DESIRABLE ALABAMA OFFICER'S INSCRIBED SWORD MADE BY CONNING OF MOBILE, ALABAMA 

Field & staff officer's sword. Mobile, Alabama: James Conning. Underneath the washer is the stamped number "213." Approx. 36 1/2 in., blade approx. 31 in. 

Complete with leather scabbard. Stamped on the locket and second plate holding the suspension ring is the number "226." Additionally engraved on the locket is "Made by / James Conning / Mobile" on one side and "F.M. Jones" on the other. 

2nd Lieutenant F.M. Jones is recorded as serving with the 23rd Alabama Infantry during the war. The 23rd Alabama Infantry was organized at Montgomery in November 1861 from companies drawn from Wilcox, Macon, Monroe, Clarke, Conecuh, Marengo, Lowndes, Baldwin, and Choctaw Counties. After first serving at Mobile, where disease took a heavy toll, the regiment was sent west to Tennessee and Kentucky before being transferred in late 1862 to Tracy’s Brigade in the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana. It then saw some of the hardest fighting in the western theater, including Chickasaw Bayou, Port Gibson, Champion Hill, Big Black River Bridge, and the siege of Vicksburg, where the regiment was captured with the garrison in July 1863. Exchanged and reorganized, it rejoined the field in Pettus’s Brigade of the Army of Tennessee, fought through the Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns, marched with Hood into Tennessee, and finally ended the war in North Carolina, surrendering in April 1865 after being reduced to only a small remnant of its original strength.

Born in New York, Conning relocated to Mobile, Alabama, in the 1840s, where he established himself as a silversmith and merchant dealing in watches, jewelry, silver, and other “fancy goods,” while also offering repair services. With the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, he expanded into the trade in military goods, though it was not until the Civil War that he began producing swords in earnest. During that period, he entered into a brief partnership with the German-born sword maker Jacob Faser. The arrangement proved short-lived, lasting only about a year, from 1861 to 1862, as the two men were said to have quarreled frequently. As a result, swords produced under Conning’s name from this collaboration are today exceptionally rare survivals of Confederate wartime manufacture.

Note: This lot cannot be packaged and shipped in-house. Successful bidders winning items marked as being packaged and shipped by a third-party service are responsible for paying the third party directly. We are happy to offer complimentary drop-off service to local third-party packing/shipping companies in Columbus, Ohio.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Swords, Knives, Bowie Knives, Knife, Blades]