A notarized statement from James T. Tevlin in 2022 states that this revolver was passed down through his family. He states: "The revolver was obtained by an infantry Captain of the US Army and given to Mr Peter Brady of the US Army. Mr Brady willed the gun to his daughter Mrs. J J Tevlin in 1915 upon his death. After the death of Mrs. JJ Tevlin in 1951 the gun was willed to her son Thomas C. Tevlin. Upon his death in 1989 the gun was willed to his son James T. Tevlin. The items consisting of the Smith & Wesson Model 3 Revolver with serial number 4490, the leather belt with holster, cartridges and two newspaper articles are solely owned by myself: James T. Tevlin." The two newspaper articles from 1936 are included and state much of the same origin information as Tevlin's letter and note that the gun was passed down by Peter Brady to Mrs. J.J. Tevlin. A factory letter from Smith & Wesson historian Roy Jinks to James T. Tevlin is also included. It largely provides the basic information on this model and does not provide additional information on the current revolver but notes, "It is impossible to provide a value on this revolver without an idea of the type of documentation which can substantiate that it came from Sitting Bull's house. I can also provide the names of individuals, including myself, who would be interested in this gun once the value is established." A letter from Jinks to Tevlin instructing him on what he would need to know in order to provide him information on the revolver itself is also included. In addition to the two article clippings included with the revolver, other newspaper articles from 1936 also discussed this revolver, and their story and wording are largely the same as the included articles as well as Tevlin's statement. For example, the La Cross Tribune on September 29, 1936, ran an article titled "Gun Which Ended Life Of Sitting Bull Collector's Prize" which stated "A .44 caliber six-shooter, credited with being the weapon that ended the life of the recalcitrant Sitting Bull, last of the great Indian chieftains of the northwest, is among the treasured possessions of Mrs. John J. Tevlin" of Staples, Minnesota. "The heavy revolver was the pride of Mrs. Tevlin's father, the late Peter Brady, who died in 1915. It was given him by a captain of the United States army before Brady's discharge from service...The revolver was obtained by an infantry captain who turned the weapon over to Brady. The gun measured a foot in length, holds six cartridges and is carried in a heavy leather holster. The gun carries the manufacturer's number 4490 and was made in Springfield, Mass. Other relics kept by the family include a cane with a concealed sword and the parchment promotion and discharger papers for Mr. Brady. The papers show that he served from 1871 to 1884." The latter detail, if accurate, contradicts the earlier claim that the revolver was given to Brady before he discharged from the service given that Sitting Bull was killed in 1890. The revolver is a classic commercial Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Third Model Russian revolver with a nickel plated finish. It has an integral rounded blade front sight on the barrel rib. The latter is marked with the one-line address and patent marking ending in "REISSUE JULY 25, 1871" rather than the "RUSSIAN MODEL" marking. The barrel latch has the notch rear sight. The latch, barrel, cylinder, butt, and right grip are all marked with the matching serial number "4490." The butt also features a lanyard loop, "1874," and a small "P." The belt is approximately 41 inches and has 21 large cartridge loops. The "US" flap holster has a Watervliet Arsenal stamp on the back. Twenty-five U.M.C. .44 Smith & Wesson Russian cartridges are also included. The death of Sitting Bull was a tragedy and was followed by one of the most infamous massacres in the history of the American West. In 1890, he was nearly 60 years old. He famously was one of the leaders of the Lakota at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, one of the most significant Native American victories in history, but, after the battle, he and his followers fled to Canada in exile before returning to the U.S. impoverished and starving in 1881 and surrendering his Winchester carbine to the U.S. Army. He was held as a prisoner of war until the spring of 1883. In the mid-1880s Sitting Bull traveled the country as part of Wild West shows, including Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and became a celebrity like other Native Americans before him such as Sauk leader Black Hawk who was taken on a tour of the East a half-century earlier under the orders of President Andrew Jackson. Showing Native American leaders the size and power of the U.S. government by having them tour the great cities of the East was long part of U.S. efforts to end Native American resistance. When Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency, however, he was again in tension with government officials over conditions on the reservations and the selling of land. He advised his people to resist having their land be taken yet again. In 1890, the tensions that led to Sitting Bull's death originated in part from what was originally a religious movement meant to bring peace to the West: the Ghost Dance Movement started in 1889 by Wovoka, a Northern Paiute spiritual leader in Nevada. Wovoka had called for peaceful relations between all people under the Christian God and claimed that Jesus would return in 1892 and the living and the dead would be reunited. The people should live in peace and perform the Ghost Dance to ensure their eternal happiness. As the movement spread, different peoples interpreted the message differently. Many of the Lakota, for example, believed or at least hoped that the Ghost Dance would ultimately rid the whites from their lands and bring back the buffalo and other game that they had long relied on. Some believed that the whites would be washed away from the continent in a great flood, earthquake, and landslide. This movement combined with government actions that imperiled the Lakota as a nation and their survival to create renewed hostility between the Lakota and the U.S. military. As was common throughout the 19th century, in early 1890, the U.S. government violated a treaty with the Lakota and began breaking up the Great Sioux Reservation into smaller reservations, attempting to force the Lakota to live on private holdings as families rather than tribes or bands, sending children away to boarding schools to strip them of their culture and teach them Euro-American ways in order to assimilate the Lakota and ensure peace, and selling off "surplus" Lakota land to white settlers. In addition to these injustices, the land the Lakota lived on was not suited to farming which led to a food crisis. Faced with further loss of their ancestral lands, starvation, and the loss of their children, many Lakota were naturally drawn to the Ghost Dance Movement which not only might provide a solution to life in the present but also the salvation of their people for eternity. Many government agents and settlers did not understand the Ghost Dance movement and feared that the Lakota were preparing for war. In response, the U.S. Army was sent to the Lakota reservations to attempt to force the Lakota to end the Ghost Dance. U.S. Indian Agent James McLaughlin stationed at Fort Yates sent the Indian Police, including relatives of Sitting Bull, to arrest the Hunkpapa Lakota leader to prevent him from leaving the reservation and potentially stirring up a revolt. Lieutenant Henry Bullhead was ordered to arrest Sitting Bull quickly and quietly at dawn on December 15, 1890, before Sitting Bull could escape. 43 men, 39 of them Indian Police officers, arrived at Sitting Bull's home between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. Exactly what happened during the arrest varies from account to account. It seems Sitting Bull was initially cooperative and considered going away peaceably, but Hunkpapa Lakota men loyal to Sitting Bull were also alerted during the arrest and came to his aid. They did not initially attack until Sitting Bull began resisting arrest and was being forcibly removed by the police. Catch-the-Bear, one of Sitting Bull's men, shot Lt. Bullhead with a rifle. Bullhead in turn shot Sitting Bull with a revolver before falling. A second officer, Red Tomahawk, also fired with a revolver hitting Sitting Bull again once or twice. Both Bullhead's and Red Tomahawk's shots would have been fatal by all accounts. Soon both sides were exchanging fire and fighting hand-to-hand. By the time Sitting Bull's supporters fled, a total of eighteen men were killed. In addition to Bullhead who was shot multiple times and mortally wounded, seven other police officers were killed in the fight along with nine of Sitting Bull's men, including one of his sons and one of his brothers, slain by members of their own tribe in government uniforms. The remains of Sitting Bull, arguably the most famous Native American leader of the 19th century, were taken away and buried at Fort Yates. Conflicting reports of the battle were soon being reported across the country. For example, The Washburn Leader on December 27, 1890, called Sitting Bull's camp "the most vicious element of the Sioux" and claimed he was preparing to start a "prolonged and bloody Indian War." Their article called the Lakota men killed "probably the eight worst men in the tribe" and indicated that Red Tomahawk had taken a revolver given to Sitting Bull by Mrs. Weldon of Brooklyn (Caroline Weldon) while they were arresting Sitting Bull and that it was this revolver that Red Tomahawk shot Sitting Bull with. Bullhead and the other police officers were presumably armed mainly with Remington Model 1875 Army revolvers and Springfield trapdoors. Weldon had come to the reservation out of a desire to help the Lakota in the late 1880s as a member of the National Indian Defense Association and painted portraits of Sitting Bull in 1890, including one with a Winchester rifle in his hands. In "Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull" by Eileen Pollack, the author notes regarding reports of Weldon giving Sitting Bull a revolver, "If Weldon did give the chief a gun, it vanished in the pandemonium." Reports from the scene reported that Sitting Bull's body had been horribly mutilated and most of his effects were looted. Unfortunately no details on the specifics of the revolver Red Tomahawk is said to have taken from Sitting Bull have been found. The Chicago Tribune on December 16, 1890, reported that "The President [Benjamin Harrison] said that he had regarded Sitting Bull as the great disturbing element in his tribe and now that he was out of the way he hoped that a settlement of the difficulties could be reached without further bloodshed." That was not to be the case. Many of the Hunkpapa Lakota fled in fear to join with Spotted Elk and the Minicojou Lakota and together they then sought shelter with the Oglala Lakota under Red Cloud who had previously successfully fought the U.S. Army in the late 1860s. On December 28, 1890, the combined Lakota bands informed the U.S. Army that they would surrender rather than fight and were escorted by the U.S. 7th Cavalry to a site near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge reservation. The 7th Cavalry had long since rebuilt its strength after the disaster at Little Bighorn. The following morning, the camp was surrounded by the cavalry, and Hotchkiss guns were in place to fire down upon the camp. Troopers moved to disarm the Lakota. The camp had approximately 350 Lakota, around 230 of them men. They were surrounded by 500 cavalrymen. As with the death of Sitting Bull, exactly what triggered what follows remains somewhat a mystery. It is often said that a deaf Lakota man named Black Coyote did not want to have his expensive new Winchester rifle taken from him and did not fully understand what was going on. His rifle apparently went off while it was being seized by the troopers and then both sides began firing. Some of the Lakota believed the Ghost Dance and their ghost shirts would protect them. The troopers also turned the Hotchkiss guns on the women and children and pursued and fired upon those fleeing for their lives or trying to surrender. At least 150 of the Lakota were killed and many others were wounded. Among the counted dead were 84 men, 44 women, and 18 children, including some infants. The true death toll has been estimated to have been 250 to 300. 31 soldiers were also killed or mortally wounded, many possibly from the Hotchkiss guns and other friendly fire rather than the Lakota. Some of the fleeing Lakota fought the U.S. Cavalry again the following day in two small engagements on the Pine Ridge Reservation largely marking the end of the Indian Wars in the West. Despite the outrage and condemnation of the cavalry's actions at Wounded Knee by prominent American military officers such as General Nelson A. Miles who witnessed the aftermath, 20 troopers received the Medal of Honor for their action that day.

Good. The revolver retains strong traces of original nickel plating in the protected areas and 25% of the case colors on the hammer; otherwise, it exhibits mottled gray and brown patina, some mild pitting, and general moderate overall wear. The barrel hinge screw is partially absent. The grips are very good and have some minor dings and scratches, mild handling wear, and smooth oiled finish. The extractor is not working, but the revolver is otherwise mechanically fine. The leather is good with moderate overall wear, including loss from rubbing and flaking, restitching on the holster, and an absent holster flap button.