This English Tranter .44 caliber revolver bears scroll engraving on both sides and a silver presentation butt cap engraved “Major General W. S. Rosecrans from O. H. Geoffrey, Rich Mountain, Fairfax Ferry, Gauley Bridge, Iuka, Corinth, Murfreesboro.”
The Tranter revolver was a double action cap and ball revolver invented around 1856 by English firearms designer William Tranter. It was originally produced in six calibers, with the .36, .44, and .50 calibers being the most popular. With the start of the Civil War, Tranter exported the revolvers to the Confederates through New Orleans.
William Starke Rosecrans, born in 1819 in Delaware County, Ohio, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in the class of 1842. He did not serve in the Mexican-American War, and resigned his commission in 1854. When the Civil War began, Rosecrans was commissioned a brigadier general in the Regular Army, and played a major role in the Union victory at Rich Mountain, West Virginia that July. After leading troops at Iuka and Corinth, Mississippi, Rosecrans assumed command of the Army of the Cumberland in the fall of 1862. Following his victory at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Rosecrans skillfully maneuvered the Confederate Army of Tennessee out of Chattanooga. In September 1863, the Army of the Cumberland was defeated at Chickamauga, Georgia, and Rosecrans fell back to Chattanooga, where he was relieved of command by Ulysses S. Grant.
In 1864 Rosecrans took command of the Department of the Missouri, where he mobilized troops to oppose Sterling Price’s raid through the state. Rosecrans resigned from the army in 1867, served briefly as minister to Mexico, was elected to Congress, and died in 1898.
Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 30545
