December 15, 2020 Edged Weapons, Armor & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/15/2020
An elegant, high-grade sword from the finest producer of presentation swords in the Civil War, together with the recipient’s impressive, inscribed Sixth Corps badge and a postwar veteran’s medal. The sword has a deeply cast and chased hilt, preserving better than 90 percent of its heavy gilt finish. The tall pommel is crowned by a crouching eagle in a fighting pose and has a U.S. shield its face. The knuckleguard is part of a long chain of successive sprouting flower buds that form the outer branch of the counterguard, curve back and turn up to the pommel, with loop at top for a sword knot, the splitting buds mirroring the lower edge of the pommel cap. The floral motif is continued in the openwork guard with scrolls, leaves, berries and flowers that entwine a floating U.S. on the obverse. The reverse (left) side of the guard is solid. The quillon is an open-mouthed lion head on a scrolling capital base. The grip is silver and spiral grooved. The blade is by Collins, a frequent supplier to Tiffany, and dated 1862. The blade is bright and the etching vivid and of the highest quality with two full-length standing figures among the motifs. The obverse panels include foliate scrolls at bottom, a full length infantryman with knapsack, kepi, accouterments and musket with bayonet fixed, followed by more scrolls, a tall panoply of arms and flags on pikes, and ending with more floral scrolls. The reverse has a prominent script “U.S.” lengthwise in the upper portion of the panel, and a defiant officer standing on a rampart with sword in one hand and one foot resting on a cannon’s mouth. Below him, in one of the geometric floral scrolls is etched, “Tiffany & Co. N.Y.” in three lines. At bottom the ricasso is stamped, “Collins & Co. / Hartford / Conn./ 1862.” The etched panels on both sides of the blade have flamboyant terminals to the background frosting. The scabbard is silver with heavily gilt mounts and a “Tiffany & Co. / M” scroll on the reverse between the upper mount and throat. Middle and upper mounts are deeply cast and chased with ribbons knotted at the sling rings that spread out to the sides of a U.S. shield. The lower mount has a deeply cast “U.S.” in the drag. The mounts like the hilt preserve their heavy gilding. Inscribed between the two ring mounts, “Presented to H.B. MASTERS / Capt. & C.S. / by his friends the Officers of the / 102nd Pa. Vol. / August 12th 1863”. With this sword is a great, wartime, silver Sixth Corps badge, consisting of a silver Greek Cross with blue enamel interior, and a gold “M,” all on a starburst background. The badge has a fixed ribbon bar on reverse and is suspended by a blue ribbon from gold bar with T-bar pin, inscribed “COMMISSARY 3d BRIGe.” “Harry B. Masters / Capt. & C.S. / Sept. 18th 1863.” With the sword and corps badge is a small postwar veteran’s badge reading “War Veterans” and “8 NYSM” hung from pin bar reading “Washington / 1861”. The wonderfully named Hibbert Boehner Masters (1839-1908) was a first responder. Canadian by birth, he was in business in NY City when war broke out and signed up as a private in Co. F, 8th NY State Militia for three months service on 4/25/61, seeing action at First Bull Run and mustering out 8/2/61. He enrolled again in NY City on 10/12/61, mustering in as 1st lieutenant Co. B, 55th NY Infantry, the Lafayette Guard, as of 11/23/61. He was captured 6/13/62 while Acting Quartermaster for Peck’s Brigade, 4th Corps, in which both the 55th NY and 102nd PA served. He escaped twice, was twice recaptured, and exchanged 27 August 1862. He was discharged 9/10/62 to accept promotion to Captain and Commissary of Subsistence (“C.S.”) volunteer forces, continuing to serve in the Sixth Corps. The suspension bar of the corps badge refers to the 3rd Brigade and the blue cross suggests service in the 3rd Division in 1863, the same organization in which the 102nd PV served until January 1864. In April 1864 Masters was attached to the 1st Brigade 2nd Division and is commended for his service as C.S. of the 2nd Division in the July actions of the 6th Corps around Washington. In June 1865 he was C.S. for 1st Division of the provisional corps, which was of former 6th Corps units. He mustered out in August 1865 and was brevetted to Major for efficient and meritorious service. After the war he maintained business interests in New York, Florida and Alabama. A member of the G.A.R., Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and President of the Union League Club, he was also a colonel in the NY National Guard. He died in New Jersey and was buried in Massachusetts. Masters did not serve in the 102nd Pennsylvania, making the presentation by its officers all the more remarkable. The timing is suggestive. A month earlier, in the Gettysburg campaign, the regiment was assigned to guard the supply trains at Westminster, where Masters would have been posted, and a detachment of 3 officers and 100 men accompanied some of those trains to the battlefield on the morning of July 3. Whatever the reason, Masters did have a long association with the regiment through his duty in their brigade. The corps badge is inscribed, dated just a month after the presentation of the sword, and has the additional touch of his initial in gold. It is not specifically presented by those officers as well, but given the closeness of the date it may have been. In any case, it makes a wonderful accompaniment to this splendid sword and is rare and desirable in its own right. CONDITION: Excellent. Rich gilt finish and vibrant etching. See Thillmann, CW Army Swords, p. 516, for a similar Tiffany presentation. Corps badge is very good with just minor wear to the ribbon. SR
Item Dimensions: 41"