Joseph Pitty Couthouy identification badge
Heritage Auctions (ha.com)
The Artifact
A Civil War identification badge belonging to Joseph Pitty Couthouy
Condition
The approximately 1-by-2 inch badge, while showing some honest wear, is in perfect condition.
Details
By the time he volunteered for service in the Union navy in 1861, Joseph Pitty Couthouy had lived a full and adventuresome life. Born in Boston in 1808, Couthouy, a merchant vessel captain and renowned conchologist (one who studies mollusk shells), lobbied President Andrew Jackson for a position on the Scientific Corps of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838, an extensive, four-year survey of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands. Dismissed early by the expedition’s leader for attempting to “promote dissension … and destroy the harmony and efficiency of the Squadron,” Couthouy returned to Washington to work on what he could of the samples he had collected on the expedition, many of which had been mishandled during shipment. In the following years, he returned to the merchant marine, published several scientific articles, and became fluent in a number of languages, including a few Pacific Island dialects.
In the Civil War, Couthouy commanded four vessels, the third of which, USS Osage, was part of the Mississippi River Squadron. During his Osage command, someone (perhaps Couthouy) had this silver identification pin made (the engraver of which misspelled Couthouy’s name). By January 1864, Couthouy had received another command, of the ironclad steamer USS Chillicothe. On April 3, while the Chillicothe was patrolling off Grand Ecore, Louisiana, during the Red River Campaign, a Confederate guerrilla on shore shot and mortally wounded Couthouy, who was in the ship’s pilot house. He was 56.
Quotable
On April 23, 1864, navy paymaster J.H. Hathaway wrote to Rebecca Duncan with details of Couthouy’s death. “The ‘Chillicothe’ was about 100 miles above Alexandria on the evening of April 3rd—when Capt. Couthouy’s attention was called to a man on the shore…. [J]ust as he raised the glass to look, a ball passed completely through the center of his body, from the effects of which, he died the next morning. Captain Couthouy suffered severely but was sensible to the last and bore his pain with a great deal of fortitude. He gave me your address before his death … and requested me to write you and return your letters, speaking of you as his most particular friend, and sending his love and wishes that you would never forget him.”
Value
$7,468.75 (realized at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, in 2009). “This is certainly one of the most historic Civil War ID badges we’ve ever encountered,” a Heritage representative noted at the time.
Related topics: naval warfare
