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This incredible cased set is illustrated in the “Arms Gazette” in July 1979 on p. 24 in the article “Newly Discovered
Colt Presentations” by Ronald Ogan and in “The Colt 1860 Army Revolver” by Charles Pate on p. 380 where the
author states it was “one of 33 ‘plated’ NMA pistols added to inventory on September 6, 1862. Its serial number
was found in a box of 20 NMA revolvers shipped to a Colt dealer on September 8, 1862, but the serial number
and eleven others were lined out, indicating they were either not included in the shipment or were shipped and
subsequently returned. The former was probably the case. The author could not find later shipping information,
but the pistol does [exist], is in an excellent case, and has a back strap inscription reading, ‘Dr. Milhau From R.W.H.
Jarvis.’...Major/Surgeon John Jefferson Milhau was placed in charge of all the Army hospitals in the Washington,
D.C., area in September 1862, which might have precipitated this presentation. Milhau had been appointed
Captain/Assistant Surgeon in 1852 and was promoted to Major/Surgeon in April of 1862.” The lack of shipping
date is likely due to it being removed from company inventory for presentation rather than sale. It is possibly
the revolver referenced in the Colt records for Tuesday September 16, 1862, for “1 N.M. Army Pistol & Apps per
[Day Book]” for $19 noted on page 45 of “Colt Presentations from the Factory Ledgers, 1856-1869” by Houze in
the section for arms listed in the ledgers under the name of Captain Robert H.K. Whiteley. Houze theorizes that
Whiteley was a “straw man” for the company discreetly transferring presentation arms to other officers. The set
is also accompanied by an extensive research file from collector Greg Lampe which has provided much of the
information discussed below.
The inscription clearly indicates this revolver was inscribed for presentation from Colt Vice President Richard
William Hart Jarvis (1829-1904) to Dr. John Jefferson Milhau (1828-1891). Jarvis was Samuel Colt’s brother-in-law
and was a prominent lawyer in New York City before becoming vice president at Colt in 1856. After the Civil War,
he was the company president from 1865 to 1901, the longest president in the company’s history. On January
10, 1862, Samuel Colt had died leaving Jarvis as a key representative for both the company and Colt’s family. As
the head of the company, he oversaw incredible shifts in firearms technology as the Colt factory shifted from the
classic percussion revolvers invented by his brother-in-law such as this historic Model 1860 Army to new metallic
cartridge revolvers including the iconic Colt Single Action Army and on to rapid fire firearms such as the Gatling
guns first debuted during the Civil War and later manufactured by Colt and the early machine guns.
Dr. John J. Milhau was a career U.S. Army surgeon. He came from a wealthy French-American family with ties to
the French aristocracy. His parents moved to New York City in 1830. His father, John Tiburce Gregoire de Milhau,
was born in Baltimore, Maryland. The family’s pharmacy business, J. Milhau & Sons, was located at No. 183 on
Broadway just a few doors down from Colt’s important New York sales office at 155 Broadway. Officials from the
company, likely including Jarvis, would have visited the pharmacy. His father was also an incorporator of the New
York College of Pharmacy, the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, and other institutions in New York. The family
home was at 41 Lafayette Place in a fashionable upper class neighborhood.
He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City in 1850 and became an assistant
surgeon in the U.S. Army on August 30, 1851, and served in the multiple expeditions and at various posts in the
American West during the antebellum era and also pursued his interests in anthropology and ethnology and
published reports on some of the native peoples of the West. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Milhau was
an Assistant Surgeon at Fort Churchill in Nevada and soon after was stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco
in California, but his experience was required east of the Continental Divide where the massive Union and
Confederate armies were clashing, and he left California with the first troop detachment headed to the East on
October 20, 1861, and reached Washington, D.C., in November, and Dr. Milhau was made a Medical Inspector of
the Army of the Potomac. On March 17, 1862, he became Medical Director of the III Army Corps. He was on the
field at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Seven Days, and Second Bull Run. On September 19, 1862, two days
after the Battle of Antietam, Dr. Milhau became the Medical Director of the hospitals in Frederick, Maryland, just
north of Washington, D.C.
We do not have documentation detailing precisely when this revolver was inscribed and delivered, but the
existing records do indicate that it was originally meant to be in a shipment in September 1862, and there would
be little reason for it not to be sent out shortly after that time given the demand for Colt revolvers during the war.
Pate and Lampe theorized that it was presented when Dr. Milhau was appointed as Medical Director in Frederick.
Lampe added that given Dr. Milhau’s family business location near Colt’s sales officer, his father likely knew
Jarvis personally. Samuel Colt had long made presentations of revolvers to influential officers, business partners,
and acquaintances part of his advertising and sales campaigns, and that tradition continued on after his death
although presentation inscriptions from Jarvis are notably much, much scarcer than those from Samuel Colt. The
inclusion of his name with no reference to the business itself suggests a personal connection.
The timing here is also significant. September 1862 marked Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North and led to
intense fighting and tremendous losses, including the single bloodiest day in American military history
at Sharpsburg, Maryland, where the fighting at the Battle of Antietam led to 22,717 casualties, including
2,108 Union soldiers killed and 9,540 wounded and a further 1,546 killed and 7,752 wounded among
Lee’s men. The losses sustained in the battle forced Lee to pull back into Virginia and gave President
Abraham Lincoln the confidence to release the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September
22nd ultimately propelling the country forward to the abolition of slavery by the end of 1865 and opening
the door to an increasing number of African-American soldiers fighting for the Union cause. In Lee’s wake,
there were thousands of wounded and sick soldiers to be cared for, and into this wake, Dr. Milhau stepped
in to save lives.
The situation in Frederick during and following the bloody Maryland Campaign in 1862 was truly horrifying
and desperate. The town had been occupied by the Confederates in early September, and the Union
evacuated those patients that could be moved before they arrived but was forced to leave those too
wounded or ill behind.