Living History Studies, Inc

04/13/2026

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐂𝐒𝐒 𝑨𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒂𝒎𝒂 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐫
It's not often you see a Confederate naval officer's entire kit survive intact — revolvers, uniform coat, sword, and belt rig — all with documented provenance tracing directly to service aboard the most famous commerce raider of the war. But that's exactly what we have with Lieutenant John Low, CSN.
Born in Scotland, raised in the British Merchant Service, and transplanted to Savannah before the war, Low served as Fourth Lieutenant aboard CSS 𝐴𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑎𝑚𝑎 and later commanded the captured bark Conrad, recommissioned as CSS 𝑇𝑢𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑠𝑎 His personal artifacts tell a story that stretches from Hartford, Connecticut, to Richmond, Virginia, to the open Atlantic, and finally to postwar Liverpool.
Larry Babits examines the entire assemblage in the May-June 2026 issue of 𝑀𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝐴𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟 Magazine. MilitaryAntiqueCollector

01/02/2026

Lt Samuel Barron cdv Fred Taylor Collection

12/17/2025

Coatee worn at Waterloo by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Thomas Noel Harris KH, 1815 (c)
Thomas Noel Harris was a career soldier who claimed to have fought in 30 major battles and many more skirmishes. He was born in 1785, and joined the Army as an ensign in the 87th Regiment of Foot in 1801. He became a lieutenant in the 52nd Regiment of Foot in 1802 before purchasing a captaincy in the 18th Light Dragoons in 1807. Having been refused a transfer to half-pay he sold his commission and retired due to ill health.
However, he rejoined the Army in 1811 as a cornet in the 13th Light Dragoons and as promoted to a lieutenancy in the 18th Light Dragoons, with whom he served in the Peninsular War from 1811-1813.
From Spain he was sent to Germany where he served as ADC to Sir Charles Stewart (later the Sir Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry). He was present at the battles of Grossbergen (or Grossbeeren) on 23 August 1813, Dennewitz on 6 September 1813 and Leipzig 16-19 October 1813, where he distinguished himself in particular and drew praise from Vane in his narrative of the campaign.
Harris was attached to the staff of the General Blücher from late 1813 to early 1814 and reportedly received a gold ring and the feathers from his hat as a token of Blücher's esteem.
Harris became a national hero in April 1814 when he reached London carrying dispatches with news of the capitulation of Paris and Napoleon's abdication. He had reputedly ridden 400 miles without rest, fighting off attempts to rob and murder him by bands of allied soldiers. His feat was reported in all the London papers.
As a result of these, and other services, Harris received, in October 1814, the Royal Prussian Order of Military Merit and the Imperial Russian Order of St. Vladimir, 4th Class. Later he also received the Russian Imperial Order of St. Anna.
In April 1815 Harris was appointed Brigade-Major to the 18th Hussars under Sir Richard Hussey Vivian. He was at the Duchess of Richmond's ball on 15 June wearing this coat when news of Napoleon's advance broke, and he immediately set off to rejoin his regiment. He fought at both Quatre Bras and Waterloo while wearing it.
At Waterloo, Harris had two horses shot from under him. Late in the battles, whilst leading a squadron of the 18th Hussars in a charge, he was shot in the chest and arm. He lay wounded on the field overnight, and was only found the next morning by his cousin from the 10th Hussars who was searching the battlefield for his body. He was taken to Hougoumont and the surgeon cut open the sleeve of the coat and amputated his right arm above the elbow. The other musket ball stayed lodged in his chest for the rest of his life. Despite the loss of his arm, he continued to hunt and shoot.
Harris became a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1823, was appointed Inspecting Field-Officer of Militia in Nova Scotia and then Surveyor-General at Halifax, Nova Scotia. He retired on half pay in 1830 and returned to the UK in 1832 where he became assistant Adjutant-General in Dublin. He then retired fully in September 1834 and became Chief Magistrate in Gibraltar. The heat affected his second wife, whom he married in 1838, so he resigned and returned to England. In 1840 he was made a Groom of the Privy chamber to Queen Victoria who knighted him in 1841 for military services.
He served as Deputy Lieutenant of Kent and died in 1860.
NAM Accession Number
NAM. 2015-10-1-1
Copyright/Ownership
National Army Museum Copyright

11/25/2025

10/20/2025

Kaiser Wilhelm II and Prince Heinrich of Prussia visiting the headquarters of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, during the First World War

10/14/2025

Asst Engineer Wm Thos Morrill JANUARY 1861: CRISIS IN PENSACOLA.—By early January 1861, mechanic W. Thomas Morrill, pictured here, and other employees of the Pensacola Navy Yard in Florida were caught in a humanitarian crisis. They had not been paid for two months—the result of civil unrest that disrupted the flow of money and materials to military outposts in the Southern states as the country drifted towards civil war. Hunger became a real and present danger.
Morrill had a wife and two infants to feed. Many of his fellow workers also had families to support and no relief was in sight. On January 8, the workers rallied at a mass meeting at a Masonic hall in Warrington, a village outside the walls of the Yard.
They appointed a committee who promptly met with the commander of the Yard and requested that provisions be issued in lieu of pay. The sympathetic officer in charge, Cmdr. James Armstrong, acted promptly to relieve their sufferings. Flour, sugar, rice, coffee and butter were distributed on January 10—the same day Florida legislators voted by a wide margin to secede from the Union.
Two days later, armed rebel forces converged on the Yard and demanded the surrender of the military garrison. Armstrong capitulated and the Yard passed into Confederate hands without the firing of a shot.
Morrill, who also belonged to a local militia company, the Warrington Artillery, joined the victorious rebels. The militiamen elected officers, a common practice among volunteers, and they voted Morrill orderly sergeant.
The Warrington Artillery served on various guard and other duties in the Pensacola area during the early months of 1861, though Morrill was destined to follow a different path than his comrades. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the fledgling Confederate navy required mechanically minded men to service warships.
Morrill left the company and became a navy officer. Over the next year he advanced in rank to 3rd assistant engineer and was assigned to two ships at the Yard: The Fulton, a wooden vessel being converted to an ironclad, and the steamer Bradford.
Morrill might have remained at the Yard for the remainder of the war, but federal forces moved to retake Pensacola and forced the Confederates to evacuate. In the hasty exodus from Pensacola in May 1862, the unfinished Fulton and the Bradford were burned to prevent them from falling into Yankee hands.
Forced to leave his family behind, Morrill abandoned Pensacola with other navy personnel. He spent the rest of 1862 and early 1863 in Georgia building ships at the Columbus Iron Works, and in Savannah aboard the ironclad ram Atlanta. He also served a stint in Charleston, South Carolina, working with torpedoes, or underwater mines.
On June 17, 1863, Morrill was present for duty aboard the Atlanta when she grounded during the beginning of a battle with a pair of Union monitors. The commander of the Atlanta surrendered his ship and crew. Morrill and other officers were sent to the North and imprisoned at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. He posed for his carte de visite portrait during this time.
Morrill remained a prisoner for more than a year. While he awaited his release, the navy promoted him to first engineer. Finally, he received a parole in September 1864 and was exchanged the following month in Virginia. His arrival in the commonwealth was a homecoming of sorts. Born and raised in the port city of Norfolk, he had left for Florida in 1854.
His stay in Virginia was brief. Before the end of the year, he received orders to report to Albany, Georgia, where he was attached to a newly established flour, gristmill and bakery that supplied food to sailors in the region. Evidence suggests he reunited with his wife and children at some point along the way. Morrill remained in Albany until April 1865, when he surrendered and received a parole.
Morrill returned to Pensacola and restarted his life as an engineer. He eventually fathered eight children, only three of which would live to maturity.
Morrill died in 1911 at age 74.
Source;Photo: The Liljenquist Family Collection, The Library of Congress.

10/13/2025

A rarity 1st Lt John D. Simms USMC ca 1859 - later Captain CSMC

05/24/2025

Lt Jonathan Hanby Sarah Carter
J. E. B. Stuart’s Brothers In Arms:
Jonathan Hanby Carter, Surry County’s Civil War Sailor
In May 1853, J. E. B. Stuart wrote from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, to his cousin Bettie Hairston, “A few days ago I had a visit from an old friend and neighbor Jonathon Carter, now a Lieutenant in the Navy on the eve of starting out in Ringgold’s expedition to Bering’s Straights to be absent four years. He looked better than I ever saw him and seemed to anticipate a fine time.”
Jonathan Hanby Carter was born on January 1, 1821, in Surry County, North Carolina, the son of William Carter II and Elizabeth Moore. His family roots were in Patrick and Surry counties. Susannah Hanby married William Carter, the man O. E. Pilson, the “Father of Patrick County History” called the “Father of Patrick County” in 1788.
Carter chose the Navy as a career beginning in March 1840. He traveled the world for fifteen years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant in the United States Navy, serving on the USS Powhatan, USS John Adams, USS Perry, USS St Lawrence, and USS Savannah. Carter was in the first graduating class at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1846.
Mathew C. Perry led several expeditions to the Far East to open up China and Japan. Part of these expeditions included Cadwalader Ringgold (1802-1867), who led an expedition of five ships beginning in 1853 to survey the western Pacific for the whaling industry. Carter served on the USS Powhatan during the expedition.
On April 25, 1861, Jonathan Hanby Carter resigned his commission in the United States Navy and began his second naval career in the Confederate States Navy. His first command involved taking the Ed Howard, a side-wheel steamship, and turning it into the CSS General Polk. The six-gun ship patrolled the Mississippi River and Louisiana coast in the first two years of the war. After fighting in the Battle of Island #10 on the Mississippi River in March 1862, Carter escaped seventy-five miles up the Yazoo River and burned the ship to avoid its capture.
By October, he was building another ship. In April 1863, Carter launched the CSS Missouri on the Red River near Shreveport, Louisiana. He supervised all aspects of its construction and commanded through the end of the war. The ironclad ship carried three guns: one eleven inch, one nine inch gun, and one thirty-two pounder. A Union officer described the ship as “very formidable” but “very slow.” Carter’s command included 24 officers and 18 men, but it was not very exciting, mainly due to low water in the Red River keeping the ship from participating in any major campaigns.
Carter became so bored that in February 1864, he wrote, “Feeling desirous of doing my country more effective service, I must respectfully request that Steamer Harriet Lane now lying in Galveston harbor be turned over to me for the purpose of running her to some European port and there altering her as to make an efficient cruiser.” During the war, he wrote over 262 letters edited by Katherine B. Jeter in A Man and His Boat: The Civil War Letters of Jonathan H. Carter.
Jonathan Hanby Carter surrendered on May 26, 1865. The CSS Missouri was the last Confederate ship to surrender in home waters. After the war, Carter farmed in Louisiana, married Henrietta Tompkins in 1870, and settled near Edgefield, South Carolina, where he died in March 1884. In Edgefield’s First Baptist Church Cemetery, Carter lies near South Carolina’s Civil War Governor Frances Pickens and cavalry general Mathew C. Butler, who saved J. E. B. Stuart at Brandy Station in June 1863. Carter’s grave is in sight of Senator Strom Thurmond.
Bringing this story full circle, another local resident is starting her career at the U. S. Naval Academy this fall. Eliza Clifton is the daughter of Mitch and Julie Holland Clifton, the granddaughter of Garland and Becky Smith Holland, and the great-granddaughter of Maybelle and Fred Smith. Fred strongly supported the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace in the early days. If he was still with us, I think he would say of his great-granddaughter following Carter to Annapolis, “Gee Whiz Pal Fellows.”
https://www.moodyfuneralservices.com/obitua.../fred-smith-sr
Photos are Jonathan Hanby Carter in the U. S. Navy, Sgt J. E. B. Stuart at West Point, Grave of Carter in Edgefield, South Carolina, Eliza Clifton, and Fred Smith.

02/15/2025

James Dunwoody Bullock

01/27/2025

French Forrest

03/07/2024

"The General P--s, or Peace."
This c. 1783 Print shows five men, an Englishman, a Dutchman, a Native representing America, a Spaniard, and a Frenchman urinating into a pot.
The Englishman says, "Say what they will, I call this an honourable P--," the Native says, "I call this a free and Independent P--," and the Frenchman says, "Jack English we confess your exceeding good nature, tho' we have wrangled you out of America you freely make P-- with us."
Five swords, two drums, and the flags of the respective nations rest on the ground before the pot. Includes sixteen line of verse.
Published by J. Barrow White, c. January 16, 1783 (Library of Congress)