This classic Civil War officer's sword has a lightly curved 31 1/8 inch blade with classic martial and floral etching, "Iron Proof." above the right ricasso, and "C Roby & Co/W Chelmsford/Mass" above the left ricasso. The gilt brass hilt has "US" and floral patterns and a plain and braided wire wrapped shagreen grip. The nickeled scabbard has gilt brass fittings, and the upper band has "C. ROBY & CO./W. CHELMSFORD, MASS" and "Isaac Taylor, 3rd Minn. Vol." The National Park Service Soldiers and Sailors Database records Isaac Taylor as a second lieutenant and later captain in Company H of the 3rd Minnesota Infantry. The unit was organized at Fort Snelling, Minn. in the fall of 1861. Most of the regiment was captured near Murfreesboro by Nathan Bedford Forrest's men on July 13, 1862, when they were guarding the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad and Colonel Henry C. Lester decided to surrender rather than fight. He and the other officers who supported the surrender were dismissed. After being paroled, they fought at the Battle of Wood Lake in the Dakota War and then returned east for garrison duty and then fought in the Siege of Vicksburg and capture of Little Rock and also fought in Arkansas at the Battle of Fitzhugh's Woods. During the war, they lost just 17 men killed or mortally wounded in action, but suffered the loss of 279 to disease. Many of the latter deaths occurred while they were stationed in a swampy area at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in the summer of 1864.