150 BULLETIN 16 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The history of this sword is perfectly authentic, and leaves no shadow of 

 doubt as to its identity. 



The last will and testament of General Washington * * * contains, 

 among a great variety of bequests, the following clause : " To each of my 

 nephews, William Augustine Washington, George Lewis, George Steptoe Wash- 

 ington, Bushrod Washington, and Samuel Washington, I give one of the 

 swords or cuteaux of which I may die possessed ; and they are to choose in 

 the order they are named. These swords are accompanied with an injunc- 

 tion, not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it 

 be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights ; and, in the 

 latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their 

 hands, to the relinquishment thereof." 



In the distribution of the swords, hereby devised, among the five nephews 

 therein enumerated, the one now presented fell to the share of Sanrnel Wash- 

 itiffton, the devisee last named in the clause of the will which I have just 

 read. 



This gentleman, who died a few years since, in the county of Kanawha, and 

 who was the father of Samuel T. Washington, the donor, I knew well. I 

 have often seen this sword in his possession, and received from himself the 

 following account of the manner in which it became his property, in the division 

 made among the devisees. 



He said that he knew it to have been the sidearms of General Washington 

 during the revolutionary war — not that used on occasions of parade and 

 review, but the constant service sword of the great chief ; that he had himself 

 seen General AVashington wear this identical sword, (he presumed for the last 

 time) when, in 1794, he reviewed the Virginia and Maryland forces, then con- 

 centrated at Cumberland, under command of General Lee, and destined to 

 co-operate with the Pennsylvania and New Jersey troops, then assembled at 

 Bedford, in suppressing what has been called " the whiskey insurrection." 



General Washington was at that time President of the United States, and, 

 as such, was commander-in-chief of the army. It is known that it was his 

 intention to lead the army in person on that occasion, had he found it neces- 

 sary ; and he went to Bedford and Cumberland prepared for that event. The 

 condition of things did not require it, and he returned to his civil duties at 

 Philadelphia. 



Mr. Samuel Washington held the commission of a captain at that time him- 

 self, and served in that campaign, many of the incidents of which he has 

 related to me. 



He was anxious to obtain this particular sword, and preferred it to all the 

 others, among which was the ornamented and costly present from the great 

 Frederick, 



At the time of the division among the nephews, without intimating what his 

 preference was, he jocosely remarked, " that, inasmuch as he was the only 

 one of them who had participated in military service, they ought to' permit 

 him to take choice." This suggestion w'as met in tiie same spirit in which 

 it was made; and the choice being awarded him, he chose this, the plainest 

 and intrinsically the least valuable of any, simply because it was " the 

 battle sword." 



I am also in possession of the most satisfactory evidence, furnished by Col. 

 George Washington, of Georgetown, the nearest male relative of General Wash- 

 ington now living, as to the identity of this sword. His information was de- 

 rived from his father, William Augustine Washington, the devisee first named 

 in the clause of the will which I have read, from his uncle, the late Judge 



