Exhibit recognizes N.J.'s role in Civil War

From My Central New Jersey: Exhibit recognizes N.J.'s role in Civil War
When it comes to significant conflicts in American history, New Jersey is probably best known as the cockpit of the American Revolution, the site of noteworthy battles and encampments.

In contrast, the Civil War seems to have little connection with the Garden State. After all, the nearest major battles were fought in Pennsylvania and Maryland. What did New Jersey have to do with the Civil War?

Quite a bit, actually. A newly installed exhibit now on display in the Union County Courthouse pays tribute to the fact that New Jersey contributed manpower and materiel to the Northern cause. In addition, the war was faced daily on the home front.

“There wasn’t anyone who wasn’t touched by the war,” said Joanne Rajoppi, chairwoman of the Union County Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee. “Virtually every family had a relative in the military. Women’s aid societies knitted shawls and wrote letters to soldiers. Everyone participated.”

Rajoppi’s point is underscored by “Preserving the Union,” a collection of photographs, weapons and other artifacts in the rotunda of the Union County Courthouse in Elizabeth. The exhibit will run now through 2015, to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Exhibit organization

The exhibit is centered on four different aspects of the Civil War’s impact on the county: the economy, politics, the military and the home front.

For example, Rajoppi points out that Rahway was known as “the carriage capital of the world” by the 1850s.

But most of those carriages actually were sold in the South, so that market dried up in the 1860s.

“As a result, the businesses retooled their industry for the war effort,” Rajoppi said. Those same carriage manufacturers began making wagons that would be used by soldiers.

Other pieces in the exhibit include articles of clothing, both uniforms and civilian outfits.

One gown, on loan from the Morris Museum, was worn to the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

The display of weaponry includes small Derringer pistols that would have been carried by women.