Dr. Eugene Allen Smith used his canteen during the Civil War, where he enlisted as a private, but was elected 2nd lieutenant by the men in the 33rd Confederate Regiment of the Alabama Infantry. In 1862, he was appointed University of Alabama’s instructor of military tactics by Confederate States’ president Jefferson Davis, and remained in that post until the end of the war.
The canteen is made of wood and is nicely inscribed, possibly a gift from his regiment. This is just one of many historical pieces belonging to Smith in the UA Museums’ collection.
The History Collection, begun in 1985, is comprised of about 14,000 items, many from the Alan Blake Collection. Particular strengths of the Blake collection include bottles, stoneware jugs, hand tools and telegraph insulators. The History Collection also includes items associated with the history of Alabama’s natural resources, such as agriculture, turpentining, lumbering, mining, pottery and iron making. Also included in the collection are a number of artifacts that belonged to Smith, which are of great significance to the history of the Museum. Smith was the second state geologist of Alabama, and the first director of the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The collection is housed in the Mary Harmon Bryant Collections Facility.
Mary Beth Prondzinski, collections manager for the Alabama Museum of Natural History, provided the above information.