This rare, identified Confederate Brigadier General’s collar insignia comes from the collections of the Texas Civil War Museum and has a dead-real brown-ink note sewn to the reverse identifying it as cut from the coat of General Joseph Robert Davis, nephew of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who was a brigade commander at Gettysburg on July 1 and led it in Pickett’s Charge on July 3.

Davis’s rank insignia is the actual front, left side of the collar, made of buff wool on the exterior and lined in black velvet, with the rank insignia embroidered directly on the buff outer layer and consisting of three, raised, bullion embroidered stars with narrow dark blue borders at the base. A large star is at middle, about 1 ½ inches point to point across the shoulder and set at an angle, with a small 7/8 inch star at either side. Leafy branches of a wreath made of gilt coil thread extend to each side from the inner bottom corners of the large star to curl up and around the smaller stars, ending at top just shy of the large star. The collar is 1 5/8 inches tall, cut with a straight back edge and slanting front edge, measuring 6 ¼ inches long the bottom and 5 ¼ inches along the top.

The reverse has a wonderful paper tag sewn to it inscribed in period brown ink. The lower edge is torn but the upper three lines are legible: “Rebel Gen. Jos. Davis Coat/ brought from Richmond & / given to Gen. Hamilton by / Harry . . .” Only the tops of a few letters are preserved in the rest of that last line. Referring to Davis as a “Rebel” General makes it clear the coat was brought back from Richmond by a northerner, whether soldier, officer, or even civilian. The identity of “Gen. Hamilton” is likely beyond reach. Warner, Generals in Blue provides three candidates, but the rank may be a state or brevet rank.

Davis was born in Woodville, Mississippi, on 12 January 1825, son of Jefferson Davis’s brother Isaac. Educated at a prep school in Nashville and then Miami University in Ohio, he returned to Mississippi to open a law office in Canton, Madison County, and in 1860 was elected a state senator. As a militia officer in the “Madison Rifles,” he left politics when the company mustered into state service on January 31, 1861. On March 1, it mustered into Confederate service for twelve months term, becoming Company I of the 10^th Mississippi and was ordered to Pensacola to take part in the siege of Fort Pickens. Davis was promoted Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment  in April and was in command of Fort McRee on May 20 when he was assigned as an aide to his uncle, accompanying him on his visit to the Manassas battlefield in July, and officially being posted as his military aide, ranking as a colonel of cavalry, in August. He served in that capacity for a little more than a year, gaining promotion to brigadier general and a field command in Fall 1862, though it took two tries to get confirmed by the Confederate senate, which had obvious concerns about nepotism. There may have been some back-room deals made to get it done, but he was appointed and confirmed as Brigadier General on October 8, with rank from September 15, which he formally accepted on Nov. 1.

His brigade consisted of the 2^nd and 11^th Mississippi, who had seen extensive action, the 55^th North Carolina with some action behind them, and the 42^nd Mississippi who, like Davis, had not been under fire. Their early service in North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, around Suffolk and the Blackwater area, was fairly easy. This changed after Stonewall Jackson’s death when Lee reorganized the army and they joined Heth’s Division of A.P. Hill’s corps. They moved north with Lee in June and were at the forefront of the Confederate advance on the Gettysburg on the morning of July 1, 1863. Davis led three of his four regiments into action, deploying on the left of the Chambersburg Pike, and had initial success in pushing back Union cavalry skirmishers and then inflicting some 50 percent casualties on three regiments of Cutler’s brigade that he flanked. Wheeling to face Union troops south of the Chambersburg Pike, however, the brigade became disorganized in taking position along the unfinished railroad whose cuts became more trap than shelter when three Union regiments counterattacked. Davis managed to pull back most of his men, but noted his losses as “very heavy,” with only 2 of 9 field officers escaping unhurt as an example. In addition to those killed and wounded, he lost some 230 men of his 2^nd Mississippi trapped and captured.

The brigade was in reserve on July 2, but on July 3, rejoined by the 11^th Mississippi, joined in Pickett’s charge, with the division, now led by Pettigrew, advancing on the left of Pickett. Davis held the left center of the line, but when Brockenbrough’s brigade broke, he became the prime target not only for the infantry and artillery to his front, but some twenty-six Eleventh Corps guns that raked him from the left. Davis lost about 1,225 of 2,305 men during the battle, about 53%. The 11^th Mississippi lost just about that proportion on July 3 alone. George R. Stewart’s classic study estimated the brigade loss in the charge may have reached 74% of those taking part in the charge. Troops on their right penetrated the more advanced Union positions, but Davis’s 55^th NC claimed it advanced “farthest at Gettysburg,” thus the establishing the real “high-water mark” of the battle and the Confederacy.

Davis was one of just three brigade commanders in the charge to emerge unscathed, but it was not the end of casualties for the brigade in the campaign: he lost at least 100 more at Falling Waters, fighting as part of the army’s rearguard. Davis led the brigade again at Bristoe Station in the Fall, where they lost 48 men and again at Mine Run, where they were not seriously engaged. Davis missed the opening of the Wilderness, attending the funeral of Jefferson Davis’s son, but by May 6 rejoined the brigade, which had been strengthened by the 26^th Mississippi and 1^st CS Battalion, leading it at the Po River and Spottsylvania, where they faced the 9^th Corps, and then at Bethesda Church and Cold Harbor. They held the Deep Bottom line north of the James until the end of July, when they went into the Petersburg lines just after the Crater. From then until the end of the war they were involved in the continual trench warfare interspersed with efforts to oppose Grant’s relentless extension of his lines west, beyond the Confederate right, leading them into combat at the Weldon Railroad and Hatcher’s Run. In the final assault on April 2, they were cut off and most of the brigade captured. In an April 4 letter from Powhattan Court House to his uncle Davis indicates he had made his way to Richmond to join him, but failing that was going to join Lee. He managed to do so in time to surrender at Appomattox, along with just 75 of his men.

After Appomattox Davis ended up in New Orleans, where he worked as a ship chandler for a time, but by the 1870s was back in Mississippi and living near Biloxi, where he again set up a law practice in 1884 and in 1888 was given command of the Mississippi National Guard as a Major General, holding that office until 1895, a year before his death. His coat had clearly remained behind in Richmond, judging from the note, perhaps stored at the Confederate White House. He had lived there while serving as Jefferson Davis’s military aide and a March 10, 1865, letter from Jefferson Davis to General Henry Heth, indicates his nephew had been visiting during a brief leave of absence from the front.

Confederate insignia of any sort is rare. A brigadier general’s insignia is exceedingly so, and one with a Gettysburg and Pickett’s Charge connection is pretty much unheard of.   [sr][ph:m]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS ITEM, AS WITH ALL OTHER ITEMS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEB SITE,

MAY BE PURCHASED THROUGH OUR LAYAWAY PROGRAM.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR POLICIES AND TERMS.

THANK YOU!