GAR Medal?

[Cottoncarder]

Posted this to another forum, but haven't gotten any feedback. A colleague of mine brought this in thinking it was of all things, a dog tag. It is my belief that it is a GAR medal that was owned by a Union Civil War Vet and belonged to a Camp George H. Thomas, who might have been a veteran of Chickamauga. Thomas of course was know as the “Rock of Chickamauga.”

I would like to see what ya’ll think.

The inscriptions on the medal are as follows:

Camp Geo. H. Thomas
1898
Chichamauga PA (??)
Georgia

The artifact was found in 1945 in a cotton field near Newport, Arkansas. How it got there who knows. Possibly the vet moved to Arkansas after the war or maybe one of his descendants did and just got careless with it. If anyone could give me a lead on where to go to find records of this GAR camp would be most helpful. A roster of that camp’s members would be the first step in the trail to finding out who the owner was.

Have images but the controls here have changed and can't figure out how to upload them.

[rogue]

Re: GAR Medal?

Hello,
A quick, un-documented reply, it is not GAR but rather a souvenir from a US Army training camp used during the Spanish-American War, or whatever that conflict is now called. Chickamauga was a major training site.
Steve Sullivan
46th Illinois
Co. Mil. Hist.
CWPT
and older than Scott Cross

[Charles Heath]

Re: GAR Medal?

The George H. Thomas Post #84 GAR survives as an SUVCW post under a different numbering system, and they have a website.

This is a nice map of Camp Thomas:

http://www.wheelerplantation.org/campthomas.htm

This gives some background, although not the CW, per se, it is somewhat related reading:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3905/is_200403/ai_n9395723

A scant mention of Fort Oglethorpe:

http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/year/1898

[Cottoncarder]

Re: GAR Medal?

Thanks so much Gents! The information you provided is concise and detailed enough to follow a good trail. Lucky it is Span Am. Tracking down the possible owner will be a heck of a lot easier on the 1900 & 1910 census than dealing with the gaps created by the loss of 1890 for a Civil War Vet. In addition, the map of Camp Thomas indicates there were Arkansas troops there.

One more question. What does the PA after Chicamauga stand for?

[Dignann]

Re: GAR Medal?

Deleted mistaken post, my apologies.

Eric

[ScottCross]

Re: GAR Medal?

Hello,
A quick, un-documented reply, it is not GAR but rather a souvenir from a US Army training camp used during the Spanish-American War, or whatever that conflict is now called. Chickamauga was a major training site.
Steve Sullivan
46th Illinois
Co. Mil. Hist.
CWPT
and older than Scott Cross

Here's a link to my museum's website. Check out the section on the Spanish American War. There are quite a few images of Camp Thomas here.

http://www.oshkoshmuseum.org/Virtual/

Younger than Steve Sullivan

[brown]

Re: GAR Medal?

You may also want to check-out the 6th Cav musuem, http://www.6thcavalrymuseum.com/. It may be a stretch, however, Camp Thomas became Fort Oglethorpe and the majority of the grounds used were the Chickamauga battlefield. Between 1919-WWII, the 6th called Fort O. home. The musuem sits on the edge of the "Polo Field" as the locals call it, or the parade grounds, in the midst of the old officers quarters, near the local hospital that has military roots, etc.
Chickamauga-Chattanooga NMP does very little with the history of the Fort b/c their charge from Congress (prior to the establishment of the "Post" [another local term]) was Civil War only.
Maybe Joe Blunt will have some imput; when we worked together we was more knowledgeable about Camp Thomas than anyone else I knew.
Hope this helps,
Lindsey Brown