ELLSWORTH COAT

            SFX: CANNON FIRE/SMALL ARMS FIRE

NARR: In 1861 the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, and the Civil War began. On the left wall of this gallery is a blowup of a painting showing Fort Sumter under attack. And you’re standing next to a glass case containing the wool coat of a Union officer with a bullet hole in it. The knee-length coat is gray, with three-inch green cuffs on the sleeves and two rows of brass buttons down the chest, from the neck to the waist. The bullet hole is round, a little bigger than a quarter, with ragged edges. To feel where he got hit, place your right hand on your chest, the way people do when they say the Pledge of Allegiance. Then press down with your forefinger on your chest and you’ll know exactly where the bullet hole is. 

The officer’s name was Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth and he was the first Union officer killed in the war, shot while trying to haul down a Confederate flag. Ellsworth was a New Yorker and also a close friend of Lincoln.