Beschreibung:

32" blade etched with military motifs on both sides. Etched panel at ricasso marked in four lines, Ames Sword Co. Chicopee Mass. Gilt twisted brass wire and shagreen wrapped handle. Gilt brass pommel with shield and oak leafs. Nickel plated metal scabbard with gilt brass bands. Tip of blade has nice etched panel engraved Capt. Edward S Godfrey, "K" 7th U.S. Cavalry. Captain Godfrey is shown wearing what appears to be a M1872 Cavalry Officer's sword in the photograph section opposite p.294 in Nathaniel Philbrick's recent treatment of Little Big Horn titled The Last Stand. The illustrious military career of Edward Settle Godfrey (1843-1932) spanned nearly his entire adult life, and involved his participation in each of the major wars of the last half of the 19th century including the preeminent Battle of Little Big Horn. As a survivor of the seminal battle, Godfrey’s account, first published in Century Magazine in 1892, is still regarded as “perhaps the best by a white participant.” With the advent of the Civil War, Godfrey served briefly as a private in Co. D of the 21st Ohio Infantry before securing an appointment to West Point in 1863. He graduated into the peacetime army scattered across the Great Plains and was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 7th Cavalry in July 1867 posted to G Company at Fort Harker, Kansas. Godfrey participated in the Washita Campaign against the Cheyenne and was promoted to First Lieutenant in February 1868 transferring to Company K in 1869. The next several years were split between occupation duties in the Department of the South and scouting expeditions to Yellowstone in 1873 and the shrouded Black Hills in 1874. During the earlier foray into the holy ground of the Sioux, Godfrey recalled an inauspicious incident at Custer’s command tent that seemed — in latter years — to have foreshadowed the doomed Little Big Horn Campaign. Having just witnessed Custer’s casual desecration of a Lakota grave site, Lieutenant Godfrey and the others reported to morning officer’s call when a sudden gust of wind “whipped across his red-and-blue headquarters flag and blew it to the ground.” Godfrey quickly picked up the flag and with difficulty pushed the staff back into the hard packed earth. Immediately the wind blew the flag over again. On the third try the flag finally held — along with Godfrey’s foreboding sense of “bad medicine.” In May 1876 the 7th Cavalry formed part of General Terry’s column tasked with securing the sacred Black Hills for an influx of miners and settlers. During the “Last Stand” Lieutenant Godfrey commanded K Company and survived the "hilltop" fight with Reno’s command. Attached to Benteen's scouting party consisting of companies D, H and K, Godfrey arrived on the hilltop above the valley of the Little Bighorn to find a fluid situation, with Reno's men having arrived pell-mell from the valley floor confused and panic-stricken. As Benteen and Reno struggled to rush the trooper’s into defensive positions along the ridge of a “saucer-like depression,” Lieutenant Godfrey threw out a ragged skirmish line on the open prairie “and did his best to hold back the pursuing Indians” while buying the rest of the battalion precious time to entrench. Major Reno sent an order for Godfrey to pull back, but the lieutenant resolved to stay; otherwise, “the Indians would make sad havoc in the other companies.” Godfrey maintained firm discipline and orchestrated a fighting withdrawal while his men kept up a steady fire of .45 caliber carbine rounds that kept the Indians at bay. With another band of mounted Indians seen racing for a nearby hill, Reno recalled Godfrey “and after firing one last volley at the Indians, the soldiers of K Company sprinted for the entrenchment without having lost a man.” As these events played out the main body of Custer's 7th Cavalry was now under attack several miles away. Later in the afternoon, Reno attempted to join forces with Custer. Unbeknownst to Reno, Custer and his command