you know? buying fresh bread for the general's commissary. and these are all artifacts off the field. again, a number of the items are items that were recovered with the national dead. you see ovm belt plate. ohio volunteer militia. you see jackknives. almost everybody had a knife of some type. some had big bowie knives like many of the confederates. the buttons are off the field. collected off the field. some of them would have come up with the war dead. this exhibit always attracts attention. people just sit there and look at all that stuff throughout they are touring around. but indeed a witness to shiloh would be this grimsley saddle, hole sister -- holsters and belts and sword carried by major john mcferrin, who was in the 70th ohio infantry serving in

sherman's division. assigned to ralph buckley's brigade. would have been on his horse as he participated in the battle. he saw significant action, but he would be dead in october of 1862 from fever. the majority of artillery rounds all have convenience to shiloh. recovered through the years from the battlefield, representing the types of explosive rounds or solid shot utilized here. about half of grant's artillery was rifled artillery. smooth board. about 85%. two gun boats at play at the battle of shiloh. u.s. tyler and lexington. wooden gun boats, in fact.

large eight-inch guns and 32 pounders. served well in defense of the, left of grant's last line and then they fired salvos into the confederate-held camps throughout the night of the 6th on into the morning of the 7th. slap nell from the gun boat fire found on the battlefield. we found shrapnel as far as three miles inland from pittsburg landing. the drum. don't know a great deal about the story behind the drum is one of the early things donated to the park, but cited as being recovered from the battlefield, or near the battlefield. perhaps abandoned. by retreating forces, and then preserved all of these years here at shiloh to be utilized as part of the exhibits. drummers played a special role in the military organization.

the drum was communication. think of it as 19 century walkie-talkie. beats on that drum told the men in the regimen certain things to do. it called them to breakfast. it woke them up in the morning. it put them to sleep at night. it -- -arious beats of the drum told them to do different things in formation. they could even fire by the beat of the drum. load and fire by the beat of the drum. all kinds of things the drums are used for and they were used for communication. music was an important part of their life, but a drummer assigned to an infantry regimen served a communication role. hence, they were always near the officers so that they could issue the commands by drum necessary for the troops. we've left the battlefield visitor's center and moved to our collection, museum collection storage facility. in here will be the elements of

collection retained at shiloh that aren't on exhibit, as well as the archival documents. majority of those archival documents relate to the park's administrative history. so they're associated with the establishment of the park or the national cemetery, not necessarily specific to the civil war, although we have a few domts relative to the civil car and we have them divided up in the building here with the archived documents stored here in this room. and arranged in a different series. these would also include photographs. in this collection. all right. see what we got here.

for many of these, we do have the glass plate negatives for. here's 1895 veterans reunion at shiloh. that picture had been taken out by shiloh in ray springs just underneath shiloh church. here's a photograph of them around the spring. these would all have been veterans and their families. from this time frame through the 1930s, pretty regular reunions being held here at the battlefield. step into the other -- compartment. battle opened up when combat patrol sent out by every peabody on the command, major james powell.

three companies of the 25th missouri and two companies of the 12th mission infantry participated in the first fighting in the battle of shiloh out in the field, and the first known participant of the battle named, recorded as wounded, was a frederic klingler of the 25th missouri infantry. this is klingler's sword, and the metal components of the associated scabber and this has a inscription on it. the bearer of this sword, f.j. klingler, lieutenant, company b, infantry, was the first officer wounded sunday morning. 4:45 would have been a.m. in the battle of shiloh and remained 2.5 days on the battlefield. so this is klingler's sword that

he would have carried with him in the combat, and then subsequently retained and it would be inscribed. this is one of the newest pieces of the park collection donated to the park. i hope to get this on permanent display soon, because it's so -- iconic with a very prominent part of the shiloh story. the opening of the battle, and to have it returned here and we're able to share this with the public is quite unique. this hall rifle, a series of these were issued to mississippi troops and at corinth. hope to get this on display at our corinth facility. it is owned by a man in corinth, mississippi. we have it here until we can design the proper exhibit 4.

exhibit for it. kind of unique that -- it's pretty fragile. because, at some point in time, it was torn before it came to us, is a photograph reportedly found in the grave of an unknown soldier lying in the national cemetery. so this war time grave, i think evidently had this image, i think the image has been mounted on the backing, but the specific grave on which this is recovered, whose site is an

unknown, is grave 757 in the national cemetery. so this would be an image of a sweetheart, maybe wife, of that individual who died here, unfortunately, remains were not identified, either at the time of burial or upon exhumation, and so simply another question mark, who's the unknown soldier and who's the sweetheart? i guess you could say, god only knows. so a unique item to come up with the dead. you saw the jackknives and some of the personal items like pipes and things and then to see, to see an image, a photograph come out. let's see. what do we got here? more. these are more items collected from the national dead exhumed here. the vast majority of them. these are kind of neat.

these were rings that would have been buried with their owners. apparent wedding bands. that would have been with the physical remains, upon exhumation that were collected. the pipes in particular. items that would have been buried with their owner. insignia on the cap or cap of your hat of united states infantry soldier. the item didn't survive the hat, but the metal did. recent archeology on the battlefield we found, we found the buckle with the leather strap and the two side buttons, and they were in the ground where the cap would have sat and deteriorated and all that was there was the buckle, and the buttons still in the orientation, they would have been at the time that the cap was either dropped there or just lied there. it's amazing.

1999 -- yeah. 1999. summer of 1999, it all started in the spring of 1999. it was brought to our attention at new site park service cane river location, in louisiana. that a family long living in that area even before the civil war had upon the retreat of nathanael's army, of 1864. spring of 1864. the united states army left a large amount of baggage and equipage, and the family went out and recovered this. amongst it were two -- two -- civil war tents. one of those tents was a sibley tent.

designed by henry hawkins sibley based on a plains indian teepee pattern. the family had had these tents in their possession since recovering at that point in time. one of them's a wall tent and then this is the sibley tent. remarkably, it's now known there are only two sibley tents in the american civil war in existence in the world. one in each hemisphere of mother earth. this one is in our hemisphere, and in possession of the american people now. this tent, recent negotiations with smithsonian institute, will be traveling to washington for potential display at the national african-american museum

and the civil war exhibit of the african-american experience in the civil war. so that we're excited about that. the conservation and the expedition of tents is very difficult, they're quite large. this is a huge tent, and they got all kinds of issues on their display, because they're heavy, they're cumbersome. we're talking about old canvas and we're talking about old threads, stress points are weak, and they're going to be strained more with the exhibition. so we are making available the sibley on loan for the exhibit. it's going to be conserved. so it's going to receive some much-needed cleaning, but we're excited that it will be in front of the public at least for a temporary exhibit, maybe a year's time frame, and they'll be able to get some benefit from it. henry sibley got the patent for henry sibley got the patent for

these in 1850s, mid-1850s. first used in the utah expedition commanded by albert sydney youngston of the united states army, in 1856-1857 time frame, through 1858, and overall, it appears that roughly 44,000 of the tents produced. unfortunately, sibley who worked out and around where he would receive about $5 per tent joined the confederate state's army and he never recovered any money from the manufacturer of the tents made off his patent. so we're excited about this object to be going on display, receiving some conservative treatment and then maybe before it returns to shiloh, we might be able to work out a plan of getting it displayed here, but we're going to have to have complete exhibit overhaul to do anything with it here. this is probably the most unique item. bar none. considering there's only one like it in the western hemisphere.

the other one, in all places, is in copenhagen denmark. and then the wall tent. within the collection, about half the total tonnage of the civil war remains upon the earth. it's amazing. this is the second tent that we received. it's the wall tent, a standard wall tent. you see where it's been patched. some of the patches are probably associated with the use the family made of these tents through the years. they also have some minor tears in these tents from their being used. you can see here these all require some sort of patching up, if there's ever a design to put this one on display as well. but i understand they continued to use these tents throughout the years.

you get them out during the summertime and have sleepouts, campouts and barbecues and they put the tents up and made use of them, which if i had the same thing, i think i'd make use of them, too, and then when the new park service site was being established there, they contacted the park service about the possibility of getting them in a repository, and one when it was realized that we had two surviving civil war tents, word went out to some war sites, if anybody was interested, and we were. and we come up with the chunk of change to buy two tents for the people of the united states. these objects are meant to impart a linkage a tie, to that period. these tents were slept in by actual soldiers. they were actually moved,

stored, carried, transported, by physical beings of that time frame. that's why the items or that linkage, they don't exist today, because like us in our future, we will pass unto time. they have passed unto time but these objects survived. they're accidents. i mean, two tents, half of what exists in the world for the civil war time frame are right here. they're accidents of survival, and they're here to impart appreciation and understanding for a different time and different people. >> you can watch this or other american artifacts programs anytime by visiting our website. c-span.org/history and watch american artifacts every sunday at 8:00 a.m., 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. all weekend long, american history tv is in oklahoma city, oklahoma, to explore its history.

you're watching american history tv, 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. these films depict. liberation. economy. love of self. love of community. what these films depict is what white society never saw for the most part. and if they saw elements of it it, they surely did not talk about that amongst themselves. what these films depict is an america that one man, reverend

jones, had the foresight to say this is worth investing in and this is worth telling. that's what these films depict. oklahoma african-american experience is truly unique. we came as the slaves of the native americans. you had five civilized tribes that all owned african-american slaves. we also participated in all six land runs and then we came as citizens. so those three migration patterns are how african-americans settle oklahoma. those that were involved in slavery and their children received 40 acres of land, so that is something that is still historically, it's unique for oklahoma, it's unique for the united states, that these former

slaves did receive something other than just freedom. land ownership was if you own the land that you worked, you were able to truly make a better way for your family. a lot of the blacktown that make oklahoma unique was settled in. what would occur relatives would pool their resources together and then say, okay, we've got a community now. we've got a church, we've got a school. now let's incorporate and form a black town and all black towns like it. again, uniqueness of oklahoma, the all black town experience,

but land ownership, keep in mind, same time frame, mississippi, alabama, some parts of texas, arkansas, louisiana. georgia. it was sharecrop. couldn't own land. couldn't own land, a lot of times that was the foundation of could you vote. couldn't vote, you couldn't represent your people in positions of authority towards government. so land ownership was the backbones of foundation of social progress. reverend jones was born a slave in tennessee. around 1856 or so. now he was just a kid so he was about roughly nine or so once emancipation took place. and he migrated to oklahoma

muscogee area. and reverend jones became an ordained baptist minister. but what is so phenomenal about the life and times of reverend jones, not only he was a circuit black baptist preacher, he was able to document it on film. and from about 1925 to 1928, reverend jones traversed all of oklahoma. he covered more blacktowns and cities than any individual as far as recording events. came here to langston. he came here to langston and covered a football game in the fans in the stands. first recording of that anywhere, that's unheard of for a former slave, a person born

into slavery to have that kind of foresight and wisdom to record a story that very few whites were recording let alone somebody black. i've been a collector of african-american black history for over 30 years. i've been very fortunate to gain quite a name in the collecting community. so i received a phone call on my cell phone from a white dealer out of tulsa. and the gentleman said over the phone, are you curry ballard? i said, yes. he said do you collect that black stuff? and i said, yes, what do you have? and he proceeded to talk about these canisters of film. he says his grfr was a large landowner in the city of tulsa

owned many homes. well, part of his inheritance was this particular home in which he went into the attic and found all 27 canisters. so we met halfway between tulsa and langston in a community. and i looked at the canister. and i was familiar with reverend jones on two counts. he had a church in muscogee which was part of the black towns tours that a good friend of mine we would congregate and people from all over the country would come to this black towns tour and the headquarters was mucogee. but we would meet in reverend jones' church. it would have his name on it. i never forgot.

said, boy, i'm familiar with this person. secondly, about ten years before through the department of tourism here in oklahoma, a friend of mine that worked there had shared with me someone had mailed them all about a minute of reverend jones clip. and i was so intrigued with that. i could never put that out of my mind. so i had kind of one up on the feller. so as a result, we negotiated a price. he owned the moon and i finally got him down to earth. but the risk was the film any good? after that film had been up in an attic for 70 years. you know, it's nitrate film. we're talking -- i could have been buying something that was virtually useless.

but i took the risk. i took a leap of faith. and as a result, got it transferred, sent it on to scottsdale, arizona, where they digitized it, et cetera, et cetera, and eventually it was sold in new york city through my agent to yale university. a picture speaks 1,000 words, a moving picture speaks a million words. it had happened nowhere else. you might have had an element of someone similar to doing a reverend jones in a harlem, new york. but not running around oklahoma, not running around the southwestern region of the country. everyday life, special events of community. parades and commencements and

the homemakers group. it's a slice of life that he -- if he had not had the wisdom to capture via film would have been lost forever. i've never seen any film before in my life. blacks that own oil wells here in oklahoma. covered several families, and i'm not talking about dozen, two or three dozen barrels a day. i'm talking about 2,000, 3,000 barrels a day these families were making. these people got wealthy. not rich, wealthy. those were members of his congregati congregation. again, oklahoma's such a unique situation when it comes to the black experience. and reverend jones, again, we were blessed to have a person like that to be able to

chronicle that on the technology of the day called film. i was a child of the '60s. i grew up in the watch section of los angeles in the 1960s. and i'm going to give you a little illustration here. and, you know, again, there was a very popular tv program that nbc produced called "i spy." robert cole, bill cosby. and as a kid in the '60s, if you wanted to clear the street, "i spy" would come on tv. everybody in the area was in front of the tv set. we were so hungry for our image to see a positive image of ourselves via bill cosby on tv that you didn't have to worry about mama and daddy saying, oh, y'all need to get on in here.

kids born into slavery had saw the worst of america's treatment of americans. and as a result of that, he knew there were other sides of us. now, again, these were shown in the church. okay. so what he wanted to do was uplift black folk and say, yeah, you're from cotton patch xyz, but let me tell you what they do in oklahoma, they've got a university there, they've got a railroad station there. there ain't nothing like showing you're somebody. you're beyond the situation you currently ha