Description
This is a fine example of a hard used .577 percussion rifle musket that came into the Civil War via the Blockade. It is missing the rear sight (they often fell off—they were secured by solder, not a screw) and the ramrod is a period replacement, possibly from a Richmond rifled musket. It is double stamped SHC I which is the mark for Sinclair Hamilton Company, Batch I, which is the standard marking found on most of the 1861-1862 imported Confederate weapons. There are three initials carved in the buttstock of “MRC” which, by family association and oral history, are those of McDowell Reid Crawford of Virginia. Crawford’s great-great grandson sold the weapon at a show in Virginia in the early 1990s, stating his relative was born in Virginia in 1829 and lived past the early 1900s at the family home in Amherst County. The family story was that he walked home after Lee’s Surrender, taking his rifle with him.
Residence Amherst County VA; a 35 year-old Farmer. Enlisted on 8/15/1861 at Millner’s Store, VA as a Private. On 8/15/1861 he mustered into “F” Co. VA 58th Infantry . He was listed as on rolls 2/28/1865.
