Pipe Smoking In The Civil War - A New Book By Benjamin Rapaport

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philobeddoe

Lifer
Oct 31, 2011
7,404
11,578
East Indiana
I ordered my copy from Briarbooks yesterday, I'm very excited to read it, as I already have Mr. Rappaports' Antique Pipes book that is most excellent. As to a $35.00 limit on books, I would be remiss to tell you what I paid for the Pipe Smokers Ephemeris set, but it was worth every penny.

 
May 31, 2012
4,295
34
I'm not really a hardcore Civil War buff, but I do have a fascination with it.
I never really thought I'd be intensely interested in reading about the old pipes from that era, but I became absolutely engrossed in the subject when reading a magazine article Ben had wrote about war pipes - and I look forward to reading this book. I'll have to wait until after the new year though.
In regards to the price, I think it's worth the coin no doubt. I have Scandinavian Pipemakers and the Comoy's hardcovers and the quality is on par with fine art books - very well done with much attention to detail.
One can also think of it as giving well-deserved support to Mr. Schrier, and his Briar Books Press, which has greatly enriched the pipe/tobacco biblio corpus. We, as enthusiasts, are indebted to his tireless endeavor of providing such spectacular books - each one released under his imprint is a true treasure and should be on the shelves of pipemen everywhere.
EhPvHBD.jpg

Growing up, I'd spend summers with my Aunt Clara who lived in Chickamauga. The battlefield is an incredible place and we'd always do something there. Even as a young lad I was struck with how the site evoked a certain mood, and the air seemed somehow different. To see the heavy fog on the field in morning is something to behold. The entire Chattanooga area is replete with many historical areas of interest, the above scenic photo is from Point Park on Lookout Mountain.
And seeing something like this definitely puts an exclamation point on just how intense the fighting was, a "war log" from the Chickamauga Battlefield, cut in 1900, on display at the Gordon-Lee Mansion.
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"Bullets, fragments of shell, grape and canister sing over and around, louder than songs of Southern katydids ... canister are cutting swaths of humans in the kneeling rows ... the blood-soaked earth is being dug up in chunks by ripping balls."
This account by a soldier who took part in the Battle of Chickamauga captures the murderous efficiency of canister, an anti-personnel round fired from a cannon. The round resembled a coffee can and contained small, round, iron balls packed in sawdust and used for defending against infantry attack.
They were used throughout the Battle of Chickamauga, including on advancing Confederates at Snodgrass Hill. About 4,000 men died in the three-day battle, which ended in a Confederate victory.
In 1889, the grounds of the Gordon-Lee Mansion were the site of the Blue-Gray Barbeque, in which 14,000 Civil War veterans returned to the site to eat, fellowship, and smoke a peace pipe. At that event, a decision was made to form the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park, the first Civil War Battlefield in the United States to be set aside for historical preservation.
http://www.friendsofthegordonleemansion.org/about.html
:puffy:

 

johnnyreb

Lifer
Aug 21, 2014
1,961
612
^^^Yes indeed, I agree with Hunter's comment above. I have been to several battlefields including Chickamauga and would agree that the view from Lookout Mountain is spectacular! However no other battlefields have effected me personally more than those of The Battle of Sharpsburg and the Battle of Shiloh in TN. It is definitely hallowed ground. Something in the ground or in the atmosphere was changed forever and left for all future generations to learn from. Antietam Creek changed me; even my wife who knows little of the battle other than what I have told her felt it as well. If Antietam would have had a 150th anniversary celebration in 2012 I would have gone back for it.

 

jguss

Lifer
Jul 7, 2013
2,414
6,221
I used to live in Jackson, TN, just a bit over an hour from Shiloh. A magnificent battlefield. But then I've been to perhaps six or eight of the major sites, and everyone I've visited has been great; each offered a different perspective on a conflict so massive it's hard to comprehend.
As for Ben's book, I was lucky enough to flip through an advance copy at the Vegas show last month. It's a must-buy for anyone interested in pipes, pipe history, or the Civil War.
And as an added bonus, Gary claims it contains the first extant photograph of a man using a cell phone.

 

benrapaport

Lurker
Apr 19, 2011
18
10
Thank you, JGuss for your opinion! This may seem to be self-promotion, but here's a comment from a subscriber on Pipe Smokers Forums: "Hot off the Press! Just received my copy of Ben Rapaport's new book 'Tobacco and Smoking Among the Blue and Gray'! As a Civil War re-enactor and a pipe smoker/maker this caught my eye and almost jumped off the table into my hands at the West Coast Pipe Show. I got a great pre-release deal and as I am looking over it tonight, I think I could have paid triple the price and still gotten a bargain. Keep your eyes pealed for some Civil War era reproductions in the near future."
And if anyone is curious about what this book is all about, search the winter 2014 issue of the magazine, South Florida Opulence, and you'll read a short article I wrote about the topic: http://southfloridaopulence.com/civil-war-pipes/
Ben Rapaport

 

johnnyreb

Lifer
Aug 21, 2014
1,961
612
Found & bookmarked, for reading sometime during the holiday lull! Thanks Ben. I'm sure we would all be interested in reading anything you have written for publication on this general subject matter. Any other links you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

benrapaport

Lurker
Apr 19, 2011
18
10
You can find lots of reading material on the Tobacco Pipe Artistory Blog that I manage with an associate: http://tobaccopipeartistory.blogspot.com. Search myriad subjects or the archives. If this site does not sate your reading appetite, let me know. Good hunting!
Ben R.

 

docwatson

Lifer
Jul 2, 2009
1,149
9
New England
Thank You Ben and Gary for such a magnificent tome that will occupy a special place in my small but treasured Tobacco library. I also was able to view the book at the Las Vegas show and it's nothing short of magnificent.

This is a first ever book on pipes of the Civil War era and will be sought after by not only pipe collectors but even more so by Civil War History aficionados. Hopefully the first printing is a large one and I consider myself fortunate to acquire a copy.

Andy Camire

 
May 31, 2012
4,295
34
"...I think I could have paid triple the price and still gotten a bargain. Keep your eyes pealed for some Civil War era reproductions in the near future."
Pipemaker Don Warren said that,

http://www.dwpipes.com/
and that's another positive impact which books like this can have, beyond just providing knowledge and the story, it can initiate a cultural shift and a wider recognition because more people have access to the deep historical facts and begin to appreciate those things so long gone, stoking new life into it all and causing a resurgence of interest.
Sometimes it's a movie or tv show, most notably the Hatfield miniseries which spawned a new "standard shape", the Devil Anse.
But more often than not, it's a good book (or old catalog reprint) like this that'll get the fire roaring and things blossom from there.
I have a feeling this book will be such a fountainhead.
:puffy:

 

virginiacob

Can't Leave
Dec 30, 2013
450
7
As a long time Civil War reenactor and historic tobacco pipe aficionado, I think this book will definitely appeal to the Civil War reenacting community as well as pipe smokers who simply have a love for history. I'm definitely going to have to reserve a copy. A lot of reenactors who smoke tend to gravitate towards cigars but I've started noticing quite a few who are pipe smokers as well. Typically you see most smoking white clays or reed stem clay pipes but on occasion you'll see a period briar or two. Randy Ubben of R. Ubben Pipes makes some historically accurate 19th century briar pipes. The one I'm smoking below is a Hamburg style briar that he made for me earlier this year.


 

adam12

Part of the Furniture Now
May 16, 2011
931
13
What an amazing and incredible idea. That pipe in the Confederate museum in Richmond that I posted a while back is one of the most interesting things I've ever seen associated with Civil War history.

 
May 31, 2012
4,295
34
virginiacob,

love the Ubben Hamburg pipe, very nice indeed!
A lot of reenactors who smoke tend to gravitate towards cigars but I've started noticing quite a few who are pipe smokers as well.
That's good news!
I found a very interesting article a while back when looking into plug tobacco, I reckon it'd be good to share here, most interesting to me is this: Heimann describes the Civil War as the war between the “ northern cigar and the southern plug.”
Originally published in The Irish Volunteer Journal, Vol. 4 No. 3, Summer 1999
SMOKING REENACTORS

Cigars and Tobacco of the Civil War

by Steven Eames

By the early 1860s, the three principal types of cigars were: the “cheroot”, which was a long, untapered roll of non-blended tobacco, usually imported from Mexico or Brazil, and very cheap; the “stogie” almost a foot long, thin, and tapered to a mouth piece at one end, sometimes sweetened with molasses so that it could chewed if you did not have a match; and the “cigar” which generally was the Connecticut version with the cinnamon blotch wrapper. Apparently, these cigars did not exceed a 42 to 44 ring gauge, were generally about five inches long, and the butt tapered to a point. A look at any 19th century cigar cutter will reveal a very small hole to accommodate the tapered butt. The nice round butts (which, as many of you know, I prefer) on today’s cigars are not correct for the Civil War era.
Having said this, Robert Heimann also points out that almost everyone who farmed had their own tobacco patch, saying, “Before 1870, almost any kind of factory tobacco product was more or less an aristocratic luxury.” Heimann also writes that, “cash was not spent even on cheap cigars or plug [tobacco] if homegrown leaf could be had.” With everyone growing their own—and tobacco was everywhere—there was no point in buying a factory-made product. Further, the cigars a person might buy had no blending of tobacco—they only had what was locally grown. Why buy a Connecticut cigar when a person grew the same stuff in his back yard?
As for Civil War soldiers, it could be that being removed from the back yard patch increased the appreciation of the ready-made cigar, and certainly factory cigar consumption began to take off during the Civil War to reach its height in 1910. But how often did enlisted men smoke cigars? The average prices for cigars at the time were 5 cents, 10 cents, and the premium cigars at 20 cents. To put that in perspective, an enlisted man made $13 a month; divide that by 30 and you get 43 cents per day. So a premium cigar would have cost half of a day’s wages, and that’s without tacking on the sutler charges for bringing them to the army. Beyond cost, there is the question of transport. Where would an enlisted man carry a fragile cigar? In a fancy leather carrying case? Would they throw them in their haversack? What condition do you think they would have been in after a day’s march? Even company level officers, who could better afford cigars, would have a tough time keeping cigars in one piece on the march, and field grade officers would only have them when the baggage wagons caught up.
Another interesting point is that cigar smoking was predominately a Northern phenomenon. Heimann describes the Civil War as the war between the “ northern cigar and the southern plug.”, and the reason for this description is very simple. Tobacco is a very strange plant and is much affected by the soil in which it is grown. In the 17th century when the Virginians were starting to grow tobacco, they found that black bottom soil produced milder tobacco, and that sort of land became most sought-after, and continues to be today. However, one does not hear about Virginia tobacco being used for cigar production. Earlier in this century, long before Fidel Castro, Cuban growers brought Virginia cigarette tobacco seeds to Cuba so they could diversify. In two years the plants from those seeds were producing a wonderful Cuban cigar leaf—the tobacco had adapted to the soil. Cigar tobacco can be grown in Connecticut, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, and other places, but cannot be grown in Virginia, North Carolina, or Tennessee. The only areas producing any cigar tobacco in America today are Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and some in Florida, and in one area of Georgia.
Now there is no question that Southerners could roll up a leaf of tobacco and smoke it, but in the South, tobacco was chewed or smoked in a pipe. Where would a Southerner get cigars? From Connecticut? Through New Orleans as they did before the war? (Oops, New Orleans was in Northern hands.) Through the blockade? Now before you bring up the Antietam campaign’s famous Lost Order No. 191 that was wrapped around three cigars, I will point out two things: 1. the cigars undoubtedly came from a staff officer, 2. and the Army of Northern Virginia was in Maryland on the invasion of the North. It is extremely doubtful that the typical Rebel infantryman ever smoked a cigar during the war, and the stuff they traded for coffee with Yanks was good old plug tobacco. This also means that when Northern soldiers were in the South, the tobacco they were “liberating” was plug or twist or navy tobacco.
An interesting story about Federals liberating Southern tobacco… When Sherman’s men were in North Carolina, they ransacked the warehouses of J.R Green in Durham. Green did not press his tobacco into plugs because he had a special curing process, and believed that pipe smoking was becoming more popular than chewing. His loose leaf tobacco was called “Best Flavored Spanish Smoking Tobacco.” It proved very popular, and the Union soldiers wrote to Green asking for the tobacco after the war. Knock-offs appeared calling themselves “Durham Tobaccos” or “Best Flavored Spanish”, so Green adopted the trademark of a bull and called it “Genuine Durham Smoking Tobacco”, but it became popularly known as “Bull Durham.”
If you are concerned about authenticity, then what guidelines should you follow for tobacco use? For enlisted men, while doing early-war impressions (before shipping out to the Seat of War) or portraying soldiers home on recruiting duty, one can probably smoke all the cigars one wants. In such scenarios, cigars would have been available in local stores, and local people, Soldiers’ Aid groups, and relatives might have supplied the brave heroes before they went off to war. If the weekend scenario is a “base camp” in Virginia (i.e. not a campaign scenario), then cigars would be problematical. They might have been available at the regimental sutler’s, but the price would be excessive (but perhaps not out of the financial means of officers). In a campaign impression, however, there should be no cigars for anyone, and what you should have is a simple pipe and plug tobacco.
What do we have today that approaches tobacco products in the Civil War?

As for pipe tobacco, the news is a little better. First, note that the loose tobacco sold everywhere does not have the proper look. Instead, use tobacco cut from pressed tobacco, which is often referred to as flake, navy, or square. Some modern-day examples are Capstan Navy Cut, and Edgeworth Flake. The writer has used Peterson’s University Flake, which comes in a small, rectangular tin; the tobacco is stacked in slices cut from a plug, and it has to be rubbed out before smoking.
But if you really want to have Civil War tobacco, why not have a real plug? At first, it seemed like obtaining a real plug would be impossible because the plugs and twists in this country are sold as chewing tobacco. The large twists that look like an eyebolt and seen at the sutlers are chewing tobacco. Stokers has chewing tobacco in a plug called “Rebel Plug” which the writer thought would be good for display purposes, until an Internet websearch was performed. The search turned up the website for James L. Barber in the United Kingdom (http://www.smoke.co.uk)–a firm that sells pipe tobacco in twists and solid plugs, and even the names are great. Gawith makes twists with names like “Black Irish” and “Brown Irish”, but even better are the plugs produced by Murray Tobacco, including “Garryowen Plug”, “Potomac Plug”, “Mick McQuaid”, “Warrior”, and “Erinmore” The writer ordered some of this, and the tests thus far are very good. The plugs are 50 grams of tobacco pressed into a block 2 inches by 1½ inches by ¾ inches, which is the equivalent to a regular-size tin or about 3-4 oz. of loose tobacco. A slice less than 1/8 inch wide along the 2 inch side will rub out to enough tobacco to fill a normal pipe, which translates to about a 12 pipe-fulls per tin—even more if a small clay pipe is used. It costs about eight dollars, U.S., not counting shipping (the minimum order is 150 grams (three plugs), so the more one orders the lower the postage cost per plug). The writer has tried to find a source for similar pipe tobacco in America and thus far had no results. It seems that Americans are not used to this kind of tobacco anymore.
The writer has tried the Potomac Plug (spicy smell and taste, pleasant, mild), Golden Bar (very mild, less distinctive flavor), and Black Irish Twist. The latter is black, oily, evil-looking stuff not in a square, but rather in a long, pressed nondescript shape. However, while not as mild as Potomac and Golden Bar, the Black Irish Twist is not bad. As of this writing, the writer has not tried Erinmore or Garryowen.
To carry your tobacco, stay away from the muslin sacks with labels and draw string. According to Neimann they were not common until after the war, and the machine to make them was not perfected until 1895. The writer has not done any research on pipe styles, and so that topic remains for someone else’s future article.
And, if you see a supposedly hardcore Rebel reenactor smoking a cigar, call the authenticity police.

.
:
"The writer has not done any research on pipe styles, and so that topic remains for someone else’s future article."

That article is now here,

and it is a big book!
:
Sidenote,

the magazine article which engrossed me was titled ""War and Peace" Pipes: Commemoration and Remembrance"

written by Mr. Rapaport and published in Pipes and Tobaccos Magazine, Spring 2008, Vol. 13, No. 1

It's the perfect teaser for preparing to read the current book, and that particular issue has a fabulous J.T. Cooke cover and article --- very much well worth seeking out if you don't have a copy!
:puffy:

 

brian64

Lifer
Jan 31, 2011
9,603
14,669
Another outstanding post MLC. I was struck by the comment of the appraiser of the Antietam pipe: "He wasn't having very much luck". I was thinking just the opposite...he was very lucky to be alive and still able to carve a pipe. All who emerged from that hellish war alive and not badly maimed were the lucky ones.

 

virginiacob

Can't Leave
Dec 30, 2013
450
7
misterlowercase,
Great post re: the Civil War and cigar use. I honestly think that tobacco use during the Civil War happens to be one of those topics that a lot of Civil War reenactors have very limited knowledge and quite frankly take for granted. It's definitely an historic topic that needs to be further researched and I think Ben Rapaport's book will bring a lot of interest to the topic among reenactors. I've been Civil War reenacting for over 25 years and the one thing that I've learned over these years is that you never stop learning, whether it's mastering the manual of arms and drill manuals, researching period correct textiles and sewing techniques for uniforms, or studying the War in general, there's always something new to learn that will help improve your impression and allow you to better educate the general public about the life of the common Civil War soldier, both Blue & Gray.

 

wnghanglow

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 25, 2012
695
0
Now this is an honest Question, what makes your book more expensive than most other books? I am from the Internet age and used to my knowledge coming cheap. I really want to justify ordering this book.

 
May 31, 2012
4,295
34
wnghanglow,

I cannot answer for Ben or Gary, but I can and will throw my two cents into the well on the matter.
Your question is twofold and I'll give my opinion on both topics.
First, the cost.

It ain't really cheap, but it ain't exactly expensive either.

When you say what makes your book more expensive than most other books?,

what other books are you referencing?
This is a heavily illustrated hardcover book on a very specific niche subject printed in limited edition by an independent publisher, and any price comparisons should be likewise similar - then, one will find that the book is actually reasonably priced.
Ben was also correct to point out the skyrocketing costs of out-of-print books once the initial run is exhausted and find their way into the secondhand rare bookseller shops.
A personal anecdote follows.
My dream car is a 1969 Alfa Romeo GTV 1750. In 1997 the Alfa Romeo Owners Club held their national convention in Atlanta, my hometown. I had to go check it out and a friend of mine wanted to come along too, so we went. It was great seeing all the cars. We made our way into the vendors area and started looking around. I found a book I just had to have. The book was $100. I bought the book. My buddy was aghast, startled, and in disbelief that I'd actually spend $100 on a book, he thought I was totally crazy!
The book I bought was this:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=Alleggerita+Adriaensens&sts=t
Sadly, a few years ago I noticed that it was going online for $500+ and ended up selling it, a bad decision on my part because the book has only escalated in value.
That book is a heavily illustrated hardcover on a very specific niche subject printed in limited edition by an independent publisher!
If I wanted the "best" book on lighters, I would have to buy this:

Lighters. Accendini.

by Bisconcini

One of the better and most comprehensive book on Dunhill is this:

Alfred Dunhill : One Hundred Years and More

by Michael Balfour

Most collectible books are only available direct from the publisher for a fairly short frame of time, and if one misses that window, then it will actually cost more down the road.
The other topic = the internet.


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"Increasingly, data flows once confined to books and later to records and films are disappearing into black holes and boxes that, as artificial intelligences, are bidding us farewell on their way to nameless high commands. In this situation we are left only with reminiscences."

-Friedrich A. Kittler,

Gramophone, Film, Typewriter
Internetz is great - the huge cosmology of an infinite library ever unfolding and growing, but it's also an ephemeral phantom, this very thread may not even exist in ten years time - it is fleeting, and everchanging, by the nanosecond.
A book was one of the earliest forms of portable technology, and they are built to last the ravages of time.
A book offers indepth levels which simply cannot be found online in most cases, and as such, the internet is a tool best used in addition to traditional research sources, as a supplementary appendix.
Good well-researched hard info is rather scarce to find online, not to mention accuracy issues, and often, it is not very reliable.
We also read screens differently than we do paper pages, seemingly absorbing less within the formless sphere of the world wide web:

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age:

The Science of Paper versus Screens

Will you read the linked article in full?

Just skim it?

Not even click it?
Reading online is full of distortions and noise,

which affects our deep comprehension.
Don't get me wrong,

I love the internet.
I'm here ain't I?

:)
But, I love books too, and I think traditional books are a more fruitful conduit for constructing complex layers of knowledge and understanding.


:idea:

:puffy:​

 
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