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THE STONEWALL JACKSON MEDAL BY ARMAND AUGUSTE CAQUE Rich Jewell submitted this interesting information about a Stonewall Jackson medal produced in France. -Editor  I read in last week's E-sylum where Harold Levi and George Corell were looking for some assistance with finding Confederate coins minted in Paris between 1861-1865. Towards this goal I can not help, but if they want some evidence that the Paris mint issued a Confederate medal I can assist them.After General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's death the Confederacy ordered a medal made in his honor.( According to an article in the N.Y.Times, January 29, 1894, his officers under his command decided to memorialize their leader with a medal). Armand Auguste Caque (1793-1881) was the engraver of the Stonewall Jackson medal. According to Forrer, Vol.I, p.204-206, Caque was a French medalist, born at Saintes; he was a pupil of the Royal School at Rochefort, the Ecole d'application at Metz, and of Raymond Gayrard. From 1817-1818, he was employed as Assistant-engraver at the Mint of the Hague. Under Napoleon III, he was appointed Engraver to the Imperial Cabinet, a post which he held from 1853-1868. He died in Paris in December, 1881. There is no mention in Forrer of this particular medal or any Confederate coins either, yet Caque is the engraver of the Jackson medal. His name is below the General's truncation on the obverse, CAQUE F. The obverse of the medal has a very poor likeness of Gen. Jackson, Caque had never met the man, the legend surrounding the rim reads: "LIEUT.GENERAL T.J.JACKSON "STONEWALL" BORN 1821-DIED 1863". The reverse lists the battles the General participated in, and on a scroll around a wreath are some of the South's major victories. The scroll and wreath spring from a mass of arms at the bottom, under which are the words "DEO VINDICI". The medal is white metal (pewter?), 2", without any edge markings and it was probably made around 1864.   The story in the N.Y. Times only gives a small part of the events leading up to the discovery of these medals. It does not go into the details of how these medals had to run the Union blockades to enter the Port of Wilmington, NC and then were transported to a warehouse in Savannah,GA. during the "closing scenes" of the war and lost for sixty years seating in a warehouse. That in itself is an amazing storyline. A quick web search located a source of further information on the Caque Jackson medal. The West Virginia and Regional History Collection Newsletter (Volume 2, No. 3, Fall/Winter 1986) records the acquisition of a bronze example of "the Stonewall Jackson Brigade Medal" along with eight pages of news clippings, correspondence and papers pertaining to it. -Editor  To view the complete West Virginia University Library newsletter, see: West Virginia and Regional History Collection Newsletter v2n3 (http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/wvcollection/ newsletter/1985-1994/v2n3.pdf) Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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