[av_heading heading=’General Lee’s $33,000 button and a $49,000 butt-naked Union soldier star at Fleischer’s Civil War auction’ tag=’h1′ style=” subheading_active=” show_icon=” icon=’ue800′ font=’entypo-fontello’ size=” av-desktop-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” subheading_size=” av-desktop-font-size=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” icon_size=” av-desktop-font-size-1=” av-medium-font-size-1=” av-small-font-size-1=” av-mini-font-size-1=” color=” custom_font=” subheading_color=” seperator_color=” icon_color=” margin=’,,35px,’ av-desktop-margin=” av-desktop-margin_sync=’true’ av-medium-margin=” av-medium-margin_sync=’true’ av-small-margin=’,,20px,’ av-mini-margin=” av-mini-margin_sync=’true’ headline_padding=” headline_padding_sync=’true’ av-desktop-headline_padding=” av-desktop-headline_padding_sync=’true’ av-medium-headline_padding=” av-medium-headline_padding_sync=’true’ av-small-headline_padding=” av-small-headline_padding_sync=’true’ av-mini-headline_padding=” av-mini-headline_padding_sync=’true’ padding=’10’ av-desktop-padding=” av-medium-padding=” av-small-padding=” av-mini-padding=” icon_padding=’10’ av-desktop-icon_padding=” av-medium-icon_padding=” av-small-icon_padding=” av-mini-icon_padding=” link=” link_target=” title_attr=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-ll0vngto’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”][/av_heading]

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COLUMBUS, OH — A total of 189 bidders were “watching” it on LiveAuctioneers in the run-up to the sale. And at $33,210, one of them won it.

The headline lot at Fleischer’s Auctions’ Civil War & African American History sale on August 5 was a button from the uniform of General Robert E. Lee. Offered at auction for the very first time in its history, the convex brass Virginia staff frock coat button came with a cast-iron provenance.

In the weeks after Appomattox, Lee had returned to his Franklin Street townhouse in the Confederate capital in Richmond, spending time with his friend and Assistant Secretary of the Confederate Treasury, Judge William Crump (1819-1897). It was to Crump’s 16-year-old daughter Fanny Booth Crump (1849-1937) that he gave the button.

Writing in 1933, her elder sister Emmeline recalled the General’s regular visits to the family home with his own daughters. “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…”

Lee gifted a number of his uniform buttons in the immediate postwar period before he abruptly stopped after an order was issued requiring all Confederate buttons be covered or removed.

This button had been later mounted in gold as a brooch and engraved R.E. Lee to F. B. Crump, May 1865. Purportedly a lock of Lee’s hair was enclosed inside.  It came for sale for the first time in its history with an estimate of $25,000-$50,000.

Another small but profound relic from the earliest days of the Civil War era was a single .52 caliber Sharps cartridge connected with John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Housed in an old Pride of Virginia tobacco tin, it is accompanied by a note written in August 1889 by Benjamin H. Ticknor, a veteran of the 45th Massachusetts Infantry and 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, documenting its chain of ownership.

It reads: “This bullet was carried on the John Brown raid by Francis Jackson Merriam and was by him given to Dr David Thayer by whom he was secreted after his escape. Given by Dr. T to me today, August 31st, 1889, BHT.”

Francis J. Meriam (1837-65) was an ardent abolitionist who had penned a letter to Brown a year earlier asking to participate in a project he called “the whole present business of my life”.

On Brown’s orders, his role at Harpers Ferry on October 16-18, 1859, was to guard the Kennedy Farm where arms and ammunition for the promised revolt against the institution of slavery had been hidden. When the gambit failed, he fled first to Canada before shouldering a musket as a captain in the Union Army.

According to the consignor, the John Brown bullet had been sold with other relics collected by Ticknor at an estate sale of one of his descendants who lived near Cincinnati in 2006. It was guided at $2,500-$5,000 but sold for $9,000.

Also estimated at $2,500-$5,000, an extraordinary tintype photograph of a Union soldier sold at $49,000.

The subject of the day’s most animated bidding contest was a quarter plate-sized tintype image of a muscular gentleman standing butt-naked in front of a roughly painted camp scene backdrop. It was probably taken by a traveling photographer working in the field circa 1863.

The subject matter is possibly unique. Nudity in Civil War photography is typically accidental or produced in hospitals for medical study. In this shot the sitter, with arms nonchalantly folded across his chest, appears simply to be just showing off. Some 98 potential bidders had “watched” the plate on LiveAuctioneers with the underbidding coming via the platform.
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A button from the uniform of Robert E. Lee sold for $33,210 at Fleischer’s Auctions in Columbus, Ohio on August 5.
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[av_slide slide_type=’image’ id=’177267′ video=’https://’ mobile_image=” fallback_link=’https://’ title=” video_ratio=’16:9′ custom_title_size=” av-desktop-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” custom_size=” av-desktop-font-size=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” font_color=” custom_title=” custom_content=” heading_tag=” heading_class=” link_apply=’image’ link=’manually,https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/156486700_button-from-uniform-of-robert-e-lee-civil-war-confederate’ link_target=’_blank’ av_uid=’av-ll0vwh06′ sc_version=’1.0′ video_autoplay=” video_controls=” video_mute=” video_loop=”]
A button from the uniform of Robert E. Lee sold for $33,210 at Fleischer’s Auctions in Columbus, Ohio on August 5.
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An apparently unique tintype of a naked Union soldier earned $49,000 at Fleischer’s Auctions in Columbus, Ohio on August 5.
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A bullet dubbed ‘The John Brown bullet’ brought $9,000 at Fleischer’s Auctions in Columbus, Ohio on August 5.
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