I am calling this THE STOLEN BIBLE OF CHICKAMAUGA: 24th SOUTH CAROLINA. I am the first CW collector/dealer to own this item. I found it fresh out of the woods. I had no idea of the interesting history until our staff researcher did his digging. Incredibly, he found period printed histories that tell the story of this precise testament. Inscribed-“To Private William Rowlinski, with the wish of his Colonel that he may make as cheerful a soldier of the Cross as he does of his Regiment.”Ellison Capers Comd. 24th S.C.V.”Colonel Capers gave this pocket bible to William Rowlinski before Chickamauga in September 1863. Just before the battle, however, someone else in the regiment felt the need for spiritual sustenance and made off with it. The thief removed the identifying inscribed pages, but after the battle Rowlinski was able to identify it or the thief decided that if God had spared him in the fighting because of his zealousness in getting a bible, he might do so again for an act of repentance, and returned it. In either case, Rowlinski got it back, served through the Chattanooga and Atlanta Campaigns, and through imprisonment as a POW. Years later he had the bible rebound and sent it to his old captain to forward to Capers, by then a prominent clergyman and academic, with a request to rewrite the original inscription. I just purchased this wonderful relic directly from the family. Not only do we have the story of the bible written in it by Rowlinski, along with inscriptions by his old captain and colonel, the story of Rowlinski and his bible is published in an early biography of Ellison Capers. It is a remarkably interesting artifact.William Rudolph Rowlinski emigrated to the U.S. in 1847 and settled in Charleston, S.C. He was born 8/4/1833 in Poland, but since the nation had been partitioned by Austria, Prussia, and Russia, he sometimes listed his birthplace as Russia, in or near Smolensk. He was likely a refugee from the various revolutions taking place in the 1840s, particularly the unsuccessful uprising to reunite Poland in 1846. He married at Charleston, S.C., in 1857 and fathered six children, five of whom survived to adulthood. Rowlinski enlisted in Company A of the 24th South Carolina “for the war” on 4/16/62 at Camp Gist, near Charleston, and included many officers and men who had served in state units. Also known as the “Marion Rifles,” Company A had served in the 16th S.C. Militia under the same captain. Rowlinski does not show up on the available rosters of the militia company, but likely served with them at least since the war began since his muster-in roll of April 1862 says that he had been paid up through February 28 by “Capt. Kingman,” who was on the staff of the 16th SCM. The 24th S.C. Vols. was recruited for Confederate service and initially served in the defenses of Charleston Harbor, on Cole’s and James’ Islands, seeing action at Secessionville, before a brief stint in North Carolina, and return to Charleston. In May 1863 it was transferred west to Johnston’s army in the Vicksburg Campaign. Rowlinski, recorded as standing 5’8” tall, with red hair and gray eyes, is listed as present throughout. On May 14, 1863, shortly after arriving in Mississippi, the regiment was engaged at Jackson and Rowlinski was captured. Listed at the Camp of Paroled and Exchanged POWs at Demopolis, AL, in May and June, he was back in the regiment for July and August, and Capers likely gave it to him then, since Rowlinski says he says he got it, “before Chickamauga.” Rowlinski was also present in the regiment all through the campaign of Chattanooga and battle of Missionary Ridge, and in the Atlanta Campaign during Johnston’s fighting withdrawal from May until late July 1864, when Johnston he saw a chance of attacking a divided Union army at Peachtree Creek. Hood took over before Johnston could act, carried out the attack, but was unsuccessful in the bloody fighting on July 20, during which Rowlinski was again captured. Rowlinski was sent to Nashville, Louisville, and eventually to Camp Douglas in Illinois. In December he was one of several Confederates who applied to take the Oath of Allegiance. A note in his file states: “Claims to have been loyal. Enlisted through false representations. Was captured & desires to tak the Oath of Allegiance to U.S. & become a loyal citizen.” This may have fallen flat when they found out he had been captured before, exchanged, and had returned to the fighting. They did not let him out until 5/15/65 at Camp Douglas. His old captain likely came near the mark when wrote of Rowlinski: “He was a real good fellow, discharging his duty best he knew how during the changing fortunes of our service and evinces now the never dying spirit that sustained many of us so long, under untold public as well as personal trials and difficulties.” Rowlinski returned to Charleston after his release, worked as a railroad conductor, and in 1870 moved to Salters, S.C. In 1883 he joined the Lighthouse Service and spent most of that service at stations in Florida including St. Augustine and the Ponce de Leon Light Station, at the time more picturesquely named the Mosquito Inlet Light Station, where he was name Principle Keeper in 1887. He left the Lighthouse Service in 1902, but lived the rest of his life in Florida, dying there 5/29/1914. A 1912 biography of Ellison Capers, who became a bishop, mentions Rowlinski and the bible as an example of Capers’ concern for the spiritual well-being of his men. It includes both the 1891 letter written by Rowlinski’s old captain, T.H. Steinmeyer, to Capers, when he forwarded the bible, but also Rowlinski’s letter to Steinmeyer: “I want you to send the Testament to Colonel Ellison Capers, for him to write the same as it was, and return to me the Testament, to leave to my children when I am gone.” He also gives Steinmeyer a shot at immortality, or at least remembrance: “I want you to write something in it, so that you will be remembered when I am dead and gone, by my children.” The bible is pocket size as shown and in very good condition. It displays very well and is a remarkable relic, carried in the field by a Confederate soldier and bearing its own documented history inscribed within.

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Very good