The Shot Heard Round the World

(Battle of Concord.) Powder horn used at the Battle of Concord by Minuteman Oliver Buttrick (1775)

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire an iconic object from the birth of our nation. This powder horn is among the few existing objects that can be directly associated with the first battle for American independence.

Oliver, age eighteen, was one of seven in the Buttrick family to join with other minutemen in this historic conflict. Oliver's uncle, Major John Buttrick, led the advance at the Old North Bridge that day. Oliver was in David Brown's Company and served alongside his brother William, who was killed three weeks later at Bunker Hill. Fellow minutemen that day included Abiel Buttrick, Daniel Buttrick, Tilly Buttrick, Willard Buttrick and John Buttrick, Jr., a 14-year old fifer. This powder horn has an impeccable provenance (click for more details).

France joins the American cause!

(Valley Forge.) Maj. Nicholas Fish. Autograph letter signed to Lt. Col. Richard Varick. Camp Valley Forge, 9 May 1778

A wonderful report from Washington's encampment at Valley Forge relating the reaction to and celebration of the news that France has formed an alliance with the patriots.

the last living veterans of the Revolutionary War 

the last men of the Revolution

(Revolutionary War.) A collection of all six portraits of the last surviving veterans of the American Revolution (1864)

six albumen prints

first American artillery drill manual  

(Artillery.) A Compendious Exercise for the Garrison and Field Ordnance, as Practised in the United States (1810)

"The first official drill manual for either the American regular or militia artillery," this manual contains detailed instructions on procedures in firing and handling artillery and training soldiers in its use.

 

 

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war."

D-Day  

Associated Press. Original AP teletype reports covering the Normandy landings on D-Day.  June 6, 1944

130 ft. teletype

"Today is D-Day. Allied Armies have landed on the coast of France in the mightiest military invasion ever undertaken. Tough American parachute troops, hardened in the Italian campaign, were the first to land behind Hitler's Atlantic wall."