A close and dear friend from Virginia brought this rifle by during a recent visit. He told me that he had obtained this gun when he was a young man living in Richmond,Virginia. The following is the story as he related it to me.

In the early 1950's someone told my father that a number of old guns were in the basement of an old house in Richmond. We went to the old house whereupon my father said he had lived in the area as a boy and knew the owners from years before. We looked in a basement window and saw a number of long guns. A few days later my father found someone in the family who told him they still owned the house and we could take a few guns. The family name was Armstrong and the person my father spoke with told him his grandfather had been a Confederate armorer or gunsmith sergeant and had picked up the guns off the battlefield at Fredericksburg. I never knew how the guns made it from Fredericksburg to the basement. The house was demolished long ago, and I have no idea who the Armstrongs were and might be now nor exactly where the house was.

We met someone who had a key and let us in the house. We took a few including this rifle. It was cleaned by a man my father knew and remained in our gun safe all these years. Among the other guns we took was an 1862 C.S. Richmond musket that I traded for a 1903 Springfield national match about 1958. I was an aspiring junior shooter and needed the 03 to compete. The man who got the Richmond was a well know collector of Confederate things named Mac Mason. I can remember to this day him asking.... Are you sure you want to do this? I wish I had not been so sure.

The Harpers Ferry rifle dated 1859 exhibits an overall black patina on all the metal parts. The barrel, lockplate and barrel bands have an overall pitting indicative of having been stored in a damp basement for many years. the walnut stock is in fine condition with the inspector's cartouche visible. The letters LBA over BLI are sharply carved on the stock. The brass nose-cap has a very pleasing dark patina. The .58 caliber bore is dark and dirty but still retains it's rifling.

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