It’s incredibly rare, it’s from the US Navy, it’s a key piece of the origin story for the longest serving, most produced military sidearm in world (not American, WORLD) history… and it’s in the collection of your Mariners’ Museum and Park!

When President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the entire southern coastline, the US Navy only had 93 warships, and almost half of these were outdated or unusable. So, the US Navy went on a buying spree purchasing every steamer that could mount cannons. One of these vessels was the St. Mary which was soon commissioned as USS Hatteras.

In less than 60 years after the end of the Civil War, the city of Newport News was internationally known as a shipbuilding center with excellent port facilities.

Nearly 75 years ago, the deck of battleship USS Missouri bore witness to the end of World War II.

During the American Revolution the Americans had a fledgling Navy, made up of the small fleets that each state could muster together. These ships were not able to match the well-trained, battle-hardened British Navy, so the Americans turned to privateers to help in the fight.

On June 28, 1861, the Union’s first charge of Confederate piracy since the Civil War erupted took place in the Potomac River when the passenger steamer St. Nicholas was captured.

Matthew Calbraith Perry guided the US Navy’s transition from sail to steam and shot to shell. It was he who recognized how these new tools would ensure the Navy’s ability to project American trade and power throughout the world.

While it was ever so critical for the Confederacy to maintain control of New Orleans, events elsewhere, especially in Tennessee, resulted in the city having inadequate defenses and naval support. 

When the Civil War erupted, Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Russell Mallory knew that the South could only counter and defeat the larger US Navy if ironclads were employed.