PREV ARTICLE
NEXT ARTICLE
FULL ISSUE
PREV FULL ISSUE
THE BULL'S RUN SATIRICAL MEDALAuthor Peter Bertram writes: The Bull's Run satirical medal was totally unknown to me until Alan Weinberg sent me images of his specimen. With so much suspicious material out there I was rather skeptical at first. After a little digging around however, I found it was originally announced in the October, 1879 American Journal of Numismatics - also Joe Levine had handled two of them, so I was convinced. The attached is my write up of it for my Confederate Numismatica 2018 Supplement One (target August) in progress. I thought perhaps the readers might enjoy a "sneak peek". Thanks! Very interesting piece - I was not aware of this, either. -Editor
 These crudely cast Confederate satirical medals are very rare indeed with only three specimens currently known (that I'm aware of). A fourth one announcing the medal's existence was noted as "A MEMENTO OF BULL'S RUN" in the October, 1879 issue of the American Journal of Numismatics. It was a lead medal in Cleveland's Historical Society and was described as "…the size of an old dollar. The device of the obverse is a full-face ass's head, over and around which is a three-quarter circle of thirteen stars; on either side the letters ‘U.S.' and below, across the field, ‘Bull's Run, 1861.' An eagle occupies the center of the reverse; and the legend ‘Long Legs and Live Weights,' encircles the field" "Live" should actually be "Light" per the images shown here. At the Battle of First Bull (not Bull's) Run, Union General Irvin McDowell's new army attacked Confederate Generals PGT Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston on July 21 near Centreville, Virginia. Successful at first, the attack failed as Confederate reinforce-ments from the Shenandoah Valley arrived, broke the Union right flank and pressed hard, turning the Federal retreat into a complete rout. The medal's satirical legend was thus read as "US bulls run," with "Long Legs" referring to how fast the Union soldiers ran, and "Light Weights" describing their frantic discarding of arms, accouterments, etc - anything and everything which might have slowed them down. Alan Weinberg won the eBay auction for his finest known copy above, and Joseph Levine (Presidential Coin & Antique Co) sold the other two – one of them to Richard Gross who reports he still has his copy and it's for sale (ms67.rick.g@gmail.com).  To read earlier E-Sylum articles on Peter's book, see:  Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
|