Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: My best friend is the third generation, I believe, that this has been handed down to.

She wanted me to have it.

All of the family at that point had passed away.

When I read the book, I couldn't put it down.

It was mesmerizing.

Four generations back, George Bailey was known as the carriage man in St. Louis, Missouri.

He made carriages in the early 1800s.

And this is his son.

He was captured by the Confederate Army.

They were being marched to Andersonville.

He asked several of the men that had been captured to bury him in the ground and cover him with limbs and bushes and leaves, where he stayed in the ground, according to his book, for I think two days.

He was breathing through a reed.

I think he heard the scouts go by, so he thought it was safe to get up.

He was shot twice.

He made his way close to Atlanta where he came upon some Union soldiers and they put him in the hospital.

APPRAISER: That is quite a story.

GUEST: Yeah, it's fascinating.

APPRAISER: Well, he's a man from my home state, this is a Missourian.

GUEST: That's true.

APPRAISER: Which made it appeal to me.

The Union 6th Missouri was an incredibly hard-fought unit.

This is the hat badge from the side of the Hardee hat.

This is from the front.

A couple of subdued infantry, lieutenant shoulder straps.

But the thing that really struck me about his service is he clearly had an eye for history.

The first thing that pointed that out to me is this cartridge, this little rolled up piece of paper here is a Confederate cartridge, on which he has written "Rebel cartridge.

Vicksburg, July 4, 1863."

GUEST: Yes, he did.

APPRAISER: Ju-July 4, 1863 is a big, big day for the Union.

That's when Vicksburg fell, and he had the presence of mind to realize that he was involved in something greater than himself.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: He also has a couple of other trophies.

We have a Port Hudson style or an Army of Tennessee style, depending on who you ask about it, Confederate belt plate.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: This one is from the state of Louisiana.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And then we get into this, Which you would look at and think, "That's a rag."

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: "What are we doing with that?"

He has recorded and told us why that's important.

GUEST: He would, um, find his way to a plantation or to someone's home out in, I guess, the swampy areas, and they would hide him.

They would give him food.

APPRAISER: This was the enslaved people in that area?

GUEST: Correct.

I guess when the war was over and he was out of the hospital and he had healed, he went back and visited some of those people.

APPRAISER: It is my firm belief that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

But simply adding up the individual parts, together, that alone is $15,000 to $20,000.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: But, as a collection, I think $25,000 to $30,000 GUEST: Okay, that's wonderful.

APPRAISER: If you choose to insure it, I would make sure that you have an insurance policy on this that covers it for $35,000.

GUEST: Okay.