Civil War Sailors

[Vadim Besprozvany]

Dear Professor Schillinger,

It is known as a fact that Russian Imperial Fleet arrived to the US  
during the Civil War with "a visit of friendship" (and as a part of  
diplomatic games played by the Russian Tsar).
I came across the names of Russian ships  harbored in New York:  
imperial ensign Osliaba, corvettes Variag and Vitiaz, clipper Peresvet  
and the flagship Alexander Nevsky. It's hard to identify the  
inscription you mentioned without having the photo - and, of course,  
it's not clear if the picture is good enough for such identification.  
Some info about this visit you can find in American Heritage Magazine  
avialable on-line:  
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1960/4/1960_4_38.shtml

Best wishes,

Vadim


> Dear Seelangers---
>
> 	Sorry--sent out the first version of this with the wrong Subject heading....
>
> 	Living as we do near several Civil War battlegrounds in the  
> Shenandoah Valley, I came upon the current issue (Dec. 2008) of The  
> Civil War Times.  On the last page is what is described as a photo  
> of   "A Trio of Union Tars" with an accompanying explanation of  
> their clothing .  The Inscriptions on their caps, however,  show  
> them more likely to be Russian, than Union.  Anyone have an  
> explanation?  What I can make out оn one of the caps is OCS  
> lettering that ends in ..АРЖРЪ (where Ж is the vowel that resembles   
> Ж--sorry, I don't have an OCS font) preceded by two  
> indistinguishable letters--the second letter could be a B, thus:    
> (?)BАРЖРЪ.  (A spelling of the Aurora?)
>
> 	Just a mistaken attribution, or were there really some Russians  
> involved in the war between our states?  The source of the picture  
> is given as the Library of Congress.  Maybe the Librarian has the  
> solution......
>
>
>
>
> John Schillinger
> Emeritus Prof. of Russian
> American University
>
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