I recently posted about the paths through Congress for the legislation that authorized the 1936 (1938) Battle of Gettysburg and 1937 Battle of Antietam half dollars, but the two were not the only bills introduced in Congress that called for a coin to commemorate a US Civil War battle. (You can read the previous posts here:
1936 Gettysburg and
1937 Antietam.)
These two coins were almost joined by a half dollar intended to commemorate the Battle of Chickamauga and the Battles for Chattanooga - a series of pivotal battles that took place in northern Georgia and southern Tennessee in the fall of 1863.
During the Third Session of the 75th Congress, companion bills were introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives that called for "50-cent pieces in commemoration of the Battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge." The House bill was introduced by Representative Samuel Davis McReynolds (D-TN) on February 22, 1938. Senator George Leonard Berry (D-TN) brought the bill to the Senate a week later on March 2, 1938.
The bills called for 25,000 half dollars of standard size, weight and composition but bearing "a special appropriate design" in honor of the four battles; all four battles were to be remembered via a single coin design. The coins were to be dated "1938" regardless of when they were struck, and were all to be struck at a single US Mint facility; there would be no P-D-S sets of the coins.
The coins were sponsored by the National Chattanooga-Chickamauga Battles Commission of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Commission was authorized to sell the coins "at par or a premium" with the net proceeds to be used to help defray expenses for the commemoration of the battle anniversaries.
The Antietam and Gettysburg half dollars share a similar design concept. They each feature conjoined obverse portraits, with one portrait representing the Union and the other the Confederacy. On the Antietam coin, General George B. McClellan represented the Union and General Robert E. Lee the Confederacy. The Gettysburg half dollar features a representative view of a veteran of each army vs. named individuals.
It's impossible to say whether the proposed Chickamauga coin would have taken a design approach similar to the Gettysburg and Antietam coins with their conjoined obverse portraits of Union and Confederate soldiers/generals, but it would not have been a big surprise if it did. A design featuring Union General William Rosencrans coupled with either General Braxton Bragg or General James Longstreet would have been one possibility.
At the time the bills were introduced, the US commemorative coin market had already peaked and resistance to further issues was building within Congress as well as within the collecting community. As such, neither the House nor Senate bill received significant discussion within Congress. Though each was referred to its respective committee responsible for consideration of coinage matters, neither was ever reported out.
And so, collectors with interest in US Civil War battle commemoratives have had to "make do" with two coins rather than three. Each of the two, however, has proven to be a popular issue within the classic series!
Read More: Commems Collection
Posted 12/26/2020 11:17 pm
