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INDIAN USED MODEL 1877
.45/70 SPRINGFIELD TRAPDOOR CARBINE – TACKED WITH A
CLASSIC APPEARANCE - PUBLISHED WITH LONG TERM PROVENANCE
– EXCELLENT SPECIMEN OF AN INDIAN USED CARBINE:
This Model 1877 Springfield Trapdoor Carbine presents
with a great appearance, and exhibits strong evidence of
having been carried by a Native American warrior.
Featured in Guns of the Western Indian Wars,
by R. Stephen Dorsey, and obtained directly from the
author’s permanent research collection after his
passing, this is the very epitome of an Indian used gun
which conjures up images of desperate close quarter
clashes, thundering buffalo chased by mounted hunters,
and the endless horizons of the yet untamed Western
Frontier.
No doubt exposed to heavy
use, and exhibiting the effects of having been subjected
to a fire, this carbine was obviously carried during the
active and violent years of the Indian Wars era. The
stock is charred over the majority of the butt stock and
the area around and in front of the lock area, and to a
lesser degree around the wrist. How this carbine came
to suffer the fire damage is lost to history, however
the characteristics of the burned surfaces do provide
some suggestions as to where in the chronology of the
carbine’s life it occurred.
The burned surfaces are
polished smooth, with no soot or charring rubbing off
when the carbine is handled, indicating that this
carbine was carried and handled for a considerable
amount of time after it was exposed to the fire. The
areas of the stock which would have received the most
handling such as the forearm, the wrist, and the flats
of the butt are polished to the point of appearing as
black glass, with even the open ends of the exposed
grain being worn down.
It’s hard to imagine that a
soldier, frontiersman, or even an outlaw or border
ruffian would have carried such a heavily damaged
firearm when they could have replaced the stock or
acquired a long gun in better condition. Only someone
with no alternative to turn to and no access to a
replacement would have considered using this carbine
after it was damaged to this extent – such as an Indian
striving to survive while he and his family were
enveloped in a state of war.
The stock is decorated with
a small number of cast brass square shanked tacks,
applied sparingly to areas and in the manner seen on
honest, period decorated tacked guns – not the excessive
and impractical application of handfuls of tacks that
modern “gun sweeteners” are prone to add.
Interestingly, the tacks appear to have been applied
after the carbine was burned, suggesting two points of
consideration – that the Indian who tacked this carbine
regarded even this burned stock highly enough to warrant
decorating it, and secondly, that he intended to
continue to use the carbine “as is”, worthy of the cost
and the effort to apply the tacks. This was not a
temporary possession until something better came along –
he valued this carbine, perhaps as a trophy of battle
that he captured and of more meaningful value to him
than one with a complete stock.
While no original
documentation survived with this carbine, the trail of
its ownership in collections has been documented back to
the period of the 1960’s, with a letter of provenance
from the last owner. Dorsey recorded in a letter which
will accompany this sale that he purchased this carbine
in the 1980’s from the previous owner’s estate. Prior
to his death in 1984, that owner had related that he had
purchased the carbine many years before from the Ft.
Sill, Oklahoma museum collection. I have spoken to
older collectors since and they recalled a sale of
artifacts from the Ft. Sill museum sometime in the
1960’s or 1970’s.
Such a sale of museum
artifacts is almost unimaginable in today’s world,
however I encountered a similar situation in the early
1970’s while attending one of the large gun shows in
Salt Lake City, Utah. While wandering the show, I came
across a cluster of tables some five or six tables in
length, stacked like cord wood with old, heavily used
long guns, all in heavily used condition and many of
them with primitive repairs and decorated with brass
tacks. The memory of what was stacked on those tables
haunts me still, as I was in college at the time and had
virtually no money to spend on such “foolishness” as old
guns. Standing behind the table was a young man,
dressed in the standard khaki and green National Parks
Service uniform and his expression left no doubt he
regarded his assignment as a punishment detail. When I
asked about the guns, he related with some frustration
that he’d been given a vehicle, a trailer full of these
guns which had been cleaned out of the storage area at
the Little Big Horn monument, some expense money, and a
schedule of gun shows, and told to hit the road and
don’t come back until all the guns were sold. He had
been provided with no guidance as to pricing, so suffice
it to say I could have cleaned off those tables for a
few hundred dollars – seriously, most were priced in the
$20-50 range. So before you dismiss the origin of this
carbine from the Ft. Sill museum collection, rest
assured I can attest to the fact that such sales could –
and most certainly did – happen.
This carbine has retained
all of the correct Model 1877 features (with the 1879
improvements applied by the Springfield Armory) to
include: the V/P/Eagle/p proof marks on the barrel at
the breech, the third style hammer, the undated lock
plate fitted with the three position tumbler, the smooth
trigger, the barrel band without the stacking swivel and
stamped with the large “U”, the short wristed stock, and
the three holes in the butt stock for storing the
sectioned cleaning rod and the ruptured case extractor.
The square “SWP” dated cartouche applied to the left
side of the stock is still visible; however the
individual characters are not distinct, the result of
constant wear and heavy use. With some study and
imagination, one can make out a portion of the date
numerals and it appears to be dated 1881, consistent
with the above itemized features. The area of the stock
where the circled P proof stamp would have been applied
below the rear tang of the trigger guard was lost when
the stock was burned. Both the original front and rear
sights are present. The rear sight is the 1st
Pattern Model 1879 Rear Sight, made without the sighting
notch in the sight leaf base, and the sight is mounted
with slotless screws. From all appearances, this
carbine has retained all of its original fittings
(except for the butt plate) and other than the naturally
occurring wear and the effects of the fire, has not been
modified or changed in any way since it left the
Springfield Armory, was shipped west, and eventually
fell into the hands of the Indian who carried it.
The mechanical lock and
trigger function is very crisp, the breech block locks
up tight, and the firing pin is still functional –
fairly remarkable considering the use to which this
carbine was subjected to. Obviously the Indian who
carried it depended on it to function properly and he
took measures to maintain the mechanics. The bore is
again, fairly remarkable in its condition. It is
overall dark, with some scattered spots of light pitting
which is more concentrated at the muzzle; however the
rifling is still present throughout the length of the
bore and surprisingly distinct. Certainly the rifling
is strong enough for accuracy with the soft lead bullets
of the period in which this carbine was used. The metal
surfaces are as one expects to see on an Indian-used
gun, with scattered pitting worn mostly smooth with the
constant handling, and an even undisturbed overall brown
finish which attests to the years of exposure, wear and
rough handling it was subjected to in a harsh
environment and violent era.
The stock obviously shows
the most dramatic degree of wear, having been burned to
the point of losing a considerable amount of wood,
however the stock is not weakened and it is still
serviceable – the carbine obviously used to good affect
long after the stock was burned. The wood shows no
signs of having been sanded, refinished, or subjected to
any repairs or alterations since the period of its
historical use, and it has a pleasing patina, with a
nice even rich color.
This carbine presents as it
has survived for many years with no effort to improve or
enhance it beyond what it is – a heavily used Model 1877
Springfield Carbine which was certainly carried by a
Native American warrior while he was still free on the
plains and in the mountains of the American West. If
you hesitate on this one, trust me – it will be one that
haunts you as the one that got away for years to come.
(0924) $8550
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