Sometimes looking back helps with looking at the right now - this carved-out-of-bone brooch was made by Private Norman L. Hope, Company A, 16th Connecticut Volunteers, while he was imprisoned at the infamous Andersonville Prison in Georgia during the Civil War.For those unfamiliar with Andersonville, it was one of the largest military prisons established by the Confederacy. More than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined there and some 13,000 died in the 26½-acre stockade. Today it is a National Park Service site.
Author MacKinley Kantor brought the incredible true story to life in his book of the same name, Andersonville, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize.
Think the current times are tough? Dip into the book and see what can be borne when necessary.
The brooch is part of Museum of Connecticut History at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford. (Also see the Connecticut Genealogy site, www.cslib.org/genealogy.htm, for more resources.)
Easy to miss this one small object. Hard to forget it.
