Model 1840 light artillery saber
type of Saber
The Model 1840 light artillery saber was a saber of about 42 inches in length with a curved, single-edged blade and iron scabbard.
History
The U.S. Model 1840 light artillery saber has a brass hilt and knuckle-bow of about 6 inches in length, the grip wrapped in leather and bound with brass wire, and a blade of 32.25 inches in length. Unlike the Model 1840 Heavy Cavalry Saber the artillery model has no basket.
This model was one of the many weapons produced by the Ames Manufacturing Company. of Springfield (later Chicopee), Massachusetts. The design appears to be a copy of the French saber style of 1829. The mounted artillery units accompanied dragoons to provide them with more firepower. The primary weapon of the mounted artillery were their cannons. The saber was more a traditional accoutrement than a combat weapon. The fact that Ames manufactured far fewer 1840 light artillery sabers than the number of soldiers in the artillery branch attests to this.
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This entry incorporates text from “Model 1840 light artillery saber” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.