Civil War exhibit opens at New York State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs

Portraying a Captain in Morgan's Artillary, Mac McEvilly of Averill Park admires a ten pound Parrott gun in the New Civil War exhibit at the New York State Military Museum. Ed Burke 7/27/13
A shoe belonging to Union soldier and New York volunteer Norman Curtiss displayed at the new Civil War exhibit at the New York State Military Museum. Curtiss bought the shoes for $15 from Confederates who captured him and walked in them over 400 miles while a Confederate prisoner. Ed Burke 7/27/13

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- The state's sole permanent Civil War exhibit, "Empire for Union: New York State in the Civil War," opened Saturday at the Military Museum, paying tribute to the 360,000 New Yorkers who fought in the five-year conflict.

"New York sent more men, more money and more equipment to the war than any other state," said Lance Ingmire, president of the Friends of the New York State Military Museum. The organization raised $135,000 for the exhibit with a series of special events and with grants from the Alfred Z. Solomon Trust, Saratoga Foundation, Stewart's Foundation and the Saratoga Springs Rotary Club. The state Division of Military and Naval Affairs, which owns the building, provided the rest through labor and in-kind services.

The exhibit is organized chronologically to cover the war from 1861 to 1865.

The collection's articles came from Civil War veterans and their families and have been stored in the museum. Some of the most significant pieces on display include a piece of the blood-stained dress worn by Laura Keene, an actress who cradled President Abraham Lincoln's head after he was mortally wounded at Ford's Theater.


Visitors may also see the bullet hole in the coat worn by Malta native Col. Elmer Ellsworth, the first Union officer killed during the war.

The exhibit includes a variety of weaponry, uniforms, maps and images. Five flags of the collection's 900 are currently on display, including that of Saratoga Springs' 77th Bemis Heights Regiment. There's also the uniform of Gustav Schurmann of New York City, the "Little Bugler" who joined the Union Army at age 12 as a musician and served until he was 15. A recent donation, the saddle of surgeon William Leonard of Worchester, N.Y., carries the story of a review after the Battle of Antietam.

Museum plans call for items to be rotated in and out periodically to keep the presentation fresh.

"We began developing this $200,000 project two years ago," said Courtney Burns, the museum's chief curator and acting director. "New York played a tremendous role in the Civil War, and this display will give context to that history."

Saturday, historic re-enactors, wearing period dress, clustered in front of the glass cases. Michael Marchand and Richard Straight, sergeants in Troy's 125th, were proud to find their adopted regiment's flag in the exhibit.

Nancy Frueh remarked to her fellow fife-player Toni Lasher that the Keene dress fragment looked similar to her own floral-print gown.

"These artifacts are nothing if not displayed and viewed; if they don't touch visitors," said State Adjutant Gen. Patrick Murphy, who worked on the project with Burns and Ingmire. "Hopefully, people will want to dig deeper into the history and find other stories."