Description
Although this gavel is a post-wartime relic, it would be a meaningful addition to a Civil War era collection given its association with John L. Ransom and its status as an artifact symbolizing the Union’s repossession of the Confederacy in the decades after the war. Ransom is an important historical figure for the account he wrote of his capture and detention while imprisoned at Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia, more commonly referred to as Andersonville Prison. This infamous Confederate prisoner of war camp held upwards of 45,000 Union prisoners over the course of the Civil War. Ransom’s Andersonville Diary, a widely read and comprehensive first-person narrative of Camp Sumter remains a cornerstone of Civil War literature. Following a near death hospitalization due to deteriorating conditions at the camp, Ransom escaped from Andersonville in 1864 and reunited with his unit to fight in one of the final and most famous Civil War campaigns, Sherman’s March to the Sea in Georgia. Publishing his diary immediately after the end of the war, Ransom quickly became an important figure in wartime memorial efforts and assumed formal leadership roles within the veteran community. This includes his service as manager of the Libby Prison War Museum and the publisher of The Libby Prison Chronicle, the only paper devoted to ex-prisoners of war, in the 1890s. Under his guidance, The Libby Prison War Museum sponsored Union veteran reunions and represented the interests of Libby Prison, and other survivors of incarceration in Confederate detention centers.
In its peak of use, Libby Prison was perhaps the most infamous Civil War prison, reserved almost exclusively for detention of captured Union officers. Located in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, it consisted of three buildings originally built as a tobacco warehouse in 1845 and leased beginning in 1854 by L. Libby & Son, Ship Chandlers. When the Civil War started, Libby, a native of Maine whose business primarily served Northern shippers, closed operations but continued his lease. When the first Union prisoners of war were brought to Richmond in 1861, he was forced to turn over the property for use as a prison. However, the Libby business sign was not taken down, so the buildings became popularly known as Libby Prison. Like Andersonville, Libby Prison was plagued by overcrowding, disease, and hunger, with conditions notably worsening in the final two years of the war as prisoner exchange deals slowed or halted entirely.
Libby Prison was evacuated in April 1865 after the surrender of the Confederate Army and later purchased in 1889 by Charles F. Gunther, a prominent Northern businessman and Civil War collector, to be rebuilt in Chicago as The Libby Prison War Museum. The destruction and or repossession of former Confederate landmarks and institutions such as Libby Prison served as a formal reminder of Confederate defeat and were popularized by wealthy Union-aligned individuals and organizations. The Libby Prison War Museum was a popular, profitable attraction until 1899, and when it was again dismantled. At that time a few pieces were sold as souvenirs and the remainder of wood was sold to an Indiana farmer named Frank Davis as construction materials for a large barn.
Wooden souvenir and commemorative relics were made from wood taken from Libby Prison presumably sourced when it was taken down in Richmond and moved to Chicago as a museum and when it was later dismantled in Chicago completely. Objects such as relic gavels held special symbolic value of the triumph of the Union army within post-war communities. For example, an account from 1912 states that a Kansas legislator and former prisoner of war at Libby was presented with a gavel made from its wood in 1887. These relic gavels were bestowed as honorable gifts more recently as well; in the 1960s,the Richmond Civil War Centennial Committee reported that Miss Ella J. Davis “presented the City of Richmond recently with a gavel made from [Libby Prison] wood.” Nonetheless, only a few Libby Prison relic gavels are known to have survived, and the association of the offered gavel with John L. Ransom and the quality of its turnings makes it among the best of its kind.
Condition: Gavel fine overall, with a nice rich patina, being a particularly good example of the wood turner’s craft. Inscription on paper label quite legible, noting light toning, wear, handling, soiling and discoloration commensurate with age.
References:
Blackmar, Frank W. Reprint of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. … Vol. II. Chicago: Standard Pub. Co., 1912. Blue Skyways. 2002. https://archive.org/details/kansascyclopedia02blac (14 September 2024).
Smith, Leanne. “Peek Through Time: Jackson native and Civil War prisoner John L. Ransom’s ‘John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary’ is an acclaimed piece of Civil War literature.” Michigan Live. 27 August 2011. https://www.mlive.com/living/jackson/2011/08/peek_through_time_jackson_nati_1.html (14 September 2024).
“The Story of Libby Prison.” The Bloody Evidence. Chicago History Museum. 2024. https://chicagohistoryresources.org/wetwithblood/bloody/libby/index.htm (14 September 2024).
“Inaugurate Move for Memorial Hall.” Reprint from New Castle News, August 27, 1924. Reunions of the Soldiers of the 100th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, “The Roundheads.” 7 July 2004. http://www.100thpenn.com/59threunion.htm (14 September 2024).
Waitt, Robert W. “Libby Prison.” Reprint of Official Publication #12. Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Civil War Centennial Committee, 1961- 1965. Civil War Richmond. 2004.
