Civil War Army Swords covers all swords carried by officers or enlisted men in the United States army from the 1830s until the end of the Civil War. Hundreds of handy tables list measurements and features you need to know. Identify fakes and rebuilds before you make that costly mistake! Over 2,000 detailed photographs show you the correct markings, blade etchings, grip wrappings and other small details usually left out of the pictures in sword books! Every single known manufacturer and every sword type is covered.
When combined with the author’s first book, Civil War Cavalry & Artillery Sabers, this amazing reference guide completes the story of United States swords from the period of about 1830 through the end of the United States Civil War. Includes all sword types, whether for enlisted men or officers. Also includes the best coverage of American presentation swords ever to appear in print.
Over 2,000 photographs!
EXPERT REVIEWS
“A remarkable achievement…an incalculable wealth of remarkable new information…an authoritative bounty of knowledge on American swords…certain to be the most often cited reference in its field.”
~ Norm Flayderman (author of the world renowned Flayderman’s Guide…)
Paul Vasquez –
Thillmann’s two volumes on US Army swords (vol 1 Cavalry & (mounted) Artillery 2001 and vol 2 Infantry 2008 (and everything else including Foot Artillery)) became on publication the standard reference work on the subject of Army swords from the late Federal period onwards (1833 & 1832 respectively). Volume 1 was confusingly organized by maker and more sensibly organized in this volume by model year, though good luck finding a volume 1 now that it’s out of print. The strength of the work is a hyper focus on details of original designs including all the appropriate markings from well-provenanced examples. In fact, one antique dealer told me the purchase of either volume of Thillmann pays for itself when buying swords that purport to be genuine as they can be used to definitively verify or disqualify particular swords as being typical of the era or not, though with the same caution that any tool has. The weakness of the volumes is the lack in general of full blade photos. Lack of that data leads him to say for instance: “The Model 1850 Foot Officers’ sword is almost an exact duplicate of the French Model of 1845…” (vol 2, pg 233) but that’s only true of the hilt. The M1850 blade is a Montmorency, i.e. it has a broad filler that comes to end with a point well before the end of the blade and narrow fuller towards the back of the blade that roughly spans the middle of the blade while the French 1845 has a narrow fuller that spans the entire length of the blade and a very small false edge at the tip with a broad fuller that stretches nearly to the end. The M1850 blade is thus probably based on the French 1822 light cavalry sword, see Ondry, Sabres Français 1830-1870 vol 1 pg 145 (2019) & vol 2 pg 59 (2021) but given a flat spear point. Just one example of what happens when all the data isn’t available. On just US swords though, the book is extensively documented from primary sources and of course, photos don’t lie, in that every verifiable object that survives is valuable for study. Even older books that have outdated information can be valuable if the objects depicted are photographed well enough, and Thilmann far surpasses all previous treatments (and even some after) by both information and photos. Since the time frame of the books go deeply antebellum, the market for these books is not just Civil War as the title actually says. I’m actually studying USN regulation swords and while Thilmann’s books don’t address Naval swords at all, this book is invaluable since the M1852 is quite obviously related to the M1850/1, including the Montmorency blade.