Help requested with Civil War revolver identification (period photograph included)

Status
Not open for further replies.

SeanSw

Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2005
Messages
1,362
Location
Illinois
Hi Everyone, I wanted to share a picture here for help identifying the revolver in this photo.This is a photograph of my direct ancestor which I scanned from a back issue of Military Images (Volume XXVII Number 5, March/April 2006). I have been doing a lot of genealogical research after taking some DNA tests and was excited with this discovery. Although I am not a Civil War buff this is seems to be an excellent publication and I would recommend it to anyone. It was ordered and delivered within days.

Sgt Peter Reising would be my 6x grandfather. Born in 1819 Prussia (Bavaria region), married a woman from the Rhineland area (Alsace/France judging by the name), emigrated to the United States and built a family moving westward from Ohio until they settled in Peoria, IL. He enlisted and survived the Mexican wars, later serving in the Civil War. He was wounded and captured July 31, 1864 during "Stoneman's Raid to Macon". The raid did not appear to be very successful and it seems very few people survived. Very few ever did after capture and imprisonment at Andersonville. Hopefully my ancestor was mortally wounded and met a quick end after his capture. Presumably he was taken to the prison camp and rests there still.

The photograph is not of great quality but I think it can seen that he is holding an open top revolver. My familiarity with black powder pistols doesn't help me from there and I do not know which, if any, gun would be issued to a sergeant at that time. The caption says he is wearing a M1851 sword belt and if anyone knows what sword he may have carried I would like to know, so I can buy one of those too!

sgt_PeterReising_Il14thCav_company_B.jpg
 
Thanks or sharing the photo of your ancestor and the question. Let me begin with the qualification that I'm not an "expert" on the Civil War or percussion revolvers. You have already learned a great deal about your ancestor and identified the firearm as an "open top revolver". Without a better picture, it's going to take someone much more knowledgable than me to identify it definitively. However, among the most common open top revolvers of the Civil War was the 1860 Colt and based on what we can see in the picture, I don't see anything to rule that out. Have you read the history of your ancestor's unit? The book History of Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry And the Brigades to Which It Belonged, Compiled From Manuscript History by Sanford, West, and Featherson, and From Notes of Comrades... may help identify the firearms issued to the regiment. An original is expensive, but it has been copied and is available in that format for much less. If you get one of these "digitized" copies or whatever they call them, try to get one from a seller in the U.S. with a good reputation. There is a website called BookFinder that will show you some options. Some of the foreign sellers ship stuff that is unreadable! Thanks again and let us know what you find!
 
Hard to tell from the picture, but I am guessing an 1860 Army .44. But, it could be an 1851 Navy .36, and has been mentioned it might not be his issued revolver but a photographer's prop.
 
Frederick P. Todd's American Military Equipage notes the following about the 14th ILL CAV armament.

1863: Colt army revolver; Burnside carbine; M1860 saber. Oct. 1864 (following capture): remounted and issued M1861 rifle musket. Dec. 1864: Burnside carbine and 1860 saber; dismounted but continued to wear saber.
 
Have you read the history of your ancestor's unit? The book History of Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry And the Brigades to Which It Belonged, Compiled From Manuscript History by Sanford, West, and Featherson, and From Notes of Comrades... may help identify the firearms issued to the regiment. An original is expensive, but it has been copied and is available in that format for much less. If you get one of these "digitized" copies or whatever they call them, try to get one from a seller in the U.S. with a good reputation. There is a website called BookFinder that will show you some options. Some of the foreign sellers ship stuff that is unreadable! Thanks again and let us know what you find!

Thank you for the recommendation! I just searched for this book and found a PDF version from Google Books that looks complete. I will need to save it and read it when I have more time. At a glance it does not contain the photograph I found of my ancestor so I am still very glad to have purchased the other publication.
 
Frederick P. Todd's American Military Equipage notes the following about the 14th ILL CAV armament.

1863: Colt army revolver; Burnside carbine; M1860 saber. Oct. 1864 (following capture): remounted and issued M1861 rifle musket. Dec. 1864: Burnside carbine and 1860 saber; dismounted but continued to wear saber.

That is amazing! Thank you for sharing. This looks like a typical Civil War load out even of the photograph was staged. I enjoy swords as much as firearms and would like to find a solid original or suitable reproduction for use and display at home. The Burnside rifle would be far more difficult to use as intended but I have actually used a Springfield during a Civil War reenactment about 20 years ago. One of my instructors at the time was heavily involved in the reenactment scene and convinced me to try it out but it was too distantly related to my other interests at the time.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top