Some history regarding these S&W No.2 revolvers.
Once the Civil War began in 1861, Smith & Wesson began producing the Model No. 2 Revolver in .32 rimfire long caliber. This gun became so popular with soldiers it was nicknamed the Army, also known by collectors as the Old Army. It is considered “the most advanced of the United States manufactured revolvers to see substantial service during the Civil War.” One of the main reasons for its popularity was that it required only twenty-five seconds to load. Two minutes and ten seconds were required to do the same with a Colt revolver. Before production was discontinued in 1874, 77,155 of these revolvers had found their way into the hands of soldiers, sailors, lawmen, and outlaws, thereby establishing Smith & Wesson as a major weapons producer.
Because a special cartridge was required, the U.S. War Department refused to purchase Smith & Wesson’s Number 2.
Some of the more famous owners of the Number 2 were major, future general, and later President of the United States Rutherford B. Hayes; Civil War general and future 7th Cavalry Commander George Armstrong Custer; and legendary gunman Wild Bill Hickok, who reportedly was carrying one of his Old Army revolvers on him when he was killed by Jack McCall in Deadwood’s Saloon on August 2, 1876. Names of lesser-known officers, soldiers, and civilians were hand-engraved into countless back straps, ivory grips, or side panels, but most owners remain lost to history. However, such is not the case with the Old Army revolvers.
An infamous S&W No.2 in Canadian history.
Serial number 50847 was used to assassinate Thomas Darcy Mcgee.
Going, going, gone to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. With the rap of an auctioneer's hammer, the Smith & Wesson six-shot revolver reputedly used in Canada's only political assassination was sold for $105,000 yesterday and is heading back to the National Capital Region, where it was seized 137 years ago.
"It's nice that it's going back to Ottawa, it's an important piece of Canadiana," said Kemptville auctioneer Eugene Ursual, who placed the winning bid on behalf of the museum, located in Gatineau, Que., just across the Ottawa River from Parliament.
"Now it's preserved for history."
The .32-calibre pistol believed to have dispatched Thomas D'Arcy McGee -- an Irish expatriate and father of Confederation -- with a single shot in 1868 wasn't just any old murder weapon. Its 28-year-old owner, Patrick James Whelan, said it wasn't a murder weapon at all, and went to the gallows bitterly protesting his innocence.
Thickening the mystery, the pulverized bullet that lodged in the door frame of Mr. McGee's Ottawa home, after piercing the back of his head and taking out some teeth along the way, has been mislaid.
Unsophisticated ballistic checks in 1973 connected revolver and bullet, but a recent inquiry to the Ontario Archives found that the keepers of the precious slug are unsure exactly where it is.
What seems certain is that the weapon auctioned off yesterday at a Hamilton hotel did belong to Mr. Whelan -- a Fenian sympathizer dubbed "The Tailor with the Red Whiskers" during his sensational murder trial -- and that he had it in his pocket, fully loaded, when police arrested him 24 hours after Mr. McGee was felled.
Equally beyond dispute is that the murder of the outspoken Mr. McGee, MP for Montreal West, was a major event. With no witnesses to the killing on the doorstep of his Sparks Street rooming house, a $2,000 reward for information was posted the day he died.
Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald was among those who helped rush the dying Mr. McGee to hospital. His huge funeral, held on his 43rd birthday just nine months after Confederation, was the first state funeral held in the new Dominion of Canada.
Mr. Whelan's execution, carried out in a snow storm at Ottawa's Carleton County Jail, was another milestone: Canada's last public hanging. (He was buried in an anonymous grave on the grounds and his ghost is said to haunt the old jail, now a youth hostel.)
"McGee's death had the same effect on Canada that the Lincoln assassination did in America," said Wendy Hoare of Jeffrey Hoare Auctions Inc., which organized yesterday's auction. "It tended to unite the country."
A reformed Irish nationalist who became a passionate advocate of Canadian unity, Mr. McGee was already a fixture in public life when he was slain.
Poet, journalist and compelling orator, his disdain for his former Fenian comrades was the core of the prosecution's case against Mr. Whelan during the eight-day trial, which Mr. Macdonald attended every day.
Mr. Whelan consistently denied committing the murder, but before he was hanged he admitted knowing "the man who shot McGee," while refusing to name him.
And in a further twist, the Catholic, nationalist-leaning Mr. Whelan was defended at trial by a very different type of Irish expatriate -- Toronto lawyer John Hillyard Cameron, a Protestant and Grand Master of the Orange Lodge, well-known for its hatred of all things Fenian.
Whatever Mr. Cameron's motives, he failed in his task as defence counsel. Mr. Whelan was convicted chiefly on the basis of an incriminating, post-arrest conversation he had with another prisoner.
Until yesterday, Mr. Whelan's gun -- serial number 50847 -- belonged to auto mechanic Scott Renfrew of Dundalk, Ont. He could not be reached for comment, but Ms. Hoare said the pistol had been with one family for more than 100 years, handed down between generations.
And despite speculation the auction might attract well-heeled American gun-lovers willing to pay top dollar for the historic pistol and whisk it south, Mr. Ursual said it appeared all four bidders were Canadian.
The lack of U.S. interest may have been a boon for the victorious Museum of Civilization, which will place Mr. Whelan's six-shooter on display: Mr. Ursual said he had only been authorized to go as high as $100,000.
As for the extra $5,000, he said, "I think we can work it out."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/d-arcy-mcgee-assassin-s-gun-for-sale-1.520540
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_J._Whelan
I like this holster---it is not mine.
This is the No.2 with explanation.
