The men and women who sacrificed so much in carrying out the American Revolution are all long gone, but their legacy is all around us in our democratic institutions and the hard-won freedoms that we all enjoy. Though we don’t know who carried it, or whose hands beat out the call to arms, this rare drum from that era is a more material legacy and evokes the violence and martial spirit of that confilict that resonates with us still. The inscription states: “This Drum was used in the American Army of the Revolution, at the Battles of Eutaw, Saratoga and Cowpens. Presented to the Georgia Historical Society by General Charles R. Floyd in 1841.”

It was one of the first artifacts donated to the Society and remains one of the rarest and most venerable in the collection, a tangible link to the first “Greatest Generation” and the birth of the Republic.