(MILITARY CIVIL WAR) Badge of the First Defenders Associati

Sale 2598 - Lot 314

Price Realized: $ 562

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Badge of the First Defenders Association featuring Nick Biddle, "First Man to Shed Blood in the Rebellion." Pinback button, 1 3/4 inches across, featuring caption "First Man to Shed Blood in the Great Rebellion 1861-65, Nicholas Biddle" with his portrait, with union label on verso stating that it was manufactured by Whitehead & Hoag of Newark, NJ under an 1896 patent; and attached red, white, and blue ribbon, 3 x 1 1/2 inches, reading "Reunion of First Defenders Association"; minor wear and fading to pinback, moderate wear and soiling to ribbon including 1/2-inch hole not affecting text. Pottsville, PA, 18 April 1905

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Nick Biddle (1796-1876) was a formerly enslaved man of Pottsville, PA who was an unofficial member of the town's militia company. They were one of five companies summoned as the "First Defenders" of Washington after the fall of Fort Sumter. In Baltimore, they were met by secessionist rioters who singled out Biddle for his race and wounded him badly with a brick. He is often regarded as the first man wounded in combat for the Union. He was also almost certainly the first Black man in uniform with the Union Army during the Civil War. Here, decades after the war, the all-white First Defenders Association chose to honor Biddle for his important role. No other examples traced.