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     This sabre style bayonet was manufactured by Boyle & Gamble of Richmond, Virginia.  Boyle & Gamble are well recognized as the most prolific sword makers in the Confederacy.  The firm produced some of the most ornate swords imaginable for the wholesale and retail market. They also manufactured cavalry swords, artillery swords, Bowie knives and bayonets like the one shown here. 

     While Confederates disliked toting bayonets, this model was likely highly prized as it served the dual purpose of Bowie knife and bayonet.  The soldier who carried this example thought enough of it to carefully carve his name into the scabbard.  H.R. Allison is plainly cross-hatched deeply into the scabbard’s face.

     Henry R. Allison was a 19 year old resident of Jackson County, North Carolina when he enlisted in the 25^th North Carolina Infantry on May 30, 1861.  The western North Carolina men who formed this regiment mustered in at Camp Patton at Ashville.  Allison was to become part of Company B.  Nearly all of the regiment was composed of mountain men who had been Unionists, until the dictator Lincoln declared war upon them.  After Lincoln’s illegal proclamation, they saw no choice but to defend their family and firesides from invasion.

     On September 18^th, after much training, the regiment started for the War.  Reaching Raleigh, the men were uniformed and by the 29^th were camped at Mitchell’s Sound where they were issued arms and accoutrements.  In November they were moved to South Carolina’s coast where they continued to picket through the winter.

     In the spring the regiment was sent to Kinston, North Carolina but arrived too late to participate in Kinston’s defense.  They arrived in Richmond, Virginia on June 24, 1862 and by the next day were rapidly marching to the front just outside Richmond at Seven Pines.  Thrown into line to the left of the Williamsburg Road, they fired two volleys, were ordered to fix bayonets “then with bayonets fixed, we raised the Rebel yell and charged; the enemy gave way and the ground which had been lost in the morning was retaken.  The enemy opened a heavy fire of musketry and three times tried, without effect, to retake their lines” The 25^th had 42 casualties in the battle.

     Over the next month the regiment came under fire several times, but did not see another such battle until July 2 on Malvern Hill.  In the first charge the 25^th was driven back and were put in again.  In this charge the men advance to with one hundred yards of the Yankee line “when the men raised the Rebel yell and charged into the face of a perfect sheet of fire from musketry and artillery, without wavering, to within twenty yards of the enemy’s guns, some going even nearer.”  The regiment suffered another 93 casualties in this forlorn hope.

     Private Allison survived the dangers of the battle, but in the aftermath, the regiment went into camp at Drewry’s Bluff, a part of Petersburg’s defenses.  And it was here that illness spread rapidly among the Confederates as a consequence of their never having been exposed to the diseases of camp.  Eighty one men of the 25^th regiment alone succumbed to illness.  Among them was Private Allison.  He died far from home, a most inglorious death in a Petersburg hospital on July 26, 1862.  The cause was listed as Cerebro Meningitis or, “brain fever”.

     For the next 146 years this young man’s sabre bayonet remained close by.  It was found in an attic just outside Petersburg in the late summer of 2008.  It is fortunate that Henry Allison thought enough of his bayonet to inscribe his name, that we might, 146 years later pay homage to a Confederate Patriot.

     The bayonet and scabbard are in excellent, untouched condition.  The only imperfections are the missing lock spring and pin on the bayonet and the throat insert is missing.  There is an F scratched into both the scabbard throat and the bayonets grip.  The blade is smooth, clean and semi-bright.  The scabbard is strong enough to stand at 90 degrees on its own!

     For history, provenance and condition, this is the very, very best!