With great pleasure, we present this Virginia military button worn during the Civil War by General Robert E. Lee, bestowed by the General himself to 16-year-old Fanny Crump at the close of the war. Never before has this significant, well-documented historical artifact been made available publicly at auction.

23 mm convex brass Virginia staff frock coat button with c. 1865 jeweler’s gold reverse mounting with t-bar.

Obverse features the Virginia state seal portraying Virtus, the genius of the Commonwealth, dressed as an Amazon standing victorious over the prostrate body of Tyranny. On a lined field with 13 five-pointed above a riband with the Virginia state motto reading “Sic Semper Tyrannis.” (Albert VA 20C).

Reverse is finely engraved: “R.E. Lee / to / F. B. Crump / May 1865.” Purportedly with a lock of Lee’s hair enclosed inside by the jewelry. Not disassembled for further examination.

Includes a notarized affidavit of ownership and provenance. Richmond, Virginia, 18 August 2014. Noting provenance from Fanny B. Crump (Tucker), to her son Beverley Randolph Tucker, and thus by descent.

A truly remarkable artifact of General Robert E. Lee collected in the first weeks after Appomattox by Fanny Booth Crump (1849-1937), the daughter of Assistant Secretary of the Confederate Treasury, Judge William Crump (1819-1897).

After the formal infantry surrender and ceremony on 9 April 1865, Lee stayed in Appomattox until April 12th before returning to the Confederate capital in Richmond where he maintained a townhome on Franklin Street. The comings and goings of the still-beloved general were recorded by Fanny’s sister: “[Lee’s] appearance on the streets during the short time he made his residence among us was a matter of such curious interest to many strangers in our midst, they would often follow him, that he did not go out except in the early morning or at night.” (Emmeline Allmand Crump Lightfoot. “The Evacuation of Richmond”. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 41, No. 3 (July 1933), pp. 220-221). In these sojourns, Lee would often visit the Crumps, as he was a close friend of Judge Crump and a regular guest at their home while in Richmond.

It was during these visits that Emmeline, just 18, her younger 16-year-old sister Fanny, and their cousin requested a coat button from General Lee. Emmaline continues her recollection of the events: “several times just at twilight, we had a visit from [Lee] accompanied by one his daughters, usually Mildred…We were very anxious to have one of the buttons from the uniform he had worn in the war and he promised to bring them himself. He did so; one for my sister, my cousin and myself, putting them into my hand with a gallant little speech…” (Lightfoot, pp. 220-221).

Their father had not been present initially, as he had been attempting to salvage the Confederate treasury, evacuating what he could on a train to Georgia. Upon his return, he took his daughters’ buttons to a Richmond jeweler who refitted each button by removing the reverses and arranging the locks of General Lee’s hair within each before replacing the backs, now with engravings commemorating the event. They were also fitted with a t-bar pin enabling the young ladies to wear their precious souvenirs.

Lee’s biographer Douglas Southall Freeman, notes Lee’s practice of gifting buttons in the immediate post-war before he abruptly stopped: “[Lee] similarly bestowed quite a number of the buttons off his uniform coats, along with photographs and other souvenirs, on girl friends of his daughters, who begged them when they came to say good-bye; but after the Federals issued an order requiring all Confederate buttons be covered or removed, he parted with no more of them, lest he get some young beskirted rebel into trouble with the provost-marshal.” (Douglas Southall Freeman. R.E. Lee. New York and London: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1934. Vol. IV, p. 210).

The account of the gift of the buttons to the young Crump girls and their importance is also recalled in the family memoirs written by Fanny’s son Beverley Randolph Tucker (1874-1945): “Afterward my grandfather had the buttons gold plated and pins put on them and the hair put in the buttons. When these girls died as old ladies, one eighty-nine and one eighty-seven, these pins had been their most valued possessions.” (Tucker. Takes of the Tuckers. Richmond, VA: The Dietz Printing Company, 1942, pp. 112-113.)



[Civil War, Union, Confederate]