Presented on Marshal’s Office, Fort Smith, Arkansas letterhead and dated June 18, 1878, this letter is handwritten and signed by noted Civil War veteran and Arkansas politician, militia commander and lawman Daniel Phillips Upham (1832-1882) and is addressed to Colt Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company. The letter is essentially a purchase request by a lawman determined to acquire state of the art weaponry offered by Colt. The letter only states that the sidearm was to be a .45 caliber revolver with the “latest improvements.” Although most likely a Single Action Army, the letter is dated 1878 which is the same year that marked the debut of the Model 1878 with the first examples in .45 caliber shipped in June/July. The Model 1878 was Colt’s first heavy frame double action revolver capable of handling the large calibers fired in the SAA that had the potent stopping power a lawman would want and was a great leap forward in Colt revolver design. The letter reads: Sir, Please send me by express one revolver 45 caliber, central fire, latest improvements nickel plated, & 200 cartridges. Send also three separate reloaders complete, one for this and two for revolvers which we already have same kind. We want cap extractor and setter, moulds, in fact everything complete 3 sets and one thousand caps for reloading cartridges. Send C.O.D. Very Respy. & Truly D.P. Upham Colts Fire Arms Mfg. Co. Hartford Conn. Please send by mail itemized bill, as the articles are for different parties U. Perhaps no other man brought more fear to the Ku Klux Klan during the era of Reconstruction than Daniel Phillips Upham. He is best remembered as a Reconstruction leader who led a successful but brutal militia campaign against the Klan in Arkansas, and he is often vilified or at best reluctantly admired for his violent tactics that left many Klan members dead. Born in Massachusetts, Upham was a certified Unionist who served in the Union Army from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865 and attained the rank of sergeant. Dissatisfied with his post-war economic prospects in the Northeast, Upham decided to uproot his family and move to Arkansas where he purchased and grew a thriving cotton plantation in Augusta. His success in cotton only made him a target with the ex-Confederate populace who perceived him as a carpetbagger profiting off the defeated South. The target on his back only grew bigger when he won a seat in the Arkansas House of Representative in 1867 and became a powerful ally in Governor Powell Clayton’s fight in the expansion of black voting rights and the ratification of the 14th Amendment. In response to Governor Clayton’s reshaping of the state’s political landscape, the Klan terrorized free blacks and Republicans. Over the next three months, the Klan’s terror campaign resulted in the killing of twelve people and numerous attacks against Republican officials and freedman. Governor Clayton authorized the formation of state and local militias to end the insurgency. What came next was a state wide conflict known as the Militia War. The Governor suspended all local and state elections, declared martial law, split the state into four military districts, and assigned Upham command of the Northeastern district, which saw the heaviest of the Klan’s activities. Upham commanded 1,000 white and black troops, used violent tactics against the Klan and their supporters, often joined his men in the bloody fights, including a battle on his own plantation, and successfully prevented the occupation of Augusta by defeating Klansmen under the command of Confederate veteran Colonel A.C. Pickett. The extreme violence against the Klan was deemed necessary by the state, and with people like Upham, Governor Clayton was able to deliver a crushing defeat to the sponsors of white supremacy terror, making Arkansas the only Reconstruction state to have any meaningful success against the Klan. As Upham put it, “We will wail Hell out of the last one of them. Never allow one of them to return and live here. There is no other way. Nothing but good, healthy, square, honest killing will ever do them any good.” In the aftermath of the Militia War, Upham’s tactics proved politically divisive. He was voted out of office and later charged and acquitted for murder of four suspected Klansmen during the Militia War. In 1876, President Ulysses S. Granted appointed Upham U.S. Marshal for the Western District Court of Arkansas presided over by the infamous “Hanging Judge” Isaac C. Parker. Upham served with honor and distinction until 1880 when a Republican senator plotted for his removal. It would seem Upham had lost favor within his own political party. Even his once friend and ally Powell Clayton thwarted Upham’s attempts to remain U.S. Marshal. The letter offered here was written when Upham was U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Arkansas and stands as a historical document capturing Colt’s legacy associated with law enforcement West of the Mississippi and America’s political unrest following the aftermath of the Civil War. Provenance: The Don and Carol Wilkerson Collection