EXTREMELY RARE AND UNIQUE LOUIS BISSONNET, MOBILE ALA MADE CONFEDERATE CAVALRY OFFICER’S SABER.

inv# 02-14940

36.25″ Double-edged straight blade, 1.4″ wide, .25″ thick at ricasso, finally etched in over 20″ panels with Bissonnet’s distinct use of stars and arrows integrated with whimsical foliate scrolls with 5″ panel “Patrie . Honneur”. Blade is also signed near ricasso in same elegant script in scroll near ricasso: “L. Bissonnet / maker / Mobile Al”. Hilt is decorated with large relief cast clamshell on top of quillon, each branch has cast relief foliate design. Heavy solid brass scabbard has braised-on 3″ throat and middle mount with raised ring bands and braised 6″ drag. The only other example known is in collection of Missouri Historical Society at St. Louis carried by Capt. A. G. Moore of the 38th Alabama Volunteers; that sword is identical except for leather veneer on scabbard body. Louis Bissonnet (1823-1889) immigrated to the United States in 1857 through the port of Mobile Alabama. After the war he set up shop as a jeweler and gunsmith in Houston Texas till his death. Very few swords survive bearing his name. Foot officer swords often misidentified as Leech & Rigdon when unsigned, but distinctive etching is his “fingerprint”.