Original Item: One-of-a-kind. Genuine Confederate Civil War bridal cutter pike head with steel blade and mounting cup. The original CIVIL WAR MUSEUM AND LIBRARY CURATORIAL WORKSHEET which is also included reads:

"Excavated bridle cutting Confederate pike head found in the state of South Carolina @ the site of burning Confederate munitions train by Federal troops in the Spring of 1865."

The pike is in relic condition but solid and show pitting and age. It measures approximately 19" tall. The original accession number 86.30.1 is painted on the pike. Also included is the original auction catalog listing this item.

The CIVIL WAR MUSEUM of Philadelphia was originally known as the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLLUS) and this item was deaccessed when it closed. The MOLLUS number is also found on the pike in white paint and reads 86.30.1


Civil War Museum of Philadelphia
Founded in 1888 by veteran officers of the Civil War, the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia was a monument to those who fought to preserve the United States in the face of rebellion. Originally known as the War Library and Museum, the institution operated in several sites in Philadelphia before settling in a townhouse near Rittenhouse Square from 1922 until 2008, when it closed for financial reasons. In 2016, the museum transferred its three-dimensional collections to the Gettysburg Foundation with artifacts also displayed at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. In their new homes, artifacts originally treated as memorial relics—including items from General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85), Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), and lesser-known soldiers and officers—were reinvented in the context of modern exhibits about such topics as slavery, racism, and the broader causes and consequences of the Civil War.

This 1893 photograph shows the MOLLUS Commandry of Pennsylvania posing outside General George Meade’s headquarters at Gettysburg. (Library of Congress)

The creation of a Civil War museum in Philadelphia originated with the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS), a fraternal association for veteran officers of the Civil War founded in 1865 at the Union League in Philadelphia. The group formed in the wake of the assassination of Lincoln amid fear of a continuation of the Civil War, but when that fear subsided, commemoration became central to the association’s mission. The chartering of the War Library and Museum in 1888 reflected new efforts at remembrance that occurred in part because veterans were aging, but also because in the wake of Reconstruction, the Civil War seemed resolved and so it began to fade from current events into history.

Members of MOLLUS, including John Page Nicholson (1842-1922), who had taken control and revived the organization a decade earlier, chartered the War Library and Museum to collect, preserve, and maintain books and artifacts—“implements, relics, and muniments of war”—pertaining to the “War of the Rebellion.” The library and museum reflected a larger interest in documenting the memories of aging US Army and Navy veterans so as to capture history before it was lost. The urge to collect artifacts from veterans and to write and publish their recollections was also part of a contest over who would get to write the history of the Civil War.