Our section on winter camp folk art is opened with a
view of the 16th Maine’s, Pvt. Geo. W. Patten’s folk
art tie slide set over a period print entitled
Camp Leavitt [Virginia]
Winter Quarters of the 16th Maine Regiment,
March 18, 1865.  
Pvt. Patten’s handiwork is representative of classic
Civil War winter camp soldier folk art fostered by
long hours of inactivity when entire regiments were
holed up for the winter months.   During this mostly
idle time soldiers fashioned all manner of personal
items and trinkets to send home or trade.    Beef bone
was a readily available medium which was carved
and frequently incised with decorative inlay of
colored sealing wax.  Beef bone as a raw material
was augmented by the use of wood to include the
dense native laurel root, peach pits, silver from coins
or a spoon flattened to provide a thin flat sheet.   
A collage of soldier made bone folk art includes a pair of decorated finger
rings with a period tag identifying the relics as having been fashioned by
“an occupant of the Famous A-ville [Andersonville] Prison Pen 1864”.
Miniature carpenter chest
with tools of carved bone was
done by John W. Thompson who
was an eighteen year old resident
of Hartford, Maine when in the
summer of 1861 he enlisted as a
musician in the 5th  Maine Infantry
Regimental Band.  Discharged a bit
over a year later, Thompson
re-enlisted in the spring of 1864 as
a Private of Co H, 32nd Maine
infantry.  He transferred to H Co.
31st Maine in December 1864 and
was discharged in August 1865.