By Robert Hancock
Senior Curator and Director of Collections
This wooden shoe, or sabot, was made on Bremo Plantation in Virginia. Made by, and for the use of the enslaved people on the plantation, they also were distributed to Confederate soldiers during the war.
The Battle of First Manassas, fought on July 21, 1861, was the first major battle of the Civil War. Many of the experiences of soldiers on that day are lost to history. However, when Major Robert Harris donated these field glasses to the museum in 1893, he wrote of his experience: