Presentation Spurs to Major General William H. French

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  Lot #77  (Sale Order: 75 of 293) 
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A robust pair of cast silver spurs featuring a stylized flying eagle forming the neck with highly detailed feathered wings wrapping around the back of the heel band. Each spur engraved on the flat of the shank, “Presented to/MAJOR GENERAL FRENCH/By The/Officers of the/1st. Regt/Del. Vols.”  No date is recorded.  The rowels are riveted through the eagle’s beak, decorated in a high relief starburst pattern.  Brown leather straps remain attached, one likely being a later replacement.   William Henry French (1815-1881) graduated from the United States Military Academy twenty-second in the class of 1837.  Almost immediately he entered the field against hostile Creek and Seminole Indians, the army tasked as an unrelenting force that simultaneously denied all indigenous people while solidifying and expanding the raw American frontier.  In the wake of Manifest Destiny, during the Mexican War, 1st Lieutenant French saw combat at the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras and Churubusco earning him two brevets – captain and major - for “gallant and meritorious service.”  At the start of the Civil War, Captain French commanded several companies of the 1st United States Artillery stationed at Fort Duncan, Eagle Pass, Texas.  Captain French refused to surrender his garrison to Confederate forces aligned with Texas authorities as they demanded.  Instead, he successfully marched his force to the mouth of the Rio Grande in sixteen days and sailed for Key West, where he quartered at Fort Zachary Taylor. Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to major and assumed command of the post. In conjunction with the Federal Navy, he was instrumental in shutting off Key West to Southern blockade runners via Havana.   By 1862 a well-known and proven Army of the Potomac officer, French was promoted to the rank of Major General on November 29, 1862, having ably commanded the 3rd Division, 2nd Corps as a brigadier during the bloody battle of Antietam.   It is not recorded why the regimental officers of the 1st Delaware presented the spurs to General French, particularly as eight of ten company commanders were either killed or wounded during the epic September 17 fight.  We believe the presentation was made before General French transferred to the command of the 3rd Corps, shortly after Gettysburg, as his association with the 1st Delaware had by the ended. At Antietam, the distinguished regiment had formed part of Colonel Max Weber’s 3rd Brigade under French’s command and spearheaded the division’s attack against entrenched Confederates in the Sunken Road, suffering over 200 casualties during a horrendous three-hour fight commemorated as the “Bloody Lane.”   In his effusive OR report dated September 20, 1862, General French wrote: “The gallantry and coolness of General Max Weber excited the admiration of the whole command.  With consummate skill and judgement, he led the attack, and left the field, reluctantly, severely wounded.”   French appeared to have held Colonel Weber’s 1st Delaware in high regard, and the praise, we surmise, was reciprocal.   French continued in division command except for a brief interlude as district commander of the strategic point at Harper’s Ferry during the Gettysburg Campaign.  Shortly thereafter, he assumed leadership of the 3rd Corps upon the wounding of General Sickles.   Lee, having escaped back to Virginia, forced General Meade to march during the late fall to attack the right flank of the numerically inferior Confederate Army below the Rapidan River.  Intelligence suggested that Lee’s Army was split in two, separated by Clark’s Mountain with 30 miles distance between each flank. The opportunity spurred by geography was contingent, according to Meade’s plan, upon a lightning strike without diversion into Lee’s vulnerable flank and rear – speed of the essence.   Leading elements of French's 3rd Corps became “mired in fording the river at Jacob’s Ford” causing Meade’s entire plan to falter at the Battle of Payne’s Farm. Given just enough time to respond, Lee ordered Ewell’s Corps temporarily commanded by General Early to march east while “Allegheny” Johnson’s division moving along a corresponding axis made contact with French and Sedgwick’s trudging 6th Corps. During the late afternoon of November 27, an ill-conceived Confederate assault through heavy woodland was repulsed with high casualties on both sides.  Still, the forlorn attack “put French and his III Corps back on its heels, slowed the advance and saved Lee’s Army.”  After the hollow victory at Bristoe Station, Meade squarely blamed French for the lost opportunity at Mine Run. French’s perceived tardiness at the fords had cost the commanding general the chance to exploit a rare tactical advantage against the dwindling Army of Northern Virginia. Referencing an unpublished letter stipulated by army decorum to remain in the files of the War Department, General French, in turn, “blamed his tardiness at Mine Run upon one of his division commande

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This item is part of Historic Arms & Armor Auction
 Friday, May 30, 2025 | 10:00 AM  Eastern
 
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Presentation Spurs to Major General William H. French
Presentation Spurs to Major General William H. French
Lot number: 77
Seller: Lewis & Grant Auctions
Event: Historic Arms & Armor Auction
Ends: Friday, May 30 | 10:00 AM  Eastern

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