Civil war sword rack

[junkfinder530]

I friend of mine recently offered me an item he claims is a Civil war sword rack. It is about five feet long made of three wooden rods with with a wooden ball on each end it folds out and has brass hooks to hang swords on. There is an identicle one at www.johnstownhistory.blogspot.com I have been unable to find any other information on it and cant find any original photos showing one. My question is, Is this really a sword rack, does anyone have any period photos with one and how rare is this item???

[Patriot]

I have never heard of such a thing. Aside from the USN, swords were not stored on racks. They were private purchase items, and each sword would have been cared for and stored by the officer who owned it. In the case of the USN, cutlasses were kept onboard on racks, but were designed to hold dozens of such cutlasses.

[Spathologist]

I have never heard of such a thing. Aside from the USN, swords were not stored on racks. They were private purchase items, and each sword would have been cared for and stored by the officer who owned it. In the case of the USN, cutlasses were kept onboard on racks, but were designed to hold dozens of such cutlasses.

 

Well, no.

 

Cavalry and mounted artillery were issued sabers, and those sabers were stored in racks when not issued out. What did they look like? I don't know for sure. I always assumed they were something like those found in the Springfield Armory Museum. Weapons racks are not common items; they are discarded when the weapons they were designed to hold are taken out of inventory, and they rarely serve well for anything other than storing the weapons they were designed to hold.

 

The "rack" on that blog looks, to me, more like something a trooper would use in the field to hang his gear and not something you'd find for storage in a unit armory.