hill in March 1877 and recounted that the tree had been struck at least 129 times, as well as a modern ink note on the provenance tacked to one side and a pencil inscription on the underside of the base, which was made to display the fragment upright and uses Gettysburg-found bullets as the feet as well. The wood itself was cut to display the 5 bullets that had lodged in the tree, and the original pencil inscription reads lengthwise. Culp's Hill was the scene of intense fighting on July 2 and July 3. Anchoring the right of the Union’s “fish-hook” line, Union troops on Culp's Hill fought off several Confederate assaults, which for decades after the war overshadowed the fights in the Union center and left. Mathew Brady expended a number of photographic plates in views of the Union defenses and bullet-scarred trees as comments on man-versus-nature and on the intensity of the fire. Veterans’ posts often exhibited “war logs,” which gave an idea of fire they endured by literally showing bullets and shell fragments arrested in mid-flight. This is a seldom-offered chance to acquire a real bullet-struck tree section from the war’s most famous battle. The piece is in very good condition and offers a rare chance to acquire a real, published, and well-provenanced relic of Gettysburg. SR
Item Dimensions: 7 - 1/2" x 5" x 9".
Paperwork
Photocopy of Book