I recently wrote about a Confederate sword that a farmer plowed up near Hanover in 1882, nearly 20 years after it had fallen in a skirmish there.
Click here to read about sword on Forney farm.
There were probably a lot of swords around York County in the years after the Civil War, brought home as souvenirs of that dreadful conflict.
Drinking and weapons of any kind shouldn’t go together, as we can see in the following article from the October 30, 1877 Gazette. (The anonymous reporter had a rather droll sense of humor--a 19th century Mike Argento?)
“SABRE PRACTICE.--On Monday evening of last week, “Browny” Horn entered Raber and Griffith’s segar store, Market Street and Beaver, brandishing a cavalry sabre and claiming himself the ‘captain of the Michigan Guards.’ He was intoxicated and probably meant to harm no one, though the sabre was swung in rather too close proximity to persons’ heads to be safe. So, up the arrival of officers McCreary and Ruby, he was taken to the lock-up. A crowd soon gathered, as there was some resistance made to the officers.
About the time of the arrest the sabre went into the hands of Joseph Ruhl, who ran with it west of the Codorus, without doing any damage, however, but it not being known what might occur with so formidable a weapon, policeman Welsh summoned him to surrender, but upon capitulating he was allowed to retain his side arms, and marched up in company with the officer, carrying the sword on his shoulder. After that, all was quiet along the lines.”
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