An 1864 Wilmington newspaper credits Froelich with 6,500 saber bayonets made from April 1, 1861, to March 1, 1864. McAden and Fonvielle estimate his total wartime production as perhaps 7,000. These are fairly uniform in appearance, but have minor manufacturing variations in blade length and width, and the internal diameters of the muzzle ring since Froelich was making bayonets to fit longarms from small operations supplying North Carolina state contracts such as the Ashville Armory; Clapp, Gates and Co.; Gilliam and Miller; Henry C. Lamp and Co.; Mendenhall, Jones and Gardner; Searcy and Moore; and the Florence Armory. The greatest point of consistency is the length of the hilt, 4 ½ inches, and the distance from the muzzle ring to the stud guide, which is 3 to 3-1/4 inches. (McAden and Fonvielle, page 72.) This one is right on the mark for those two points- the hilt being 4 ½ inches and the distance from muzzle ring to stud guide being 3 inches. We also note that as with others illustrated by M&F, the grip is cut with 17 finger grooves and the screw for locking spring is set between the 5^th and 6^th from the pommel. The blade is 22 ¼ inches long, which is longer than usual (M&F say 19 ½ to 20 ¾,) but has a proportionally longer unstopped fuller- 14 ¼ inches versus 13 9/16.

The blade has a very good edge and point, and is steel gray in color with darker gray staining but only shallow corrosion, and shows a typically southern forging flaw about a third of the way from guard to tip on the reverse. The brass has a medium tone, with some dark age stains and a few dings on the grip flat and pommel. The locking spring is missing, but the screw is still there.

This comes with an import, black leather and brass mounted saber bayonet scabbard that fits well and looks good for display. The upper mount is secured by brass wire staples and has a round bar for a belt tab to secure it in a bayonet frog. The tip of the drag is short cylinder with rounded ends.

Louis Froelich was a major arms maker supplier for the Confederacy. A skilled “mechanic,” he emigrated from Bavaria in early 1861, settled in Wilmington, NC, where he ran a button factory,  and then set to making edged weapons for the Confederacy with a stubbornness hard to be rivalled. He was swindled by a business partner, had his factory shut down by a yellow fever epidemic and then destroyed in a fire, moved his operation to Kenansville for safety, where he had the new factory wrecked by a federal raiding party, only to set up business again, making more sabers, sword bayonets, bayonets, pikes, knives, axes, accouterments and other vital supplies for the southern war effort right up to the end of the war. [sr] [ph:m]

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