Civil War & Reconstruction
Civil War
First Union Occupation
Model 1850 Foot Officers Sword
Model 1850 Foot Officers Sword
Many of the infantry and engineer officers carried this Model 1850 Foot Officer’s Sword. This was a fully-capable fighting weapon. This artifact was one of only 500 produced in an 1861 contract by the famed Ames Sword Company. Unusually, this lot was stamped by Federal inspectors and dated “U.S./J.H./1861”.
This model was also carried by U.S. Marine Corps officers during the Civil War and, when the mamaluke-styled sword was adopted by the USMC in the 1870s, this became the pattern on which the subsequent Marine Non-Commissioned Officer Sword was based.
