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RANDOLPH BARNES MARCY WAS A U.S. MILITARY VETERAN AND FATHER IN LAW OF GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN.
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Colonel Frederick Dent Grant
Randolph Barnes Marcy
ordered Remington Rolling Block Sporting Rifle is inscribed “Col: Fred: Grant,/with kind regards/OF R.B. Marcy./October 20, 1874.”The inscription indicates this rifle was a gift for Frederick Dent Grant (1850-1912) on his wedding day. Grant was the son of Union general and then sitting President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant. Frederick Grant was with his father off and on throughout the Civil War and was wounded in the leg by a Confederate sniper at the Siege of Fredericksburg. After the war, he attended West Point from 1866 to 1871 and was then assigned to the 4th U.S. Cavalry Regiment but instead took leave first to work for the Union Pacific Railroad and then served as General William Tecumseh Sherman’s aide-de-camp in Europe. In 1873, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel
and served on General Philip Sheridan’s staff and was part
of the Custer’s Yellowstone and Black Hills Expeditions. He
was married to Ida Marie Honore, the daughter of a wealthy Chicago businessman, on October 20, 1874, the date in the inscription. The presenter of this rifle is almost certainly Randolph Barnes Marcy (1812-1887), a West Point graduate, veteran of the Mexican-American War, multiple Indian wars, and the Civil War; and father-in-law of General George B. McClellan. He was one of the inspector generals of the U.S. Army at the time of presentation. This rifle was an appropriate gift since Grant returned to the West after a brief honeymoon, and Custer is known to have used Remington rifles for hunting in the West. Grant’s new bride moved in with President Ulysses S. Grant’s family at the White House. In 1875, both Grant and Marcy were part of expeditions to Yellowstone, and Grant was one of the author’s of his expedition’s report which includes details about the game they encountered, and an account
of Marcy’s expedition also indicates hunting was a major
part of their adventures. The birth of Grant’s first daughter, Julia, on June 6, 1876, may have saved his life since he was
on leave when Custer and his men were killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn later that month. Grant left the Army in 1881 and then served as U.S. Minister to Austria-Hungary and a police commissioner in New York City. He rejoined the military during the Spanish-American War and served as commander of the district of San Juan and then went to the Philippines and served as Governor of Pampanga. He was a major general and the commander of the Eastern Division when he died
in 1912 from throat cancer, the same disease that killed
his father. Included copies of documents indicate the rifle remained with direct descendants of the Grant family until it was sold in January 2020.
LOT 3146
Historic Documented Special Order Presentation Remington Rolling Block Sporting Rifle Inscribed for Colonel Frederick Grant, Son of Sitting President Ulysses S. Grant, on His Wedding Day - NSN, 45 cal., 30 inch round bbl., blue/casehardened finish, walnut stock. The engraved silver plaque on the right side of the buttstock of this special