This .69 socket bayonet is complete and in good condition. Metal has turned dark and has scattered moderate surface rust. This bayonet was originally part of the collection of the Rosensteel family of Gettysburg. It was the collection of this family that formed the core of the present National Park Service Collection.

Family history holds that George D. Rosensteel, a long time relic collector, established a Civil War museum in Gettysburg in 1921. He subsequently added the fine relic collection of John H. Rosensteel to the museum. John Rosensteel, George's uncle, lived through the three days of fighting and began gathering war artifacts from the Gettysburg battlefield once the armies left the scene. In 1941, Lawrence Eckert married George Rosensteel's daughter, Angela, and began working at his father-in-law's National Museum. When the Rosensteel family sold the Ziegler's Grove property to the U.S. government in 1972, the family also donated the museum's relic collection to the National Park Service's Gettysburg Battlefield. Eckert was retained by the NPS and became curator of the huge relic collection at Gettysburg.

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