Measuring 36 1/2 inches overall, with a 30 1/2 inch curved double fuller blade, etched with vinework and patriotic motifs on both sides, with the Ames address on the right. The hilt is fine gilt brass, with sculpted scrollwork filling the space between the branch and knuckle bow and a wire wrapped sharkskin grip. The scabbard is leather jacketed with gilt brass fittings, with the throat inscribed "Presented to 2nd Lt. H.A. Bachelder/by his Masonic friends/of Waterville, Me" on the obverse. While not explicitly noted by the consignor, research notes a Henry A. Bachelder as a resident of Waterville, Maine. This Bachelder is recorded as a member of the Messalonskee Lodge (#113), as well as a member of the Sergeant Wyman Post (#97) of the Grand Army of the Republic. Records additionally place Henry Bachelder as having started his military career by enlisting with the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment on a 1 year contract c.September 1862-August 1863. Later, he would join Company H, 81st U.S. Colored Infantry as a Sergeant, leaving the service at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. During his tenure with the unit, the 20th Maine was on reserve for Antietam, fought at Fredericksberg, and would see it's most famous action at Gettysburg, holding Little Round Top hill under the command of Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Fighting hard under dedicated Confederate assault, the 20th made a famous bayonet charge down the hill, disrupting an incoming attack, capturing many of the enemy and putting more in disarray; Chamberlain would later receive the Medal of Honor for leading that charge. The 81st started life as the 9th Corps de Afrique, a mixture of New Orleans freedmen and colored landowners (who were famously rejected and disarmed by Southern authorities when they offered to volunteer for Confederate service). Exact records on the wartime activity of the 81st are scant.