Product Details
A .50 SMITHS PATENT CAPPING BREECH LOADING CARBINE OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, CIRCA 1863, serial no. 6744,
with 21 1/2in. octagonal to round barrel fitted with pinched block and blade front-sight, ladder rear-sight, breech signed 'ADDRESS / POULTNEY & TRIMBLE / BALTIMORE, U.S.A.' and 'Smiths patent / June 23rd 1857', two piece iron mounted walnut stock, short fore-end with a single barrel band, the butt with a good inspecting officer's cartouche, a good collector's specimen with some original finish
Provenance: The system was the invention of Gilbert Smith and the design taken up by Poultney & Trimble who supplied the U.S. Government with 30,000 Smith carbines during the Civil War where they saw extensive service. At the battle of Gettysburg the 17th Pennsylvania and the 3rd West Virginia who both carried Smith carbines helped check the Confederate advance. Many Smith carbines remained in service into the 1870's with State volunteer units. Quantities were sold off as surplus and purchased by farmers and settlers in the West, It is a little known fact that it was a Smith carbine in the hands of a student Henry M. Miller that decimated the Jessie James and Cole Younger gang when they attempted to rob the bank at Northfield, Minnesota on the 7th September 1876.
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Estimate £700-900