INSCRIBED Gustave YOUNG Engraved COLT 1849 Pocket
Description:
INSCRIBED Gustave YOUNG Engraved COLT 1849 Pocket
CIVIL WAR Capt Chauncey McKeever’s Personal Weapon
Here we present an antique Colt 1849 Pocket Revolver, made in 1855, in Hartford, Connecticut. This revolver was factory engraved by the famous and trend-setting master engraver Gustave Young. Gustave Young was one of many German immigrants who came to the United States and worked in the firearms industry. However, Young’s talents were most assuredly in engraving and his style set him apart from his contemporaries. This influx of German engravers starting in about 1850 was perhaps the beginning of what R.L. Wilson has called the “golden age of arms engraving in America”. Other names such as Bodenstein, Helfricht, Nimschke, and several Ulrichs would also make their enormous contributions to the craft, imparting their Germanic influence and become legends as well. Wilson goes on to say that “Young is generally considered to have been the best arms engraver active in 19th Century America.” Young was “Colt’s chief engraving contractor from 1852-1869.”
This revolver displays two of Young’s key trademarks, each side of the hammer being engraved in the likeness of a wolf’s head, and another animal’s head on the barrel flat on the left side of the gun. This revolver also features the hand engraved “Saml Colt” barrel address in fancy scroll. Serial numbers all feature a dot, denoting this as a factory specimen earmarked for engraving. The silver plated brass grip strap is inscribed “Capt Chauncy McKeevers”.
Chauncey McKeever was born on August 31, 1829 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, Isaac McKeever, joined the United States Navy at age 14, fighting in the War of 1812, his death ending his 47-year career in the Navy in 1856 at the rank of Commodore. Chauncey entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1845, at the age of 16. Most of his classmates were at least 2 years older, and included many who would fight on the side of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Chauncey graduated in 1849, going on to fight the Seminoles in Florida through 1851. He was stationed in San Francisco, California in 1855, participating in the “Puget Sound War”, which was a territorial dispute between the U.S. and several tribes of Native Americans in that region. In 1858, Chauncey participated in the Utah Expedition, a series of armed encounters the United States Army had with Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory. In 1861 the War Between the States erupted and McKeever served right through it under the likes of Sherman, Heintzelman, McDowell, and perhaps most interestingly, Frémont.
In Kenneth Powers Williams’s Grant Rises in the West: The first year, 1861-1862, Captain Chauncey McKeever is mentioned several times. This was during General John C. Frémont’s brief tenure over the Department of the West, based in St. Louis, Missouri. Captain McKeever was Frémont’s Assistant Adjutant General, and it is interesting to note that Powers Williams mentions McKeever when speaking more broadly of Frémont’s reign. “Just how affairs were being directed in the Western Department at this time is a puzzle. After Frémont took the field in late September, Captain Chauncey McKeever exercised authority considerably in excess of that normal for an adjutant, though he seems to have informed his chief as to his actions”. Frémont’s style has been described as that of a European autocrat, establishing a lavish headquarters in St. Louis, appointing his own handpicked “bodyguard” cavalry unit of 300 strapping Kentuckians, employing cronies outside of the military to achieve his ends, promoting officers unilaterally, declaring martial law in Missouri, and sending his fiery wife, Jessie, as an emissary to personally make demands of President Lincoln, when the President opposed Frémont’s unilateral Emancipation Proclamation in the Western Theater. Though he was relieved of his command after refusing to retract the statement (it having a detrimental effect on volunteer units, counties and even states that were pro-slavery and pro-Unionist), it is said that this event was very influential to Lincoln’s federal Emancipation Proclamation. Back to the point, it was under these circumstances that we find Captain McKeever being one of the primary points of contact for General Ulysses S. Grant while in command at Cairo.
After Frémont’s removal, McKeever went on to be promoted throughout the war, being breveted several times for his “Meritorious and Faithful Services During the Rebellion”. He finally retired from the military in 1893 at the rank of Colonel. He died in late 1901.
The overall condition of the piece is good. The patina is returning. Iron parts are lightly pitted. Brass grip frame and trigger guard retain about 75% of the original silver plate. Traces of original gold plate on the protected parts of the hammer. Cylinder scene is quite nice. Markings are legible. Serial numbers match. The barrel wedge is an unnumbered replacement. The cylinder’s number has been restamped. The fancy walnut grips are in very good condition, having been refinished. Bore is in good condition. Action is fine.
Own the original! This is a legitimate antique and not a reproduction.
Barrel is 6 inches in length.
Caliber: .31 percussion
Bore is in good condition. The firing mechanism is fine.
Overall condition as seen in photos.
Don’t miss a rare opportunity to own a rare Young engraved Colt, inscribed to Captain Chauncey McKeever, U.S. Army officer during the American Civil War!
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ancestryguns
$7100
#21793
SOLD
Antique: Yes