SCARCE FAYETTEVILLE SOCKET BAYONET

SCARCE FAYETTEVILLE SOCKET BAYONET

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$1,395.00

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 2026-1224

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This is a very good example of the scarce Fayetteville socket bayonet made in accordance with the CS January 1864 decision to stop making saber bayonets. That decision had been in the works at Fayetteville since at least Summer 1863 with correspondence as early as August seeking drawings for the necessary bayonet making machinery and later inquiries whether the bayonets should be interchangeable with those made for rifle muskets at Richmond, in which case the Fayetteville rifle barrels would have to be changed, or they should be fitted specifically for the rifle barrels, and then whether the bayonets should be iron or steel. Those issues were finally resolved in December 1863 (“no” to interchangeability; “yes” to steel) and the resulting socket bayonets, sometimes referred to by collectors as the Fayetteville 1864 pattern or the Fayetteville Type-IV, corresponding the classification of the Fayetteville rifles, dated 1864 and occasionally 1865, that take these bayonets. The Fayetteville Armory had received the machinery for making the M1855 rifle seized at Harpers Ferry in 1861. Total production is estimated at 8,600 to 8,900 rifles, with about 5,000 in the “Type-IV” configuration, made from about January 1864 through January 1865. The machinery, all or most of it, was moved shortly afterward to avoid Sherman’s columns and did not return to production.

Fayetteville socket bayonets are similar to those made by the Bay State Tool Company in Massachusetts for Spencer rifles and for the Massachusetts “Drake” alteration of US M1841 “Mississippi” Rifles. This comes from the fact that both Fayetteville and the Bay State Tool Company acquired their bayonet-making machinery from the English firm of Greenwood & Batley in Birmingham, and the pattern of bayonet it produced ultimately derived from bayonets it was designed to produce for the Spanish M1857 rifle that was being produced on a Spanish contract in Birmingham. All four of these bayonets have blades with flutes on the bottom

that extend all the way back through the elbow of the blade shank, which also shows a very sharp angle and the blades themselves are rather long- 18-inches for the Spencers, but 20-inches for the shorter Drake Conversion and Fayetteville Rifles.

This rates very good or better for condition, showing smooth metal, in the bright, just a very few darker spots, with 3-inch socket and 20-inch blade. As is correct, there are no markings, especially no alpha-numeric mating number as found on the Drake versions, and as is typical of these Fayetteville versions there are some machining marks across the lower portion of the upper blade flute that were not polished out and the locking ring and bayonet stud mortice are rather crudely finished.

This is a very nice example of a scarce but well-documented Confederate-made bayonet.  [sr][ph:L]

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