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CIVIL WAR US NAVY SAILOR’S EMBROIDERED PINCUSHION OF AMHERST SPOFFORD: SERVICE IN THE 3rd MAINE INFANTRY AND US NAVY

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Born in Maine in 1821, Amherst Spofford (III) first went to sea at age thirteen and spent the greater part of his life as a sailor according to a 1916 obituary. During the Civil War he served in both the army and the navy and this is a wonderful, eye-catching piece of sailor’s embroidery – a talent developed by many seamen in idle hours aboard ship and accustomed to mending clothing and uniforms as well as sails and other gear. This is a 4” x 4 ¼” square pincushion, thin, bound with sky-blue tape that also forms a small hanging loop, and is deep blue on one side and red on the other. The blue side has two five-pointed stars, somewhat leaflike, one in purple and white superimposed on the other in red, white, blue, and green. Both have stars have narrow borders and interiors stitched in chevrons, the five points of the underlying star worked to show a US at the point, with blue canton uppermost and red and white stripes converging, with a wide green chevron at bottom.

The reverse is red fabric with a great brown ink note pinned to it reading, “made by / Amherst Spofford / 3^rd while in the / Navy of the Rebellion / 1864.” (“War of the Rebellion” might have been a more natural formulation, but it seems pretty clearly to be “Navy of the Rebellion.”)

Spofford married about 1843 and in 1860 was living in Boothbay, Maine, with wife and son Sidney, age 15, both father and son working as fishermen. (Some records list a second son, George H., born in 1859, but he shows up in another Spofford household in the 1860 census.) Father and son enlisted together 9/18/62 mustering in as privates in Company G of the 3^rd Maine Infantry.  Sidney died at Washington on January 4, 1863, judging by the date, from sickness or disease. Amherst remained with the company and regiment until transferring to the US Navy April 15, 1864, and enlisting formally at Baltimore.

The 3^rd Maine had served since June 1861 and by the time the Spoffords joined it the regiment was in the 3^rd Corps in the Army of the Potomac and had seen action at Bull Run, Fair Oaks, 2^nd Bull Run, and Chantilly. After they joined it and while Amherst remained in it, the regiment saw further action at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Mine Run Campaign. He transfer to the Navy was just before Grant’s 1864 campaign and the regiment’s muster out in June 1864, with the transfer of some to other units.

We don’t know all of Spofford’s navy service, but do see he was aboard the USS Commodore Perry, a steamer acquired by the US Navy and turned into a gunboat that saw active service along the Virginia and North Carolina coast. Spofford would have joined it after repairs at Norfolk and Baltimore when it returned to duty in the inland and coastal waters of Virginia, taking part in picket, guard, and patrol duty as well as participating in amphibious operations. In November 1864 he was witness to courtmartial and identified himself as a Seaman, and at the time of the incident at trial had been acting quartermaster in late October. He was a Seaman, acting quartermaster at one. point

Spofford returned to Maine after his Navy service and is picked up in the 1870 census as a farmer in Bingham, ME, died there at age 94 in 1916. He had lived for a number of years in Skowhegan, where a local newspaper obituary recorded: “During his residence in Skowhegan Mr. Spofford was wont to celebrate his birthday anniversaries, especially during the later years of his life and the event was never quite complete unless the stars and stripes were unfurled from the house-top.” This seems a fitting anecdote given the embroidery on this pincushion.  [sr] [PH:L]

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