Description

Colt Model 1862 Police Revolver;  Engraved and Silver-Plated

The presentation case contains the revolver, a tin of percussion caps, a bullet mold, an L-shaped nipple wrench, an eagle & shield powder horn, and two cartridge boxes.

The barrel is 5.5 inches and the caliber is .36.  By National Rifle Association standards, the condition is Excellent.

Serial number:  21548

The inscription on the grips reads:  Presented to B. B. French, ESQ ~ Comr. Of Public Buildings ~ by his friend S. Strong.  The grips are ivory and growth rings can be seen in the lower right quadrant of the butt.  (click here).

The revolver has been in the French family for 143 years and is owned by Major French's Great, Great Grandson:  Benjamin Brown French > Benjamin Brown French, Jr. > Charles Francis French > Emily French Hazen > Burchard Miller Hazen, Jr.

Benjamin Brown French

Born:  Chester, New Hampshire, 1800

Died:  Washington, DC, 1870

Clerk of the House of Representatives, 1833-1845,

President,  Magnetic Telegraph Company in association with Samuel B. Morse, 1847

Commissioner of Public Buildings, Washington, D.C. 1853-1855 and 1861-1867.

Masonic Lodge 15, Wisconsin Avenue, Washington, DC, is named for Major French.

Major French's nephew, Daniel Chester French, is the sculptor of The Minute Man, in Minute Man National Historical Park, Concord, Massachusetts, and of the President, in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

 

Excerpt from The Library of Congress

Major French made the acquaintance of twelve Presidents from Andrew Jackson to Ulysses S. Grant, but it was Lincoln to whom he was most devoted.

One of his duties as Commissioner of Public buildings was to attend semi-weekly White House receptions and introduce (the Lincolns) to visitors. When Willie Lincoln died on February 20, 1862, French was called upon to make the funeral arrangements.

At Gettysburg, he was on the speakers stand when Lincoln dedicated the National Cemetery, he wrote a hymn that was sung at the ceremony, and, in April 1865, he stood (armed with this Colt revolver) at the dying President's bedside.

The letter accompanying the French Colt

Washington City

September 17^th 1863

B. B. French, Esq.

Dear Sir-

Accompanying this letter you will find a small memento from your old friend, Samuel Strong which please accept as a token of his friendship and his high appreciation of you as a Citizen and gentlemen.

Your life and Character is such that you will not need its use among those by whom you are known, but should you be assailed and even good men like you are liable to be assailed, may it do you the same service as your own known good Character does you when assailed by designing men for their own selfish purposes.

Yours Truly,

Samuel Strong

Heart-stopping . . .

Excerpt from the U.S. Library of Congress:  In this heart-stopping letter to his son, Francis (Frank) French, in the week following Lincoln's assassination, Benjamin French recounts his confrontation with John Wilkes Booth (under the Capitol Dome where the President later lay in state) on Lincoln's inauguration day, March 4th, 1865. Beginning on the bottom of page two, he writes: (Click here)

President Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address, March 4th, 1865.

Ponder the alternative to the above U.S. Capitol scene, had Mr. French not expelled John Wilkes Booth from the inaugural procession.

Witness to the Young Republic

The French Journals were published in 1989 by The University Press of New England.  The Colt revolver is mentioned several times in the book.  Three reviews follow:

"Benjamin Brown French lived in Washington during nearly forty of the most fateful years of American History.  He knew Lincoln well and was at his bedside when he died.   French helped arrange the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg; his description of the events there including Lincoln's address is the best we have."   —  James M. McPherson author of Battle Cry of Freedom.

“French knew almost everybody and was interested in almost everything; and his journal provides a shrewd, lively and most entertaining trip through American life from J. Q. Adams and Jackson to Lincoln and Grant.” — Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. author of A thousand Days.

"This unique and important journal is a magnificent sweep across American history from the Age of Jackson through the Civil War and Reconstruction.  Not since the publication of Martin Van Buren's Autobiography in 1920 has the country possessed a single volume that sheds as much light and provides more insightful comments on the personalities, events, manners, and political ideology of ante-bellum America."   —  Robert V. Remini author of The Course of American Democracy.

The  Capitol

As Commissioner of Public Buildings, French oversaw the construction of the dome atop the nation's capitol and of the erection of the statue Freedom atop the dome.

The Capitol Dome under construction

The bronze leaves on the document (right, above), which commemorates the completion of the dome, are from the old capitol building, construction of which started in 1793. 

President Lincoln and Major French signed this document two days after the inauguration and the month before the assassination.

~~~~~~

But in February 1863, after a meeting with the president, French wrote ominously of the signs of strain on the president and described him as "growing feeble" and with a hand that "trembled as I never saw it before."

French told him that he should get some rest, and the president replied that "it was a pretty hard life."(29)

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

Gettysburg

The dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery in November 1863 was a signal event in French’s life. He served as an aide to the marshal-in-chief, and sat on the speaker’s platform with the other invited dignitaries.

After Edward Everett’s oration, the Baltimore Glee Club sang a "Consecration Hymn" that had been composed by French for the occasion after several prominent poets (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others) had declined the honor.(30)

"As soon as my hymn was sung, Marshal Lamon introduced the President of the United States, who, in a few brief, but most appropriate words, dedicated the cemetery. Anyone who saw & heard as I did, the hurricane of applause that met his every movement at Gettysburg would know that he lived in every heart."

~~~~~~

Abraham Lincoln (center), at Gettysburg. Marshal Ward Hill Lamon, who served as The President's bodyguard, stands at Lincoln's left.

(Entire photograph)

~~~~~~

"We have supped full with horrors"

French woke at his usual time, just before dawn, and was confused to see the streetlights-normally extinguished by 3:00 a.m.-still burning outside his window. Alarmed further to find a sentinel posted in front of his house, French ran to the front door, where a passing soldier informed him that Lincoln had been shot.

He dressed immediately and, pocketing his loaded pistol, hurried to the Capitol and ordered it closed and locked up.

He then rushed to the home on Tenth Street where the president lay mortally wounded. The commissioner scarcely recognized Lincoln due to his badly swollen face and knew from the labored breathing that he would not survive.

French later starkly recorded 7:22 a.m. as the time of death.

After a few minutes he moved to the next room to console Mrs. Lincoln, who reached up from the sofa and grasped his hand "and wrung it in an agony of grief."  

Later that morning, French watched as the president’s remains were carried into the mansion and removed, "all limp and warm," from the temporary coffin for funereal preparations. He spent more time with a grieving Mrs. Lincoln, then emerged and directed that the mansion be draped in mourning and prepared for the occasion.

Toward the day's end he turned to his journal and wrote:  "We have supped full with horrors."

~~~~~

"Now he belongs to the ages"  Edwin Stanton, April 15, 1865

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Under The Dome

"I was with the President’s remains most of the time," he wrote to his son Frank, "and felt responsible for many of the arrangements ...."

After the funeral services at the White House on April 19, the president’s remains were borne to the Capitol, which Major French had also directed be draped in mourning.

The pallbearers placed the president’s casket in the center of the rotunda on a catafalque designed by French and built by his son, Ben.  (That catafalque is used to this day, most recently for the caskets of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.)

There Lincoln rested, under the magnificent white dome that he had seen through to completion despite the strife of civil war.

~~~~~

Sculptor:  Daniel Chester French

( Close-ups of  the  French  Colt )

Burr Hazen can be reached at burrze@yahoo.com