The included factory letter indicates this revolver was part of a 50 gun shipment in .45 caliber with a 4 3/4 inch barrel, nickel finish, and rubber grips when shipped to Hartley & Graham in New York City on May 1, 1884. It has a blade front sight, the two-line barrel address, no visible caliber marking on the barrel, the three-line patent marking on the left side of the "black powder" frame, "45 CAL" on the left side of the trigger guard at the front, matching serial numbers on the frame and grip straps, and checkered hard rubber grips with the Rampant Colt motif embossed at the tops and "THOMAS J." (left) and "GOREE." (right) marked on the butt. The back side of the grips have "VD" (left) and "VICTOR DRAKE" (right). Drake was presumably at one time the owner of the revolver. The included Visalia Stock Saddle Co. of San Francisco floral tooled single loop holster was with the revolver when it was purchased by John R. Eckel Sr. The revolver is accompanied by the book "Longstreet's Aide: The Civil War Letters of Major Thomas J. Goree" edited by Thomas W. Cutrer and additional information on Captain Thomas Jewett "T.J." Goree (1835-1905). Goree was born in Perry County, Alabama, but moved to Texas as a boy. He met Longstreet on the boat from Galveston, Texas, to New Orleans at the beginning of the Civil War. Goree was leaving a successful law practice to join the Confederate Army, and Longstreet had recently resigned from the U.S. Army and was also en route to join the Confederacy. Goree served as Longstreet's trusted aide throughout the war and had many close scrapes but survived the ordeal essentially physically unscathed. He naturally is mentioned often in publications focused on Longstreet. Robert E. Lee is quote as telling him at Appomattox: "Captain, I am going to put my old war horse under your charge. I want you to take good care of him." With the defeat and surrender of the Confederacy, Goree took the old war horse home as instructed and then returned to his family in Texas at the Raven Hill Plantation his mother had purchased from Sam Houston and his wife Margaret in 1858. He resumed his legal career and also became a merchant and was appointed as a member of the board of directors/commissioners of the Texas State Prisons and then superintendent of the prison in Huntsville in 1877 and soon the superintendent of the state prisons. He would have been superintendent when this revolver was manufactured. In 1891, he became the general agent for the Birmingham Iron Company of New Birmingham, Texas. Two years later, he was the assistant general manager of the Texas Land & Loan Company in Galveston. He died of pneumonia on March 5, 1905, a little over a year after Longstreet died. The Galveston Daly News on March 6 indicated his remains were sent to Huntsville for burial and noted: "there were no two men who were bound together with closer ties of friendship than were those old soldiers-Longstreet and Goree." Provenance: The John R. Eckel Sr. Collection; Property of a Gentleman

Good with traces of original nickel remaining on the cylinder along with traces elsewhere and otherwise gray and brown patina, mild oxidation and pitting, and general moderate overall wear. The heavily worn grips are good and have mostly distinct checkering with some smoothing, aged coloration, and a slight flake at the toe on the left. Mechanically fine. The holster is very good with moderate wear.