American Libraries |
||
Site Navigation
Left Sidebar ItemsOnline Features
Follow American Libraries news stories, videos, and blog posts on Twitter.
|
||
Civil War Records Stolen from Library ExhibitA thief took two Civil War documents from a sealed case at the main branch of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, the weekend of August 26.The display case, which has since been removed, was sealed by screws. Two staff members could see the display from their desks but were often away helping patrons. “I can only say that maybe [the documents] offended someone, or maybe they thought they were worth a whole lot of money,” said Archivist Sheila Bumgarner, who curated the exhibit, in the August 31 Charlotte Observer. The items, a handwritten furlough for a Confederate soldier and a certificate of medical examination for a slave, had a combined value of about $400, according to the library. However, other documents left behind in the exhibit were more valuable. Retired police captain Walt Hilderman, who loaned the documents to the library, said that the thief could have been motivated by controversy stemming from his split with the group Sons of Confederate Veterans and a book he had written on conscription in the Confederacy, They Went into the Fight Cheering. “Those documents were specifically targeted for theft for a reason,” he told the paper. “Whether there was some political threat involved . . . is all a possibility.” Posted September 1, 2006. |
Right Sidebar
|
|
