Ask a Curator

Well I pulled this object because I’ve been working on a Civil War exhibit for the last few years, and this is something that we have in the collection that’s become one of my favorite pieces. What we have is a pocket watch that was carried by an officer at the battle of Wilson’s Creek, and he was shot. [This belonged to Austin Standish, who was one of the officers in the Missouri State Guard, which is the confederate state force in Missouri.] The bullet hit the watch, blew it up, and saved his life. We have the works here and the dial, and you can see the case. It’s a silver pocket watch, and here you can tell where the bullet hit and caused all this damage. His commanding officer wrote in his official report afterward even commented on it, so we have some good information about it—we know that it’s authentic, the story that went along with it when it came to us. And it’s just one of these fascinating pieces, because I know of objects in other museum collections or in private collections where in these Civil War battles there are soldiers that are saved by a bible that’s in their breast pocket that’s hit, and the bullet is halfway through the bible, or there is a bullet that’s embedded in their belt buckle or deflected off their canteen, and this is the piece in our collection that we have to show that fury of battle, and how a pocket watch saved a guy’s life.

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