John Watkins' Telescope
File Name |
shades_mcm_0002.jpg |
Title |
John Watkins' Telescope |
Alternate Title |
Telescope Used by Corporal John Watkins at the Battle of Fort Sanders |
Genre |
Artifacts |
Material/Technique |
brass |
Description |
Hand-held, extending telescope, with brass finish. |
Historical note |
John Watkins, a corporal with the 19th Ohio Battery, was present at the Battle of Fort Sanders in November 1863. His eyewitness description concludes, "As soon as the firing stopped I went up and got on the parapet to look at them. And such a sight I never saw before nor do I care about seeing again. The ditch in places was almost full of them piled one on top of the other.... They were brave men. Most of them Georgians." Watkins returned to Knoxville for a reunion in 1895 and recounted the visit as follows: "Went to Fort Sanders, looked the place over and talked with old soldiers and some other people about it, but it will soon be of the past -- boys are helping to tear down the parapets to find bullets and they get lots of them.... We can locate the place where our gun stood all right, now there is a big house built within 100 feet of it and a road is graded right through the works between where we were." |
Subject |
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Campaigns & Battles; Fort Sanders, Battle of, Knoxville, Tenn., 1863 |
Theme |
Visualizing the War |
Story |
Orlando Poe |
Geographic Location |
United States--Tennessee--Knoxville |
Time period |
1860-1869 |
Rights |
Images reproduced on this website are intended for individual, educational use only. For research inquiries about specific objects or requests for high resolution images , contact the Frank H. McClung Museum. |
Type |
Still image |
Format |
image/jp2 |
Contributing Institution |
Frank H. McClung Museum, University of Tennessee |
Digital Publisher |
Digital Initiatives, James E. Walker Library, Middle Tennessee State University |
Reference URL |
http://content.mtsu.edu/u?/shades,182 |
Archival file |
shades11/shades_mcm_0002.jpg |
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