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Mysterious coat finds new home in Appomattox
By Darrell Laurant
Published: July 23, 2008
APPOMATTOX — If you’ve ever had an article of clothing linger longer than you’d expected at the dry cleaner’s, you can probably sympathize with Joe Williams. He just retrieved a coat after four years of trying — and it still had stains on it.
This was not, however, your average coat. And it wasn’t at the cleaners, but in a glass case at the Confederate Memorial Park in Marbury, Ala.
The coat belonged, by all accounts, to a Maj. Frederic Scott, an Irish immigrant who fought for the Confederacy, survived the war, then went on to own several companies and the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad. Scott Stadium, where the University of Virginia plays football, is named for him.
All of which meant nothing to Bill Rambo, site director at the Alabama park, when he discovered the coat among some items sent to his museum from Magnolia Grove, the Greensboro, Ala., home of Spanish-American War hero Richard Pearson Hobson.
According to Rambo: “There was a movement among historians in the national park system to place artifacts where they had the most relevance — well, duh — and it didn’t make sense to have this Civil War coat at a site dedicated to the Spanish-American War.”
While examining the dark gray sack coat, Rambo found a tag in the collar that read: “Coat worn by Maj. Frederic R. Scott at the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, April 12th, 1865.”
“My first thought,” he said, “was ‘Wow, we’ve got an Alabamian who was at Appomattox.’ Then, when I started doing research on Maj. Scott, I discovered that not only wasn’t he from Alabama, but he had no Alabama ties that we could figure out. It remains the $64,000 question how the coat got down there.
“The angel on my shoulder told me the coat belonged in Appomattox, and we should give it to them. The devil on my other shoulder told me this was a great opportunity to get something in return for it.”
Eventually, Rambo contacted Williams, curator of exhibits at the Appomattox Court House National Historic Park.
“I searched through our inventory to try and find something to trade for the coat,” Williams said, “but nothing seemed to fit.”
So he went to the Scott family, which had remained prosperous and prominent in Northern Virginia.
“They agreed to put up some money, and the National Park Service put up the rest, and we finally bought the coat,” Williams said.
Finally, indeed — the process took from 2004 to Wednesday morning, when Williams removed the coat from a cardboard box and carefully placed it in a glass case already prepared for that purpose on the first floor of the Appomattox park’s visitor’s center.
“It’s like you’re a mortician,” said park director Reed Johnson.
Indeed, the scene resembled a mortuary viewing without the body.
The coat will soon be sent off to a “textile conservator” who will attempt to discover, for example, whether the buttons on the front are original or added later. Williams said he had already sent pictures of the garment to Les Jenson, “the acknowledged national expert on Confederate uniforms,” who confirmed its authenticity.
This won’t help with the mystery of the traveling coat, however.
“There is a Scott family member with the name Hobson,” Williams said, “so maybe that’s a clue. I just know we’re glad to have it back.”
Now, maybe they can start talking about that Confederate pea coat from the Third Alabama that’s currently being displayed in Richmond.
By Darrell Laurant
Published: July 23, 2008
APPOMATTOX — If you’ve ever had an article of clothing linger longer than you’d expected at the dry cleaner’s, you can probably sympathize with Joe Williams. He just retrieved a coat after four years of trying — and it still had stains on it.
This was not, however, your average coat. And it wasn’t at the cleaners, but in a glass case at the Confederate Memorial Park in Marbury, Ala.
The coat belonged, by all accounts, to a Maj. Frederic Scott, an Irish immigrant who fought for the Confederacy, survived the war, then went on to own several companies and the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad. Scott Stadium, where the University of Virginia plays football, is named for him.
All of which meant nothing to Bill Rambo, site director at the Alabama park, when he discovered the coat among some items sent to his museum from Magnolia Grove, the Greensboro, Ala., home of Spanish-American War hero Richard Pearson Hobson.
According to Rambo: “There was a movement among historians in the national park system to place artifacts where they had the most relevance — well, duh — and it didn’t make sense to have this Civil War coat at a site dedicated to the Spanish-American War.”
While examining the dark gray sack coat, Rambo found a tag in the collar that read: “Coat worn by Maj. Frederic R. Scott at the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, April 12th, 1865.”
“My first thought,” he said, “was ‘Wow, we’ve got an Alabamian who was at Appomattox.’ Then, when I started doing research on Maj. Scott, I discovered that not only wasn’t he from Alabama, but he had no Alabama ties that we could figure out. It remains the $64,000 question how the coat got down there.
“The angel on my shoulder told me the coat belonged in Appomattox, and we should give it to them. The devil on my other shoulder told me this was a great opportunity to get something in return for it.”
Eventually, Rambo contacted Williams, curator of exhibits at the Appomattox Court House National Historic Park.
“I searched through our inventory to try and find something to trade for the coat,” Williams said, “but nothing seemed to fit.”
So he went to the Scott family, which had remained prosperous and prominent in Northern Virginia.
“They agreed to put up some money, and the National Park Service put up the rest, and we finally bought the coat,” Williams said.
Finally, indeed — the process took from 2004 to Wednesday morning, when Williams removed the coat from a cardboard box and carefully placed it in a glass case already prepared for that purpose on the first floor of the Appomattox park’s visitor’s center.
“It’s like you’re a mortician,” said park director Reed Johnson.
Indeed, the scene resembled a mortuary viewing without the body.
The coat will soon be sent off to a “textile conservator” who will attempt to discover, for example, whether the buttons on the front are original or added later. Williams said he had already sent pictures of the garment to Les Jenson, “the acknowledged national expert on Confederate uniforms,” who confirmed its authenticity.
This won’t help with the mystery of the traveling coat, however.
“There is a Scott family member with the name Hobson,” Williams said, “so maybe that’s a clue. I just know we’re glad to have it back.”
Now, maybe they can start talking about that Confederate pea coat from the Third Alabama that’s currently being displayed in Richmond.
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