"A marvel of taste and skill": carved pipes of the American Civil War
Date
2015
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The observance of the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War has brought about fresh consideration of the most studied period in our national history. The personal experience of soldiers has long been a topic of interest to scholars and enthusiasts alike. Occasionally, they discuss the creative proclivities of these men, including the phenomenon of tobacco pipe carving. This behavior has been characterized as an effort to create an effective vessel for tobacco consumption and to combat boredom. Through a study of over 150 surviving pipes in tandem with the vast documentary and visual records from the period, the author explores the materials, motivations and meaning of this popular creative outlet. The carved pipes were certainly smoked, but were they made only as vessels for tobacco? Boredom was a dreaded element of military life, but can a need for mental occupation fully explain the detail and design of the carved pipes? Can we further complicate our understanding of the creative practices of Civil War soldiers? Carved pipes were important expressions of group and personal identity. The preponderance of iconography and text communicate aspects of how the men defined themselves. Not all men made their own pipe, however. Carvings of all kinds became commodities that soldiers bought and traded among themselves and with outside individuals. This production and consumption occurred in both camp and prison contexts. In both cases, pipes were never divorced from the wartime environment. The materials from which they were made became a physical and emotional link to the landscape of war, the experience of an individual man, and in the case of his death, the continued memory of his life. The motivations that drove men to carve are manifested in the pipes they created. A soldier's decision to carve a pipe was imbedded in a larger mental and physical struggle for comfort, identity, economic stability, and memory in the face of wartime uncertainty.