This historic revolver from 1848 features an incredibly rare double presentation inscription on the back strap reading: "Presented by Col. Seymour; Gov. of Conn. to Genl/Franklin Pierce, & by him Presented to Thos. J. Whipple." The inscription connects to three powerful and influential men within the Democratic Party in New England in the mid-19th century who all served in the 9th U.S. Infantry Regiment during the Mexican-American War and all practiced law. Pierce of course famously went on to be elected the 14th President of the United States of America, and Colonel Whipple fought again during the Civil War. This iconic revolver has been featured in several publications, including "The William M. Locke Collection" by Sellers on page 48, "Colt Engraving" by Wilson on page 27, "Fine Colts: The Dr. Joseph A. Murphy Collection" by Wilson on pages 18 and 19, "Colt Single Action: From Paterson to Peacemaker" by Adler on pages 72 and 73, and "Guns of the Civil War" by Adler on page 27. The set was awarded a silver medallion for one of the 10 best of show guns by the NRA (medal included). Collector Greg Lampe wrote that this revolver is "one of the most historically important Colt revolvers" and "the only presidential presentation known" on top of being "the finest civilian First model Dragoon in existence." It truly is an exceptional and fascinating example of Colt's powerful antebellum era "holster pistol." Very few presentation Dragoon revolvers were made, especially compared to Colt's Model 1851 Navy "belt pistols" and Model 1849 Pocket revolvers. Approximately 7,000 First Model Dragoons were produced c. 1848-1850. The revolver displays this model's distinct oval cylinder stops and squareback trigger guard as well as the V-shaped mainspring and hammer without a bearing. The barrel has a German silver blade front sight and "{ADDRESS SAML COLT NEW-YORK CITY}" marked on top reading from the breech towards the muzzle. The cylinder has the rarer "U.S. DRAGOONS" marking along with the standard "COLT'S PATENT" markings and the classic Texas Ranger and Comanche battle scene. The left side of the frame is marked "COLT'S/PATENT/U.S", and matching serial numbers are visible on the cylinder, loading lever, barrel, frame, trigger guard, and back strap. The latter features the historical inscription noted above, and it and the trigger guard are silver plated while the cylinder and barrel are blued, and the remaining metal surfaces are casehardened. The one-piece walnut grip has a varnished finish. The revolver comes in a very distinctive leather bound case fitted in the early style similar to Colt's Paterson revolvers. The case contains the distinctive combination tool, a brass ball and bullet mold with sprue cutter and "COLTS/PATENT" marked on the side, and First Model Dragoon powder flask. The combination tool was once separated from the set while in the Dr. Joseph A. Murphy Collection but was returned to the set by Greg Lampe as explained in the detailed research and provenance binder that accompanies the set. He acquired it with another revolver from Murphy's collection. The revolver is accompanied by an extensive research file as well as carte-de-visites of Pierce and Whipple and a copy of "The Illustrated Laconian."The inscription indicates the revolver was first presented by Democratic Governor Thomas H. Seymour (1807-1868, in office 1850-1853) of Connecticut to General Franklin Pierce (1804-1869). Seymour, a Hartford, Connecticut, native, was an ally of Samuel Colt. He studied at the Middletown Military Academy and then law and became a lawyer in Hartford in the 1830s and then a probate judge as well as the editor of the Jeffersonian. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843-1845 and did not run for re-election. Pierce was also a lawyer by trade and quickly moved up the ranks in state and federal politics as a New Hampshire state representative from 1829-1833, state speaker of the house in 1831-1833, congressman in 1833-1837, and senator in 1837-1842. He took particular interest in military matters. The Mexican-American War brought all three men that owned this revolver together. The United States Congress authorized additional regiments for the U.S. Army, including the 9th U.S. Infantry, sometimes known as the New England regiment. Pierce served as the unit's colonel, Seymour served as a major, and fellow New Hampshire lawyer Thomas Jefferson Whipple (1816-1889) served as Pierce's adjutant. Whipple had been educated at the Norwich Military University and previously served as an aid-de-camp to General Cook in the New Hampshire militia and formed the Wentworth Phalanx. During the war, he was captured at Vera Cruz much to the alarm of Colonel Pierce who wrote of the event in his journal: "July 8. Lieutenant T. J. Whipple, adjutant of the Ninth Infantry, was induced by curiosity to visit, with private Barnes of Manchester, the cemetery near the wall of the city - an imprudent act, especially as the audacity of the guerrillas, and their daily near approach, have been well understood. That he should have gone with a single unarmed private, and himself without arms except his sabre, is astonishing. Lieutenant Whipple was attacked by six guerrillas, and overpowered. Barnes escaped, and found me, within half an hour, at Governor Wilson's quarters. I immediately despatched a troop of cavalry in pursuit; but no trace of the miscreants has been discovered, and great alarm is felt for the safety of our gallant, but too adventurous, friend. There was in my command no braver man or better soldier than Whipple. July 12. Being informed that Adjutant Whipple's life had been spared, and that he was a prisoner with a band of guerrillas about twelve or fourteen miles from my camp, I sent a strong detachment, by night, to surprise the ranchero, and, if possible, to recover our valued friend. The village was taken, but the guerrillas had fled with their prisoner. Captain Dun, the efficient and gallant commander of cavalry, attached to my command, having been greatly exposed in an excursion in search of Whipple, is dangerously sick of vomito." Whipple was later exchanged and returned to duty. Seymour was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 12th U.S. Infantry on August 12, 1847, following his leadership during the Battle of Chapultepec, and Pierce was promoted to brigadier general on March 3, 1847, and led his brigade to reinforce General Winfield Scott. They joined Scott for the Battle of Contreras during which Pierce was wounded when his horse got out of control and fell on his leg and then injured the leg further the next day. The pain was so severe that he fainted during the Battle of Churubusco after he insisted on leading his men. He continued on through the capture of Mexico City and occupation of the capital. Afterwards, Pierce, Seymour, and Whipple returned home to New Hampshire as military heroes. Pierce and Whipple resumed their law careers and continued their friendship, and Colonel Seymour was elected governor of Connecticut in 1850 and remained Pierce's political ally. Though his wife did not want him to resume his political career, Pierce ran for president in the Election of 1852 as a Democrat against his former commander General Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate. Seymour served as an elector and endorsed Pierce, and Whipple is noted as a colonel and neighbor and friend of Pierce while supporting his run for office. Pierce officially became the 14th President of the United States on March 4, 1853, and he appointed Seymour as U.S. Minister to Russia. Northerners and southerners were included in his cabinet, including Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War. He hoped to lead during a period of peace, but Pierce's presidency is by and large considered a disaster and to have hastened the arrival of the Civil War. Even before he took office, he was faced with serious hardship. On January 6, 1854, prior to being inaugurated, he and his wife survived a train derailment during which their 11 year old son was killed. Both his wife and son had not wanted him to run for the presidency, and now his son was dead. He and Jane had already lost their first son in infancy and their third son from typhus. Adding to the losses, his vice president, William R. D. King, also died just over one month into their term. Tensions over the issue of slavery became inflamed but the addition of new territory in the West and Stephen A. Douglas's proposals for the issue of slavery in the territories to be decided by the territories' residents thus up-ending the Compromise of 1850. Instead of peace, there would be a miniature civil war as tensions from the Kansas-Nebraska act escalated into the famous Bleeding Kansas fiasco. He was not renominated as the Democratic candidate. The issue also split the Whig Party, ultimately destroying it as a national force and leading to the rise of the Republican Party. After leaving office, Pierce and his wife Jane spent three years in Madeira, Europe, and the Bahamas in an attempt to improve her health before returning home. On August 27, 1859, "The Springfield Daily Republican" of Massachusetts reported on "the steamship America, which passed Halifax on Thursday and was expected to arrive at Boston on Friday night, are ex-president Pierce of New Hampshire, and ex-governor Seymour of Connecticut. A committee of gentlemen from Hartford were in waiting at Boston on Friday for the arrival of the steamer, intending to escort Gov Seymour to his home where public ovation awaits him." Pierce and his wife were soon to head to the Bahamas in attempts to improve her health as she had long suffered from tuberculosis. The paper's reported he would first visit his friend Governor Seymour in Hartford before heading south. Once stateside, Pierce attempted to use his influence to hold the Union together to no avail and then opposed the northern war effort. During the war, he lost both his wife and his long time friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. His long time friend Thomas Jefferson Whipple felt differently about the war and quickly rose to President Lincoln's call to arms. In a speech raising troops for the Union cause he is said to have stated: "I ask no higher glory than the privilege to add my name to the long list of heroes who shall give their lives for their country in this great struggle for the Union and the Constitution," and, “As for one, I now offer my life, my property, my all, to the support and preservation of our common country.” During the beginning of the Civil War, Whipple was the lieutenant colonel of the 1st Regiment New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry and colonel of the 4th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers. His men were the first Union soldiers to land on South Carolina soil. He resigned on March 18, 1862, and then helped raise the 12th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers and was elected their colonel but was prevented from taking command. Afterwards, he returned to his law career in Laconia, New Hampshire. "Col. Thomas J. Whipple" by E. P. Jewell in "Proceedings of the Southern New Hampshire Bar Association in 1892" stated "It would take an octavo volume to present Colonel Whipple as he was, for certainly, gentlemen, he was one of the most brilliant lawyers and able men that the state of New Hampshire has ever produced." Jewell noted, "I met General Pierce, who was his intimate friend all through his life, not long before Mr. Pierce died. He said, 'From long acquaintance with Colonel Whipple, and from long acquaintance with men, I can say that he was the brightest man; and measuring him up all and all, on all sides, he was the ablest man I ever met.'" While the connections between the three men are clear, the exact circumstances of the presentations is unknown. Clearly based on the inscription the presentations took place after Seymour became governor in 1850. Given the inscription, it could be that the revolver was acquired by Seymour c. 1850 from Colt for Pierce to present to their friend and comrade-in-arms Whipple. Greg Lampe in the included binder of research theorized of a three-part presentation: "I believe that the cased set was quietly given to Gov. Seymour by Samuel Colt in early 1850 after Seymour became governor with the thought of influencing him to bestow the rank upon Colt of lieutenant colonel which did happen in May 1850. This was important to Colt as he felt it would help him win government contracts and probably did. The case is the early style as seen on the early Paterson and Baby Dragoon revolvers and dates it to this period of time along with two others that are Baby Dragoons. Seymour kept the cased set and gifted it to his friend President Pierce upon being appointed minister of Russia in 1853. Pierce kept the cased set for several years and finally gifted it to his intimate friend Thomas Whipple early in the Civil War when he was appointed a colonel in the New Hampshire Regiments. Pierce then sent the gun back to the Colt factory for the inscription as it looks much like that of the Colt factory engravers, and also had the special black leather rectangle made up with COL. T.J. WHIPPLE in gold and had it affixed to the lid making the set what it is today." In an included letter, R. L. Wilson similarly stated that the inscription "is an example of an authentic Colt factory inscription of the period" and noted that Seymour was responsible for Colt's title of Colonel and pointed out that Seymour received Colt Model 1851 Navy 23628 and Model 1849 Pocket 81015 from Colt and "It is likely that Samuel Colt was the person who gave the Dragoon no. 3969 to Colonel Seymour...for the presentation to Franklin Pierce...Seymour was active in assisting Samuel Colt in his successes, not the least of which would be the trip to Russia for the coronation of the Czar, Nicholas I, in 1856." The new Czar would have actually been Alexander II who was coronated on September 7, 1856, near the end of Pierce's presidency while Seymour was the minister to Russia. Wilson noted that the case style is one he had only seen on two other revolvers, Baby Dragoon revolvers 9969 and 14040. Provenance: Governor Thomas H. Seymour to General Franklin Pierce; President Franklin Pierce to Colonel Thomas J. Whipple; The Whipple Family; The William M. Locke Collection; The Charles Schreiner III Collection; The Warren Anderson Collection; The Dr. Joseph A. Murphy Collection; The Greg Martin Collection; The Greg Lampe Collection

Exceptionally fine with 70% plus original blue and casehardened finish with some fading from age and storage to smooth gray patina, one strip of finish absent on the back strap and otherwise 80% of the original silver plated finish remaining and displaying aged patina, distinct inscription and markings (including the cylinder scene), and generally only minor overall wear. The grip is very fine and has light scratches and dings, minor edge wear, and most of the varnish remaining. Mechanically excellent. The case and accessories are all very fine with minor wear. Overall, this is an incredible Colt First Model Dragoon. With its ties to the 9th U.S. Infantry in the Mexican-American War, Governor Seymour of Connecticut, President Franklin Pierce, and Colonel T. J. Whipple, it is certainly a fascinating and exciting presentation Colt.