Military - Overview
The Museum's superb military collections document the history of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. The collections include ordnance, firearms, and swords; uniforms and insignia; national and military flags and banners; and many other objects.
The strength of the collections lies in their enormous depth. Some 3,000 military small arms and 2,400 civilian firearms document the mechanical and technological history of the infantryman's weapons from the beginning of the gunpowder era to the present. Among the 4,000 swords and knives in the collection are many spectacular presentation pieces. The collections also include Civil War era telegraph equipment, home front artifacts from both world wars, early computers such as ENIAC, Whirlwind, and Sage, and materials carried at antiwar demonstrations.
"Military - Overview" showing 12 items.
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United States Belt Plate
- Description
- Physical Description
- Oval-shaped metal, raised rim and raised "US" stamp.
- Specific History
- The belt buckle was found on the battlefield at Winchester, Virginia.
- General History
- A belt plate like this one would have been worn by a Union soldier.
- associated date
- 1861 - 1862
- ID Number
- AF*202755
- catalog number
- 202755
- accession number
- 35091
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Frank Brownell's Medal of Honor
- Description
- Physical Description
- Brass-colored metal on ribbon awarded to Sergeant Frank E. Brownell, inscribed “The Congress/to/Sergeant/Frank/E./Brownell/Co. "A" 11th New York/Volunteers".
- Specific History
- When Brownell was awarded the Medal of Honor, it was not inscribed. Brownell returned the medal and asked that it be engraved with the details of his information. The government complied and the medal was returned with the engraving.
- recipient
- Brownell, Frank E.
- ID Number
- 1979.0425.038
- catalog number
- 1979.0425.038
- accession number
- 1979.0425
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
John Mosby's Crutches
- Description
- Physical Description
- Hand-carved wood.
- Specific History
- These crutches were used by John Mosby during the Civil War. Mosby stated, “These crutches were made for me during the war by a slave named Isaac who belonged to my father. They were first used in August 1863 when I went home wounded. My mother kept them for me and I again used them in September 1864 & December 1864.” General Robert E. Lee once said to Mosby, after seeing him on crutches at his headquarters, “The only fault I have to find with your conduct, Colonel Mosby, is that you are always getting wounded.”
- General History
- John Mosby was wounded on August 24, 1863. He was shot through the side and thigh as he attacked the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry, which had halted to water the horses at Billy Gooding's Tavern on the Little River Turnpike in Virginia. He was carried into the woods and was attended by Doctor W. L. Dunn. Due to the painful nature of his wounds, Mosby was slow to travel so he was carried into the pines and concealed as the pursuing federal troops passed through searching for him. Once clear of the danger, Mosby returned to the South to recuperate.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1863
- associated date
- 1861 - 1865
- user
- Mosby, John Singleton
- ID Number
- AF*11971
- catalog number
- 262043
- 11971
- accession number
- 51962
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Prayer Book
- Description
- Physical Description
- Bound printed paper.
- Specific History
- The Army and Navy Prayer of the Confederate States, printed in Richmond in 1865.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1865
- associated date
- 1861 - 1862
- ID Number
- AF*1860 [dup1]
- catalog number
- 1860
- accession number
- 17461
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Fused Minie Balls
- Description
- Physical Description
- Lead minie balls, fused on impact.
- Specific History
- These two minie balls from opposing sides met head-on during fierce fighting at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862.
- ID Number
- AF*237846
- accession number
- 45871
- catalog number
- 237846
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Model 1842 Harpers Ferry Rifle
- Description
- Physical Description
- United States Model 1842 Harpers Ferry musket, .69 caliber.
- Specific History
- The Model 1842 Harpers Ferry percussion musket had a smoothbore barrel. After the adoption of the .58-caliber minie bullet in 1855, musket barrels were rifled.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- associated date
- 1850
- maker
- Springfield Armory
- ID Number
- AF*273343
- maker number
- D1850
- catalog number
- 273343
- accession number
- 54537
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Sharps Carbine
- Description
- Physical Description
- This Sharps carbine, .52 caliber, was confiscated following John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry.
- General History
- As a boy of five, John Brown witnessed a slave his own age being beaten with a fire shovel. He vowed to become a foe of slavery. By the mid-1800s, Brown was fulfilling his vow. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed the two states to decide the issue of slavery by a popular ballot. The fight in Kansas was so intense that the state earned the nickname of “Bleeding Kansas.” As Missouri pro-slavery “Ruffians” flocked to Kansas, New England abolitionists bankrolled “Free-Soilers” to move to the settlement of Lawrence, Kansas. Henry Ward Beecher raised money to purchase Sharps rifles for use by antislavery forces in Kansas. Rifles, said Beecher, are “a greater moral agency than the Bible” in the fight against slavery. The guns were packed in crates labeled "Bibles" so they would not arouse suspicion. Soon the Sharps rifles sent to Kansas were referred to as “Beecher’s Bibles.” In 1856, after abolitionists were attacked in Lawrence, John Brown led a raid on scattered cabins along the Pottawatomie Creek, killing five people. Kansas would not become a state until 1861, after the Confederate states seceded. John Brown had another plan to bring about an end to slavery, a slave uprising. He contracted with Charles Blair, a forge master in Collinsville, Connecticut, to make 950 pikes for a dollar a piece. Brown would issue the pikes to the slaves as they revolted. On October 16, 1859, Brown led his group to Harpers Ferry where he took over the arsenal and waited for the slaves to revolt. The revolt never came. Two days later Robert E. Lee and his troops overran the raiders and captured John Brown. Brown was found guilty of murder, treason, and inciting slave insurrection. On December 2, 1859, he was hanged.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- licensee
- Sharps, C
- maker
- Sharps
- ID Number
- AF*43496
- catalog number
- 043496
- accession number
- 164794
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Spotsylvania Stump
- Description
- Physical Description
- Wooden tree stump.
- Specific History
- Until May 12, 1864, this shattered stump was a large oak tree in a rolling meadow just outside Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia. That morning, 1,200 entrenched Confederates, the front line of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, awaited the assault of 5,000 Union troops from the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Twenty hours later, the once-peaceful meadow had acquired a new name, the Bloody Angle. The same fury of rifle bullets that cut down 2,000 combatants tore away all but twenty-two inches of the tree's trunk. Several of the conical minie balls (bullets) are still deeply embedded in the wood. Unusual objects of war, such as this tree stump, come to symbolize the horror and heroism of a great battle. Originally presented to the U.S. Army's Ordnance Museum by Brevet Major General Nelson A. Miles, the stump was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1888.
- associated date
- 1864-05
- ID Number
- AF*4435
- catalog number
- 4435
- accession number
- 20209
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
CSS Virginia Model
- Description
- Physical Description
- 1/4-scale model, wood with plastic parts.
- General History
- On April 21, 1861, Virginians claimed an abandoned navy yard at Norfolk, Virginia. There they found the sunken hull of the burned USS Merrimack. The Merrimack was raised and on June 23, 1861 the Honorable S. R. Mallory, Confederate secretary of the navy, ordered it to be converted to an ironclad. That ironclad was christened the CSS Virginia.
- date made
- ca 1960
- associated date
- 1862
- maker
- Arthur G. Henning Inc.
- ID Number
- AF*58728N
- accession number
- 235954
- catalog number
- 58728-N
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Frank Brownell's Medal of Honor
- Description
- Physical Description
- Brass-colored metal on ribbon.
- Specific History
- Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to Frank E. Brownell, private, Company A, 11th New York Infantry. On May 24, 1861, Brownell killed John Marshall, the murderer of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth. Ellsworth was the commanding officer of Brownell's company, and the first Union officer killed in the Civil War. He was shot by Marshall as Ellsworth attempted to lower the Confederate flag flying from the Marshall House in Alexandria, Virginia. Brownell received two Medals of Honor; the first one issued to him was inscribed on the reverse: "The Congress to Sergeant Frank E. Brownell Co. 4 11th New York Volunteers". Brownell was not pleased with the inscription, and sent the medal back. He was given a new medal, inscribed "The Congress to Sergt Frank E. Brownell, 11th N.Y. Vol Inf'y for gallantry in shooting the murderer of Col. Ellsworth at Alexandria, VA, May 24, 1861", which Brownell had written himself.
- recipient
- Brownell, Frank E.
- ID Number
- AF*6955
- accession number
- 30411
- catalog number
- 6955
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center