'Antiques Roadshow' guest rolls her eyes in disbelief after hearing the value of Civil War-era item

Once in a while, on “Antiques Roadshow,” items linked to significant events in history turn up, which is fascinating even for the experts. Guests are usually unaware of the kind of value that the artifacts and memorabilia in their possession carry. Once, a guest on the show brought a letter sent by a soldier to his family during the American Civil War. What made this letter special is that it was written by the legendary poet Walt Whitman.

When it was time to put a value on it, the expert on the show, Ken Gloss, said that it could sell for up to $12,000. This was not expected by the guest, who rolled her eyes in disbelief upon hearing it. Whitman’s work in poetry is well-documented and respected around the world. However, little is known about the letters that he wrote during the war to the families of injured soldiers.

The expert revealed that Whitman had a brother who fought in the war and was injured. When he went to visit him in the hospital, he got a first-hand experience of the scale of death, destruction, and despair the war caused. The poet immediately wanted to help and decided to serve as a scribe for several injured soldiers. The recipients of those letters usually never kept them, as they never saw them as letters from Whitman to them.

The guest, however, said that her great-great-great-grandfather had received this particular letter and that it had been in their family since then. It seemed to be in pristine condition as it had been well-preserved over several generations. She might have anticipated its value to be a few thousand dollars, but never a five-figure sum. That was the reason why she reacted the way she did upon hearing its present value.

This is not the first time that a letter from the Civil War made its way to the show. On another episode, a guest brought a letter and a sword used by her ancestor who fought in the war. The soldier’s name was George Hobart Wilbur, who served with the Ninth Indiana Volunteers. The letter was written from Raccoon Mountain, Georgia, on December 3, 1863. It was a few days after the Battle of Lookout Mountain.

The letter stated that a bullet had struck the sword while it was still in the scabbard, which prevented Wilbur from getting it out. He therefore sent it back home. The massive dent on the scabbard confirmed that story, and it truly would have taken a massive effort to get it out on the battlefield. That would have been highly inconvenient.

When it was time to put a value on the items, the expert said that together, the letter and the sword would’ve had to be insured for $5,000. The guest wasn’t expecting this, and her expression made that clear. However, if the sword wasn’t damaged by the bullet and there was no letter, it would have hardly been $1,000.