First--thanks so much to Bob Savage. I figured if anybody knew anything about this pipe, how it was used, and the various details related to smoking it, you would. As to mso's question, I really have no idea how many there are at Civil War battlefield sites. There was an ongoing dig at Appomattox while I was there, and that's how I picked this one up. It wasn't particularly valuable or rare, and I suppose that's why I was permitted to keep it. I think they find stuff like this all the time. Wasn't more than 5 years ago that they found the body of a Confederate soldier at Gettysburg, so I imagine that the earth still conceals many mysteries. I'm pretty certain that the tobacco they used was a lot stronger than what we smoke these days, and would've tasted a good deal harsher than what most of us are accustomed to. As for trying it out to see how it smokes, as I said before – no way – I have too much reverence for this historical artifact, regardless of which side it belonged to.
I confess, however, that I have daydreamed a bit about its history. For example, did it fall out of the pocket or haversack of a Union or Confederate soldier galloping at full speed back to his lines to tell his comrades what had just occurred? Did it fall to the ground during one of those last skirmishes in the closing hours of the war? Did its owner notice its loss, or had his life ended along with the war, so that he was never aware of what had happened? There are many questions, and we will never know the answers.