Fall 2024 Premier Firearms & Militaria Auction
October 31st, November 1st, 2nd, & 3rd, 2024
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CONFEDERATE THOMAS LEECH, MEMPHIS TENNESSEE “FLOATING CS” STAFF & FIELD OFFICER’S SWORD
02-22914
30″ stout .35″ thick unfullered blade “CS” cast into decorated branched hilt, classic leech undecorated long sculpted pommel cap. Bill Albaugh in his early iconic texts made no attribution as to maker of this unique pattern. Recent scholarship attributes this sword to Thomas Leech & Co who produced swords in Memphis, Tennessee then later in partnership with Charles Rigdon in Columbus, Mississippi and lastly in Greensboro, Georgia. This sword has characteristics of the earliest Thomas Leech Memphis Novelty Works swords & bowie knives with cord wrapped grips which is not seen on his swords after 1862. Leech made two variants of this sword, with the orientation of the “floating CS” the most discernible difference. This sword is nearly identical to the sword carried by Confederate General “Jo” Shelby, and is shown as Figure 31D in Albaugh’s 1963 text “Photographic Supplement of Confederate Swords”.
