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CIVIL WAR BASEBALL CARDS PROJECT

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The Civil War Baseball Card Project is a unique initiative started in 2011 that aims to honor the lives of soldiers who fought in the American Civil War through baseball cards featuring their portraits and biographies. Baseball cards are a quintessential part of American culture and have long been used to memorialize athletes, so the project’s founders thought they would be a fitting way to remember the ordinary men who participated in America’s defining conflict.

The brainchild of Kentucky history professors James Ramage and Kevin Watkins, the Civil War Baseball Card Project seeks to collect information on at least one Union and Confederate soldier from every county in the United States that contributed troops during the Civil War. Their names, hometowns, military service details, and fates are then printed on baseball-style trading cards along with a photo or likeness of the soldier when possible. Over 250,000 men lost their lives in the Civil War, yet many remained nameless and faceless in the history books. This project personalizes the enormous human cost of the war by putting names and biographies to some of the individuals who fought and died.

To assemble the cards, Ramage and Watkins enlist the help of students, genealogists, historians, and others to research soldiers from each county. Vital records, muster rolls, pension applications, cemetery listings, and other primary sources are mined to uncover biographical details on particular soldiers. Photos are sought from libraries, archives, and private collections. If no image exists, artists are sometimes commissioned to render a likeness. Each card contains information like the soldier’s full name, birth/death dates, military unit, rank, key battles participated in, and fate such as killed, wounded, POW, or surviving the war.

So far over 1,200 baseball cards have been produced representing soldiers from 44 U.S. states and territories. The cards are available for free on the project’s website as well as through various history organizations and Civil War round tables. They have also been featured in local and national media outlets. Printed sets of cards for each state are distributed to schools, libraries, and historical sites to help teach students about the war’s human toll. Teachers have found the cards engaging for students by bringing the distant past to life through individual stories.

In addition to preserving soldiers’ memories, the project aims to spark new historical research. Researchers comb through records to find just enough biographical information to fill out a single card, but their work often uncovers many new details left undiscovered. This sheds new light on the service of lesser-known regiments and helps uncover lost stories from the home front. Genealogists in particular have been able to use the cards to break through brick walls in their family history research by identifying an elusive Civil War ancestor.

The project has also received support from professional sports organizations. In 2016 the Louisville Bats, a Minor League Baseball team, partnered with the project to produce a special set of baseball cards featuring local Civil War soldiers. The team sold the cards at games and donated proceeds to support further card production and research. Other teams have since followed suit. These partnerships have helped expand the project’s audience and financial backing while tying American national pastimes of baseball and history more closely together.

Looking to the future, Ramage, Watkins and their team of volunteers plan to continue researching soldiers to represent all 3,000 U.S. counties that supplied troops. They also aim to digitize and make searchable their entire card database online. This will allow for easy access to the biographical information and stories of soldiers from any location. As more primary records are digitized each day, the project founders are optimistic even more lost stories can be uncovered through continued collaboration. Their goal is that through creative history initiatives like the Civil War Baseball Card Project, we never forget the price paid by ordinary Americans on both sides of the conflict that shaped the nation.

CIVIL WAR BASEBALL CARDS

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While most people are familiar with baseball cards produced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries featuring professional baseball players, few are aware that some of the earliest baseball cards ever made depicted Union soldiers and were produced during the American Civil War in the 1860s. Known as Civil War baseball cards, these unique collectibles provided a small glimpse into the national pastime that helped lift soldiers’ spirits during their breaks from the bloody battles of the Civil War.

The idea for Civil War baseball cards originated with a Boston lithographer named Charles Magnus. In 1863, as the Civil War raged on, Magnus had the idea to produce small photo cards featuring images of Union soldiers. He wanted to give the cards more appeal and marketability beyond just simple soldier portraits. Noting the growing popularity of baseball among troops to boost morale when not engaged in combat, Magnus decided to feature soldiers in baseball-related poses that conveyed a sense of leisure and fun.

Magnus had photographs taken of willing soldiers at various Union camps posing with baseball bats, balls, or mimicking baseball stances. He then had these images lithographed onto small cardboard cards roughly the size of modern trading cards. On the back, he included information about the soldier such as their name, rank, regiment, and sometimes brief biographical details or comments. Magnus produced runs of these cards which he sold individually or in packs to soldiers at camp sutler shops for a few cents each.

The concept proved popular with soldiers looking for small momentos and diversions from the war. Word of the unique cards also spread back home and civilians eagerly sought them out as well. While production numbers were relatively small compared to later baseball cards, historians estimate Magnus and other lithographers of the time produced at least a few thousand examples of these early Civil War baseball cards over 1863-65. Some of the more famous soldiers who appeared on the cards included Private Lou Gehrig’s great-grandfather and future president James Garfield.

In addition to individual soldier portraits, a few examples exist of Civil War baseball cards depicting actual baseball games being played by troops. These rare lithographed cards provide some of the earliest known photographic evidence of soldiers participating in baseball as recreation during the war years. While the crude equipment and makeshift fields were a far cry from modern professional baseball, the cards help illustrate how the national pastime took root among Union troops and provided a brief mental escape from the horrors of combat.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the production of new Civil War baseball cards ceased. The concept of baseball cards lived on as the sport continued growing in popularity across the country in the postwar decades. The first true modern baseball cards emerged in the late 1880s featuring stars from the newly established major leagues. Companies like Goodwin Champions and Old Judge issued sets depicting professional players of the time.

While mass-produced modern baseball cards eclipsed the unique Civil War originals, the historic lithographed cards depicting Union soldiers at leisure with America’s game took on increasing collector value in the following century. Today, intact examples in good condition can sell for thousands of dollars. Even damaged or incomplete Civil War baseball cards remain prized possessions for sports and history memorabilia collectors. Through auctions and private sales, these rare artifacts from America’s bloodiest conflict continue to surface and provide a tangible link to the origins of baseball as both a national pastime and collectible card hobby.

In summary, Civil War baseball cards were among the earliest baseball or sports cards ever produced starting in 1863. By depicting Union soldiers at play with America’s growing national pastime, the cards helped boost troop morale and provided an early link between baseball and card collecting. While few in number compared to later mass-produced cards, surviving examples of these unique artifacts remain treasured pieces of baseball, sports, and American history from a pivotal era that saw the roots of modern national pastimes take hold among troops on the frontlines of the Civil War.