** Photos Added ** My Inherited Spencer

[dklieberman]

Hello all
A few weeks ago I inherited a really cool Spencer Carbine 1860 model .
I was told the following story about how my wife's family got  it .
My father in laws uncles  great grandfather was a kid living on a farm we think in Indiana .
He was playing and working on the farm one day and union solders were marching by the farm . The young boy ran to the road to watch the solders march by to find out the war was over and they were marching home .
As one solder on a horse marched by he looked at the boy and said " the war is over boy, I wont be needing this anymore " and handed the gun to the boy ( great grandfather ).
I wanted to also thank Two Flints for his help in finding out more history on the Spencer . The SN is 44,096 which it looks like puts it in the 3rd Iowa Calvary regiment Company G .  Two Flints is also nice enough to post picture of the gun that I sent him .
There is also a small O or backward C and J carved into the butt ? which has got me wondering if those are initials of someone who used it ?







Thanks
David L

[RoosterG]

Hi and greeting from the land across The Pond.

There is a wealth of information available on the internet re: 3rd IOWA Cavalry,  including names of all those who served. I even found Oliver Joseph and I'm certain there are other 'C or O J's.
You may also be interested in obtaining a copy of this book, available from Amazon and elsewhere.

Cavalrymen of the Third Iowa: Enoch Hunter and the Third Iowa Cavalry 1861-1865

Good luck with research.