.52 caliber. 21" barrel. Browned finish, iron furniture walnut stock. Single shot side lever tilting breech breechloading percussion carbine with offset fixed notch rear sight, offset blade front sight, saddle bar and ring and button head cleaning and clearing rod. Top of breech marked in five lines: US/S. NORTH/MIDLTN/CONN/1851. Top of breech marked "STEEL" with a JH inspection on the right angled flat of the breech. Stock flats behind receiver with traces of cartouches on each side, a WAT on the obverse and what was probably a JH on the reverse. Known as the "Fremont Hall," this is one of 5,000 M1843 Hall carbines sold as surplus by the New York Arsenal in August of 1861 to arms speculators backed by J.P. Morgan for $3.50 each and subsequently "modified" for use of .58 caliber ammunition by enlarging the chamber to approximately .58 and rifling the barrel, but leaving it in the original .52 caliber! The guns were then sold to General John C. Fremont's command in St. Louis for $22 each, resulting in a Congressional investigation into what became known as the "Hall Carbine Affair." A scarce example of a historically important Civil War used carbine. {ANTIQUE}