We don’t like to over-hype Confederate material with suggestions of it whistling Dixie or giving a Rebel yell, but if this classic Confederate side-knife and scabbard wouldn’t make a collector leap over a table to get to it at a show he needs glasses. Let’s start with the scabbard: brownish black leather, edge sewn, with some crackling to the surface and a few rubs, but pretty much no loss of finish. The mounts are tinned iron, with most of the tin still there. The throat has a soldered tinned iron belt loop still in place. The drag has an open tip and is simply folded and pinned to protect the leather and blade tip. The maker was obviously using up scrap or misjudged the size, for he used two pieces, inserting one under the edges of the other and soldering it in place.

The hilt has a wood grip, flattened oval in cross-section, pinned to the blade tang, slightly off center. A large S-curved iron counterguard, a flat rectangle in cross-section, is mounted without a grip ferrule. The 12-inch blade is double-edged and spearpoint in shape with a median ridge. The blade is bright, with some dark spots and cross-hatching near the hilt and few smaller gray spots near the tip. It measures about 17 inches overall and the hilt is tight.

The fondness of early war Confederate volunteers for Bowie and side knives does not need any elaboration. See Melton, et al., Confederate Bowie Knives, for parallel examples and lots of information on regional patterns and makers. This would jump out in any Confederate collection.    [sr]

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