Rare Confederate Inventory Numbered and Imported Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle Musket

American Civil War

.59 caliber. 39" round barrel. SN: NSN. Blued and color casehardened finish with brass furniture and walnut stock. Single shot muzzleloading percussion military rifle musket with the barrel secured with three rounded screw clamping bands. Lock marked in two lines forward of the hammer E.P. BOND/LONDON. Left breech quadrant with the correct London commercial proof and view marks and a single "25" gauge mark to indicate .577 caliber. A weak JS/{ANCHOR} inspection mark is present in the wood of the toe line behind the triggerguard tang, indicating it was inspected by Confederate arms viewer in England John Southgate. A single capital B is stamped in the wood forward of the buttplate tang, indicting that EP Bond was the "furnisher" of this gun to the Confederacy as part of the 2nd Sinclair, Hamilton & Company contract (October 1861-April 1862). The buttplate tang is engraved with the Confederate inventory number 8274. The gun retains the correct pattern folding leaf rear sight that is correctly graduated to 900 yards, the musket pattern combination fixed front sight and socket bayonet lug, both sling swivels and an older replacement iron ramrod of the correct pattern.

The Confederate central government received 30,000 "Long Enfields" as part of the 2nd Sinclair, Hamilton & Company contract in the fall of 1861, with deliveries completed by the spring of the following year. These guns were inventory numbered on their buttplate tangs from 1 to 10,000 with the addition of the suffix "A" below the number for the guns in the second group of 10,000 and the suffix "B" for the guns in the third group of 10,000. This gun was part of the first 10,000 guns delivered under that contract as there is no suffix present. A database of surviving Confederate numbered Enfields from this contract indicates that roughly 1% of the guns delivered are known to survive today, with approximately 300 in private and institutional collections. A total of 21 guns are known in the 8XXX range from that contract, with four of those being delivered by the London gunmaker E.P. Bond. Sinclair, Hamilton & Co relied upon five primary "furnishers" to deliver those guns, with the largest portion of the contract for 30,000 guns going to the Birmingham makers CW James (10,000 guns) and WC Scott & Son (8,000 guns). London makers Parker, Field & Son (5,500 guns), James Kerr (500 guns) and EP Bond received the balance of the contract. Bond delivered 6,000 of the 30,000 rifle muskets, making them the third largest supplier of the group, but only the source for 20% of all of the numbered Pattern 1853 Enfields supplied to the Confederate central government.

This gun was barn found some years ago and remains in essentially untouched condition other than some old wood putty in the obverse butt near the buttplate tang added to replace an area of loss by the person who found the gun. A rare opportunity to own a legitimate, if well worn, Confederate purchased Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle Musket that was likely in the south early enough to see combat during the spring of 1862 when thousands of these guns fought during the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days in the East and at Shiloh in the West.

This lot is located in Cincinnati.