Philadelphia Civil War Museum Under Fire For Plan to Lend Artifacts
By Deborah Fitts

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - Pennsylvania officials are considering possible legal remedies to prevent a substantial portion of one of the largest and most venerable private collections of Civil War artifacts in the country from being taken out of Philadelphia for display in Richmond.

On Feb. 15, the Civil War Library & Museum announced creation of a "strategic alliance" with the newly formed Tredegar National Civil War Center Foundation. The Richmond-based nonprofit is planning a $38 million museum in the historic Tredegar Iron Works, and wants the Library & Museum to provide the bulk of the Union story.

In a press release, library board chairman Michael Schwartz called the plan "an exceptional opportunity to greatly benefit the citizens of the greater Philadelphia area and the greater Richmond region well beyond our borders and our imaginations."

In a telephone interview in early March, Alex Wise, president of the Tredegar Foundation, explained that in exchange for loaning the artifacts Tredegar will provide a "new venue" for the library in Philadelphia, where its current home, at 1805 Pine St., is in poor repair and off the beaten track.

The new venue, Wise said, will also display items from the Richmond-based Museum of the Confederacy and other collections, in "a rotation of sharing of objects."

"Philadelphia would see a lot of stuff they don't have now," Wise said. "You will have, in Richmond and Philadelphia, Union, Confederate and African-American objects that tell the whole story. It's going to be better
for all Americans."

Schwartz said the deal would mean a "revitalized" library in a better location, with modern, "user-friendly" exhib-its. "We're going to be able to bring to the greater Delaware Valley the story not told before in the Northeast - the African-American side and the Confederate side."

Some took a dimmer view.

Pennsylvania State Sen. Vincent Fumo and State Rep. James Roebuck, both Democrats with Philadelphia districts, said in a joint press statement that transfer of a portion of the library collection to Richmond "could result in the dissolution of the collection or its historical significance," and may even be illegal.

"This would be a major cultural and historical loss for the city of Philadelphia," said Fumo, a 22-year veteran of the senate and the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.

Fumo's press secretary, Gary Tuma, said the library's current board "may not have the legal right to transfer some of their things out of the city and out of their control, depending on the basis on which they were donated."

Fumo elicited support from Hope Fox Coates, great-great-granddaughter of Union Gen. George Meade, a Philadelphian who is well represented in the Library collection. Among his personal items there is the uniform he wore at Gettysburg.

Coates told Fumo that Meade "lived, died and is buried in Philadelphia. When our family gave his possessions to the museum, we did so with the understanding that they were safe here in Philadelphia along with those
items of the men he served with."

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher was researching whether removal of the artifacts would violate the terms under which the library received its collection. The Library was founded in 1888 by MOLLUS, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, a Philadelphia-based fraternity of former Union officers. The bulk of the items in the collection were donated by veterans and their descendants.

A spokesman for Fisher said his office would conduct "a thorough review" to determine the "intent of the donors" as to whether the items could leave Philadelphia.

But Dan Larkin, the attorney representing the library, said he was confident that no items, including the Meade relics, were donated to the collection with the requirement that they remain in Philadelphia.

The library "feels an enormous debt to the donors of these items and their descendants," Larkin said, but "it has the absolute right to do what it's doing."

Tredegar's Wise expressed regret that "Many of the positives that I've tried to outline have gotten lost in some of the press coverage. Once people begin to understand what the library gains and what the City of Philadelphia gains, there will be a recognition that this is a very good thing."

Wise asserted that much of the planning is still in the "concept" stage. But he said he envisions "joint ownership and operation" of the new venue in Philadelphia by the "joint venturers" in the Tredegar project: the Tredegar Foundation; Ethyl Corp., which owns the Tredegar site and will lease it to the foundation; John Motley, a collector of African-American items who is providing his collection to Tredegar; the Museum of the Confederacy, which will loan Confederate objects; the Commonwealth of Virginia, which is providing startup funding; the Civil War Preservation Trust; and the library. The Civil War Library & Museum signed the seven-party agreement in January.

The "joint venturers" will have representatives on the Tredegar Foundation 's 21-member board, Wise said. Items will also be borrowed from the Smithsonian and the Army, but they will not be represented on the board.

While Wise initially said that both the Richmond and Philadelphia venues would be operated by the foundation, Schwartz and Larkin said the Philadelphia site will be managed by the library "in association with" the foundation. Like Wise, Larkin acknowledged that there were "no final details."

Meanwhile, word of the library's plans sent a tremor through other collections that have items on loan there. Philadelphia's Grand Army of the Republic Civil War Museum & Library filed suit Feb. 21 in the Court of Common Pleas to retrieve two items, including one of the most unusual and best-known of all Civil War relics: the stuffed head of Meade's warhorse, Old Baldy.

James J. Corsetti Jr., a lawyer representing the GAR Museum, said the nine-member museum board decided on the course of action after the library failed to respond to a certified letter Nov. 30 asking for the relics back. Besides the head of Old Baldy, loaned to the library 22 years ago, Corsetti said the museum loaned the head of a mule, "possibly a veteran," that may have been stuffed "in mockery" of Old Baldy.

"They don't want these things leaving Philadelphia," said Corsetti. "We're worried about them getting shipped off down to Richmond and disappearing or getting damaged."

Larkin, however, indicated that the library doesn't intend to give Old Baldy up. "I don't think it belongs to them," he said. While it's true that the horse entered the collection in the late 1970s, "It does not appear to me to have been a loan," he said
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Further, "There's a question whether the party now claiming ownership is the entity that once held ownership."

The GAR museum was incorporated in 1926 by members of Post 2 of the Grand Army of the Republic to preserve thousands of books and artifacts donated to the post by veterans. As others among the city's 50 posts gradually closed, they donated their collections to Post 2.

And MOLLUS weighed in with its own hint of legal action. MOLLUS relinquished control of the library in 1986 when it turned the collection over to a separate, nonprofit board, in hopes of attracting museum professionals.

Benjamin Frick, past commander of MOLLUS's Pennsylvania commandery and current judge advocate in chief of the national commandery, said the organization, with 1000 members in 20 states, "vehemently disagrees" with the library's plans. The library's self-appointed board no longer has any MOLLUS members.

According to Frick, the $500,000 endowment that MOLLUS provided has shrunk to a reported $50,000 to $70,000, and no paid staff remain.

"An original purpose" of MOLLUS was that the collection "was to stay in Philadelphia," Frick said. He acknowledged that the library board may have altered the articles of incorporation to state otherwise. But "We believe we have a legal claim to ownership, as the founding organization that set it up to be in Philadelphia," he said. "We have a legal responsibility to
see that the donors' wishes are followed."

MOLLUS commissioned a study as long ago as 1992 to address the library's flagging financial picture, and con-cluded that the board needed to "reach out" to the state and the city for grants, and to members and to the affluent Philadelphia community for financial support. But nothing happened, Frick said; "People were rebuffed when they attempted to help."

And last year when the well-heeled Union League of Philadelphia negotiated a merger with the library that would have brought the collection to a downtown building, the focus of a $5 million capital campaign borne by the League, talks collapsed at the last minute when the League rejected what they regarded as impossible demands set by the library. [December 1999, April 2000 Civil War News]

"We were very disappointed," Frick said.

Frick said MOLLUS was watching to see whether the attorney general will take action. If Fisher doesn't act then MOLLUS will, he predicted.

"We feel extremely strongly that this collection must stay intact and it must stay here," said Frick, an attorney in Bryn Mawr. "If the only way to do that is through legal action, that's what we'll do."

As for Tredegar's Wise, he acknowledged that creating a new venue for the library in Philadelphia will add to his $38 million fundraising burden, which will be shouldered by a professional fundraising organization. "We really haven't costed it out," he said. "It's still going to be in the range of $40 million."

The foundation so far has received $250,000 from the Commonwealth of Virginia and expects another $250,000 in July, while about $300,000 has been received in private gifts, grants and pledges, according to Wise.

Opening of the Tredegar Center is targeted for 2003. Wise hailed the "vision and professionalism" of the library board. But Tuma, Sen. Fumo's spokesman, said the senator, a longtime supporter of the library, believes the library board has failed to reach out to local sources of financial support.

"The senator thinks anyone who made half an effort could have raised interest here in the city itself," Tuma said.