IDENTIFIED CONFEDERATE CAP BOX OF DOUGLAS HAMILTON KNOX CO. B VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE BATTALION OF INFANTRY: SERVICE AT RICHMOND/PETERSBURG 1864

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Item Code: 1246-07

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This identified Confederate cap box comes from collection of Civil War relics and family mementos retained by the Knox family of Fredericksburg, VA., and is one of several items labelled by the family as carried in the war by one of their family members. The family was prosperous, prominent, and large: reportedly with fourteen children, including six sons with Confederate service. (We have identified five so far.) After the war two of the brothers, Robert T. Knox and younger brother James S. Knox, both formerly in the 30th Virginia, opened a store, “R.T. Knox & Bro.” in Fredericksburg. We show an 1870 advertisement for the operation offering groceries, etc. At some point they also got into business selling coal and as “manufacturers of sumac & grinders of bones” according to one secondary source, with the operation described as a “store and factory/processing plant.” The store also displayed war relics gathered from the many battlefields and camps in the area as method of drawing in customers and curious passers-by. (We also suspect that as “grinders of bones,” their suppliers may have been scouring the region for horse and cattle bones and bringing in interesting relics picked up in the process.) In any case, the family retained these acquired relics along with mementos of their own wartime service, with applied labels often making the distinction. Among the collection we acquired were several with tags or labels indicating they had belonged to Daniel Hamilton Knox (1847-1914) one of the sons with Confederate service.

This is the characteristically Confederate cap box, constructed of black leather with long rectangular outer flap with scalloped lower edge and separate, sewn latch tab and pewter finial. It has a typically Confederate single wide belt loop on the reverse, secured along the bottom edge by the same line of stitching used to secure the edges of the cap box body itself, a time and labor saving measure. The long inner flap with side ears is also in place. The interior shows the remnants of the piece of sheepskin whose fleece served to keep the caps inside if the flap was unlatched. The condition is very good, showing some wrinkles, crackling and some finish loss from flexing and use, but with the seams solid and good color. The end of the latch tab is missing, typically broken across the hole, but the outer flap still shows is decorative, thin, impressed border line.

The inner flap was inscribed by the family, “D.H. KNOX / 1863.” As is often the case with family histories, they got the year wrong- his active service dates to 1864. Born in July 1847, he matriculated at VMI from Fredericksburg with the class set to graduate in 1868 and is credited by a service index card on Fold3 as entering service May 15, 1864, the date of the Battle of New Market, in which the cadet corps, 257 strong, took part in defeating US forces under Franz Sigel, suffering 10 killed and 45 wounded. Some two-thirds of the corps in the battle were recent appointees, though we do not find him in published rosters of the cadets who took part in that battle, but VMI records indicate he saw subsequent action with the Corps, who joined Early’s forces near Lynchburg in repulsing Hunter’s Union forces, who had destroyed all but two buildings of the VMI campus, and then joined the local defense brigade at Richmond in October 1864 where they took part in the defense of Richmond and Petersburg against Grant. Knox’s sparse compiled military service file confirms he was there and has him hospitalized in Richmond November 5-7, 1864. No date of return to duty is given, nor any further information, but his 1914 obituary credits him with Confederate service to the end of the war.

He became a businessman in Fredericksburg after the war, married in 1887 at Richmond, fathered five children, and died in 1914 at Fredericksburg, where he was interred in the Confederate Cemetery. His obituary reads as follows: “DOUGLAS HAMILTON KNOX. Douglas H. Knox, who died on the 20th of February, 1914, was one of the prominent business men of Fredericksburg, Va., a devout member of the Church, a Mason, Royal Arch Mason, and member of the Royal Arcanum. He is survived by his wife (who was Miss Brokenbrough, of Richmond County), two sons, and a daughter. During the early part of the war Douglas Knox was a student in the Virginia Military Academy, at Lexington, and later, while yet a boy, with other students, he enlisted in the Confederate army and served until the close.”

A large collection of family letters titled “The Circle Unbroken” dealing with letters from the Civil War years has been published and is widely available. This is very good, identified Confederate cap box with interesting service record and family history attached to it.  [sr][ph:L]

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