Civil War Saber with Carved Ivory Handle, Eagle Head, and Leather Scabbard

This saber belonged to Captain Charles E. Denison of Illinois, an engineer in the 18th U.S. Infantry. Charles was badly wounded at the Battle of Murfreesboro in Tennessee; it is a testament to the horrible dangers of infection in those pre-penicillin days. The Homestead owns a letter from his commanding officer to his wife dated January 12, 1863, which says that he has had a leg amputated but is doing well, and another dated January 16, breaking “the melancholy intelligence” of his death. In the letter, the commanding officer carefully notes that Charles has been buried in a newly constructed cemetery close to the battlefield. Transporting or properly burying bodies was an enormous problem during the Civil War; Charles’s family was apparently eventually able to move his body home to Peoria, Illinois, where he now has a plot in Springdale Cemetery.