Early American Battle Display Is Treat

Have you ever been to a Civil War memorabilia, relic and book show? These affairs, usually held in huge auditoriums on the East Coast, draw hundreds of vendors and thousands of attendees. I attended the Northern Virginia Relic Hunters Association’s 25th anniversary show near Gettysburg, Pa., last April and I was astonished at what I saw.

My friend and I knew we were in for something really big when we pulled into a parking lot twice the size of a stadium lot - and found it was nearly full. Paying our $5 entrance fee, we went into a huge room with rows and rows of tables to accommodate the more than 400 vendors. On the tables were thousands of books, documents, photographs, artifacts and relics (uniforms, swords, mini-balls, etc.) - all for sale!

I learned there are dozens of such shows in the East.

It was rather like going into an enormous Civil War museum, except, here, everything was for sale.

I picked up flyers from professional genealogists willing to do Civil War research in the National Archives, flyers from the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., and from magazines devoted to the Civil War and for dozens of Civil War-related tours.

I picked up membership information on The Longstreet Society, founded in 1994 to honor Confederate States of America’s Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and Friends of the Monocacy Battlefield, near Frederick, Md.

There were flyers for seminars on Civil War-related topics, proving folks are still vitally interested in learning more about this period of American history.

A handsome young man in a blue uniform pleaded the case with anyone who would listen that 350 acres in Frederick County, Md., site of the first and second Kernstown Battles, should be purchased and protected from developers. He was begging for membership in the Kernstown Battlefield Assoc., at any level, from $25 to $1,000.

Men in Confederate uniforms invited membership into the Sons of Confederate Veterans, explaining about the heritage of honor with its membership of some 37,000. For information on this organization, write to P.O. Box 59, Columbia, TN, 38402-0059; or call 800-MY DIXIE; or visit their Web site at http://www.scv.org.

Some tables were covered with boxes and boxes of Civil War documents, personal letters and official papers, all carefully placed in acid-free plastic sleeves, and quite costly. I was amazed to find so many of these 130-year-old papers are still being bought and sold.

There were Civil War-era guns for sale, handguns and rifles. There were sabres, swords and bayonets, twisted metal fragments gleaned from battlefields. There were belt buckles and buttons and new-like-old hats. There was Conferate money and coloring books, photos and tintypes. There were medals, clay pipes and canteens, bags of little metal soldiers; gray and blue.

And there were books and books and books.

Next time your travels take you East, look for flyers of a Civil War memorabilia, relic and book show. To spend an afternoon at such a show would be a learning treat for any genealogist.

, DataTimes MEMO: Donna Potter Phillips welcomes letters from readers. Write to her at The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. For a response, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Donna Potter Phillips The Spokesman-Review