GUEST: This is my husband's grandfather's collection from the Civil War.

He wrote, in here, a, a letter.

It-- well, he was at the second battle of Memphis.

And these are the things that he had there.

His sock got soiled, so he washed it and hung it up.

The next day at like, 3:00 in the morning or something, they attacked.

The... rebels attacked and shot the tent up, and shot up the sock.

And this is hardtack that he had at the same time, and those were some of the bullets.

APPRAISER: I wasn't expecting a sock to come in today... GUEST: (laughs) APPRAISER: ...that would catch my eye so much.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: But this is a super special sock.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: So it happened in August of 1864.

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest brought... Union soldiers, which were really Confederate soldiers dressed in Union blue, bringing in prisoners to the camp.

They were looking to get two Union generals captured and take their Confederate prisoners home with them.

They opened fire and surprised the Union with this attack at about 4:00 A.M.

The sock says it was hung at 3:00 A.M., because it was soiled and dirty, to dry on his tent.

Really basic, you know, two guys, one little tent as coverage, drying out his wet socks.

GUEST: Well, I noticed on there, he said the boys called it a dog tent.

(laughs) APPRAISER: They called it a pup tent or dog tent.

When the battle came in at 4:00 A.M., not long after he hung up the sock, they shot through the camps.

And that tent sustained 72 musket or bullet strikes.

It had 72 holes pierced in it.

APPRAISER: And the letter attests that, and that's what we're looking at here, is the holes that the bullets caused to that sock.

GUEST: Right, right.

APPRAISER: So, the tent itself is provenance by that document as being taken and being sent by a captain to the governor of Illinois.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: He also picked up a piece of hardtack.

So, it wasn't necessarily his ration, but he was souvenir hunting, and he brought a piece of hardtack, which was the ration of the Civil War soldier.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: So, it was what they had to sustain them.

Not the most delicious food.

These are neat in the fact that it's a before and after.

So, they're Civil War lead bullets.

And this is an unfired or we call a drop bullet.

This is a fired example, that obviously hit something harder than itself.

You can see the striations from whatever it struck, some rifling within the grooves.

And you can see they're both what we call three-ring Union Minie balls.

So they were standard issue, and undoubtedly picked up on the same field, as the 137th Illinois was only in one engagement.

And this is a fired bullet, so that would attest to it belonged to the same battlefield as the other two objects.

APPRAISER: These passing through, you've got to imagine the scene of these soldiers leaving the camp and nearly losing their lives.

Um, 72 rounds.

GUEST: 72 of those is quite a few.

APPRAISER: They left with a lot of arms, a lot of supplies, and about 500 Union prisoners.

Do you have any guesses as to their value?

GUEST: No, I just know that probably most people didn't save their socks.

APPRAISER: Sure.

Sure.

GUEST: So it's probably rare.

APPRAISER: Would you say you've ever heard of a sock being worth on the retail market $5,000 before?

GUEST: No.

(laughs) APPRAISER: Well, you have now.

GUEST: Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

That's exciting.

(chuckles) Always wondered what happened to the other sock.

(both laugh) APPRAISER: On insurance estimate, I would go a little higher to about the $6,000, $6,500 range.