This Southern Cross of Honor was formerly in the collections of the Texas Civil War Museum. The award was conceived of in 1898, adopted in 1899, and first issued in 1900. These were given by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to living Confederate veterans with honorable service in the Confederate army, navy or marines. The medal is a bronze toned Maltese Cross bearing a wreath of laurel surrounding the words "Deo / Vindice /  1861 / 1865" and the inscription, "Southern Cross of Honor" on the four branches of the cross. On the reverse side is a Confederate Battle Flag surrounded by a laurel wreath and the words "United Daughters [of the] Confederacy to the UCV” on the branches of the cross. This is suspended from a rectangular top pinback bar, bearing in raised letters on the reverse, “Patented / Charles W. Crankshaw / Atlanta,” who was chosen to produce the medal, though he, in fact, subcontracted the manufacture to a Milwaukee firm. The first 2,500 were had numbered. This is the Type-2, similar to the first issue, but without the hand engraved number. This pattern was issued until 1904, with some 42,500 presented. Presentation of the award was to cease in 1913, but was extended indefinitely in 1912. UDC records indicate 78,761 were awarded from 1900 to 1913 alone. The last presentation was made in 1959.

The face of the top bar is nicely engraved “I.B. BROWN.” A typewritten card with it identifies the recipient as, “I.B. Brown / Born June 6, 1845 / Died March 15, 1930 / Buried Oakwood Cemetary [sic] / Comanche, Texas / Served in Confederate / Navy- Galveston Texas / 1861 to 1865.” A quick cemetery search turns up Ira Bisby Brown, born in Maine in 1845, but in Texas by 1850 and in Galveston by 1851. In 1860 the family consisted of his father, a carpenter, his mother, two sisters, one brother and himself, age 15. After the war he married in Washington, Texas, in 1869, and was back in Galveston by the time his son was born there in 1871. The 1880 census picks him in Comanche, Texas, as an “Engineer in mill,” living with his wife and two children. The couple apparently lived there the rest of there lives. She died there in 1926 and he in 1930.

Brown’s tombstone is inscribed UCV and hers, UDC, indicating both had active interest in Confederate veteran affairs and making a presentation to him of the cross by the UDC likely. We cannot, confirm his navy service, but his residence in Galveston lends credibility to the history, though family traditions are notoriously inaccurate, so some further digging is necessary. We note that his name does not appear among the 2,754 Texas veterans who received the cross as listed online by the Texas Division of the UDC, but we do not think that list is exhaustive given the number of medals known to have been awarded overall just from 1900 to 1913. Confederate records can be fragmentary and navy records of both sides are the most difficult.

This comes in a modern gold and dark gray medal case, intended for a larger badge, perhaps UDC, and embossed with the Confederate battleflag at lower right.   [sr][ph:L]

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