Two Civil War museums at war over head of Gen. Meade's horse

PHILADELPHIA -- In his years as the trusted war horse of Gen. George Meade, Old Baldy fought for the Union in bloody battles from Antietam to Gettysburg.

Well over a century later, he's in the middle of a court battle waged by a pair of small Philadelphia-based Civil War museums, both of which claim that the head of the hero horse is theirs.

The Grand Army of the Republic Museum says it is the rightful owner of Old Baldy, which they loaned to the larger Civil War Library and Museum but never got back.

But officials with the Civil War Library argue that since they've had Old Baldy for the past 25 years, they now owns it; that the GAR Museum waited too long to ask for its return; and that in any event the GAR Museum hasn't even proven itself the rightful owner.

"It's very disturbing," said Margaret Atkinson, 74, secretary of the GAR Museum and wife of its director, Bud Atkinson, 78. "We really feel we're the little guy in a David and Goliath battle."

"That's not it at all," replied War Library attorney John F. Schultz. "These folks are trying to get something they have not established that they have the legal right to get."

Both sides are scheduled to appear Wednesday before Judge Anne E. Lazarus of Orphans Court, which hears cases concerning charitable organizations.

Always used head

The Atkinsons' lawyer concedes that the Civil War Library has "always used the head of Old Baldy as their mascot and as an advertising piece. Old Baldy definitely is an attraction and it fits right in with their collection ...

"But as far as we're concerned, it's our property," said James Corsetti Jr., who represents the Atkinsons.

The horse at the center of all the fuss was known in his day as Meade's beloved and nearly indestructible mount. Legend has it that Old Baldy was wounded 14 times but returned to battle time and again. The horse was said to have taken a bullet to the lung at Gettysburg, and was shot in the neck and left for dead at Antietam -- only to turn up grazing in a nearby field a few days later.

Old Baldy, whose name might have come from his white nose and forehead, was the riderless horse at the Philadelphia-born general's military funeral in 1872.

He spent his golden years on a suburban farm and died at the age of 30, a decade after the general. The horse was buried but Civil War veterans later dug up the carcass and mounted the head.

Refused return

Margaret and Bud Atkinson say that her elderly father and his uncle were on the board of directors of the cash-strapped GAR museum in the late 1970s, when artifacts were packed away and the collection was not open to the public. Old Baldy needed an overhaul and a group of younger Civil War buffs offered to pay for the taxidermy work, then refused to give the head back, they said.

In the 1980s, the Atkinsons refurbished the museum, reorganized its artifacts -- including a jar holding a skin sample from James Garfield's back and a pillowcase scrap stained with Abraham Lincoln's blood -- and reopened it to the public.

But they had no proof that Old Baldy was theirs. Then in 2000, Bud Atkinson stumbled across a letter from 1978 signed by people affiliated with the other museum regarding Old Baldy and a second mounted animal head.

"We hereby place these two items in the safe keeping of the War Library and Museum ... until such time as the proper conditions exist to properly preserve and protect these important pieces of our history," the letter stated.

The Atkinsons then sued for Old Baldy's return, citing the letter as proof of ownership, but the Civil War Museum's attorney said that's not the case.

The group that turned over Old Baldy, called Philadelphia Camp Corp., no longer exists, Schultz said.

But the Atkinsons say the GAR Museum is a successor of the earlier group and vow to prove it. "We're a small group and it's a big battle," Margaret Atkinson said. "But we'll try and fight it."

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On the Net:

Civil War Library and Museum:www.netreach.net/~cwlm

Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library: www.garmuslib.org