Confederate Fighting Knife made from an NCO sword, dug Wilderness (SOLD,BG)

This is truly a unique item being offered, it is an excavated Confederate Fighting Knife. What is interesting, is that it was done by a soldier. It was modified by using a US Model 1840 NCO sword by cutting off the guard and shortening the blade (see picture of original example). You can still see the hole where the guard entered the grip. The overall length of the knife is 11”. It was recovered from the Wilderness, Virginia battlefield.

The Battle of the Wilderness fought May 5–7, 1864, was the first battle of General Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Both armies suffered heavy casualties, which was an indication of what lied ahead. The battle was inconclusive and on May 7th, Grant disengaged and moved to the southeast, intending to leave the Wilderness to interpose his army between Lee and Richmond, leading to the bloody Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

Why I call this a Confederate piece is because it is very doubtful a Union soldier would need to fashion such a weapon, usually they could procure a nice knife from other sources. Whereas Confederate soldiers would create such items out of desperation. It really is a neat piece and something that you rarely come across. I seen one years ago that was made the same way and it had an old description attached which read: “This knife our only son did use to kill a yankee who would abuse the sacred rights we now defend from Satan, Lincoln and his friends”.

As expected, where the blade goes into the grip is a little loose but does not pull out. It appears that the tip of the knife had broken off, possibly why it was discarded by the soldier. It comes in a nice wooden glass top display case. This unique weapon will be an excellent Confederate display piece or for any Civil War collection.