MMCC Receives Rare Civil War Treasure

Civil War Canteen History

By Jan Manos

      The Madison Morgan Cultural Center has been given a rare Civil War treasure.   It is a wooden canteen with a detailed carving of Madison Prison from the Civil War period.

     During the Civil War, there was a prison here in Madison.  It was located in what had been the Madison Steam Mill.  It was a steam-driven cotton mill situated about a half mile west of the town square.  The Madison Steam Mill was originally chartered about 1850, and was bankrupt by 1855.  The abandoned facility became, in 1862, a prison for Union soldiers, including many officers captured at the Battle of Shiloh.  It was referred to in records as The Madison Prison.  In 1864 it was used as a Confederate soldiers’ hospital, named the May Hospital.  

     Historians knew there had been a prison and hospital in that area and former Morgan County Archivist Woody Williams and Clifton Hanes explored and excavated the property in the mid-1990s.  The excavation revealed a building had once stood there, and a wooden canteen brought to their attention had a clear and accurate drawing of the Prison/Hospital and the surrounding yard.  The excavation was documented in 2009 in a research paper submitted to the Lamar Institute Publication, written by Woody Williams, Mark Williams and Clifton Hanes.  In 2014, Patsy Harris referred to the same building in her book, ‘Confederate Hospitals of Madison, Georgia:  Their Records and Histories/1861 – 1865’.

     The Confederate-issued, Gardner pattern wood canteen, with original linen sling, was deeply carved with four distinct initials J. G. B. J. On the reverse side of the canteen is an attribution to James Green Berry Jones, a 41-year-old farmer who enlisted into the DeKalb Rangers, which formed Company D, 42nd Georgia Infantry.  Jones was detailed to escort prisoners captured at Shiloh, Tennessee, to confinement at Madison Prison.  Private Jones met Federal Lieutenant Ira H. Ford, who delicately carved his magnificent view of the prison compound with his scrolled signature above, “Lieut. I. H. Ford/18th Wisc., Vol./1862 Cotton Mill Prison at/Madison Georgia.”  Lieutenant Ford became sick and disabled, suffering from his incarceration the remainder of his life.  Ironically, Private Jones was later captured at Vicksburg and imprisoned, where he too became sick and later died.  

     The Madison Morgan Cultural Center is deeply indebted to Mr. Perry Bennet who brought this historic canteen to our museum, and to previous owners who respected and cared for its place in history.