Items from the James A. Ramage Civil War Museum in Fort Wright are coming to the Behringer-Crawford Museum, thanks to a partnership between the two entities and a grant from the Kentucky Historical Society.
In May, the Kentucky Historical Society announced the Behringer-Crawford Museum as the recipient of a $2,474 grant for the “purchase of a large gun safe to preserve newly acquired Civil War-era weapons and safety and handling training provided by the Kenton County Sheriff’s Office.” The items themselves are on loan from the Ramage.
Sean Mendell, assistant director at Behringer-Crawford, confirmed the purchased items are from Ramage and are not the first pieces of the museum’s collection to make their way to their collection.
The former Fort Wright museum was dedicated to telling Northern Kentucky’s role in holding off Confederate forces as they tried to cross the Ohio River in 1863. That effort is now known as the Defense of Cincinnati, and it’s regarded as a key event in the Civil War.
The Ramage museum closed in 2021. Its collection was cataloged and some of its items have made their way to Behringer-Crawford so that they may see the light of day once more.
The rifles coming to the Behringer-Crawford Museum represent a small portion of the Ramage’s collection. Curator Jason French likened preserving historical artifacts to being “a professional hoarder,” but not all Ramage pieces can be moved and displayed at the Behringer-Crawford due to a lack of space.
Still, French said the rifles acquired with the grant aren’t just special for their age. Some of the Civil War rifles are rare and offer a glance at how the United States’s weaponry was quickly advancing at the time.
French explained this while holding a carbine rifle, which uses a spring to reload the chamber and holds several bullets.
“These early carbines, they were actual breech-loading rifles, which are pretty cool because most of the time when you get into Civil War collections, you get a lot of the old muskets but you don’t have things like this,” French said.
He said other items from the Ramage include journal entries, letters, and arms such as a heavy cavalry saber. French showed that the saber has a dent in the blade, which can be seen when looking down the blade from its hilt. The curator explained dents like that are typically made from the blade meeting bone, indicating its gruesome use in its lifetime.
The Behringer-Crawford has a series of Civil War-era pieces on display, making up a fraction of the three-story museum’s exhibits that chronicle Northern Kentucky history.
The Behringer-Crawford Museum, located at 1600 Montague Road in Covington, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sundays. It is closed on Mondays and national holidays.
