Whitneyville "Plymouth" Navy Saber Bayonet

Whitneyville "Plymouth" Navy Saber Bayonet - Inventory Number:  BAY 268

An Excellent condition rare U.S. Civil War "Plymouth" Navy Percussion Rifle bayonet in its original scabbard. This is one of 10,000 made by Eli Whitney’s manufactory, Whitneyville, based on an 1861 contract to the U.S. Navy. Five sample rifles were delivered in October 1862 and regular deliveries started in February 1863, with 5,300 delivered that year and the remaining 4,695 in 1864.This example is numbered: “8538”.

The Whitneyville "Plymouth" Navy Rifle was the brainchild of John A. Dahlgren, who began testing the idea of a .69 caliber rifle for the U.S. Navy on the 1858 voyage of the USS Plymouth, hence one of the several names applied to this rifle. Dahlgren wanted a large-caliber short rifle for shipboard use and used the French carabine-a-tige as a model. He wanted a heavy barrel to compensate for its recoil and originally had the idea of fitting it with a Bowie-knife style bayonet that would be useful has a hand-held weapon and for other shipboard tasks. A few of these were made, but it was decided that a longer Saber bayonet would be more practical.

As produced by Whitney for the Navy on a July 1861 contract, the rifle was lighter than Dahlgren envisioned and utilized this saber bayonet supplied by Collins but mounted a 34-inch .69 caliber rifled barrel secured by two bands, with a long French style rear sight graduated to 1,000 yards. This example matches the pattern exactly, was produced about halfway through production, delivered at the very end of 1863.

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Inventory Number:  BAY 268