Percussion Cap Revolver

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Description:

This .36 caliber Colt Navy Model 1851 revolver with percussion cap action is currently on exhibit in the Civil War Gallery. Used by Major Cleland Kinloch Huger during the American Civil War, the octagonal barrel is blued steel with a bladed foresight and lever type ramrod attached below on a hinge. The hand grips are carved ivory decorated with a palmetto tree in silver mountings and were likely added by Huger after the war. The set is complete with a mahogany case (1932.203.2) and includes a bullet mold (1932.203.3), fluted powder flask (1932.203.4), screw driver (1932.203.5), cartridge case (1932.203.6), cap box (1932.203.7), greese box (1932.203.8), and wooden ramrod (1932.203.9).

Major Huger served with the Rutledge Mounted Riflemen of the South Carolina Militia on Morris Island. Later he accompanied the Confederate army of General Joseph E. Johnston from South Carolina into North Carolina, where he struggled to remove various Confederate ordnance stores in advance of Sherman's northbound army.