Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia

At 18th and Pine you discover the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia. Few Philadelphians know of this museum and more should. Organized in 1896, the museum is devoted to memorabilia of the Civil War with a library of 10,000 volumes on the War and related subjects. (The library is open to scholars, students and others doing research on the period.) The contents of the museum are staggering.

The Lincoln Room, in addition to numerous photographs and portraits, has a life mask done in 1861 and another made two months before his assassination and also a lock of the President's hair. A broadside, or wanted poster, in the room has photographs of the three assassins sought for the murder of Lincoln. A $100,000 reward is offered, since "The Murderer of our late beloved President, Abraham Lincoln, is STILL AT LARGE."

In the Meade Room is General Meade's uniform and his magnificent jeweled presentation sword. The authentic head of General Meade's horse, "Old Baldy" (picture at right courtesy of the Civil War Library and Museum), is preserved in a glass case. Baldy, a war horse in the truest sense of the phrase, was wounded five times, in battles ranging form Bull Run to Gettysburg. This beloved equine survived the war and died at the age of 30.

Upstairs one finds the paisley dressing gown worn by Jefferson Davis when he fled from the Union Army. Naturally, when the news flashed through the North that Davis was captured "impersonating a female," it furnished a field day for satirists and cartoonists. The museum has a Currier and Ives print entitled, "The Last Ditch of the Chivalry, or a President in Petticoats."

The museum has announced that it will be moving to the First Bank of the United States building in the Historic District.

Museum's Homepage