Every soldier North and South needed a knife when they marched off to war and in the South it was fashionable, if not practical, to carry a large fighting knife, the bigger the better judging from war era photographs.

Like the Code Duello, knife fighting was a Southern custom that was rarely engaged in by those above Mason – Dixon’s line. In truth, relatively little fighting was done with them North or South, but there are numerous documented cases of Confederates engaging in hand-to-hand combat with knives.

During the decade before the War, Bowies were in fashion and were widely carried by men North and South. Therefore, it is impossible to categorize Bowies as Confederate knives unless they have a documented history of Confederate use or are one of the few that have extant examples with Southern maker marks.

Prior to the War Between the States, Edwin Boyle and the Burger Brothers were in the saw manufactory business. When the Northern states invaded Virginia, Mr. Boyle joined with a P. Gamble and began the manufacture of various types of edged weapons, including knives and swords for private purchase and for the Confederate Government. The Burger Brothers had a much smaller production, but they too made swords and knives. I would like to think that the Burgers and Mr. Boyle were motivated by patriotism; but I am sure, as an astute businessman he could see that there was going to be a bigger demand for swords than saws.

Most of Burger Brother’s and Boyle & Gamble’s products are unmarked; fortunately, they did mark enough of each type of weapon for the modern collector to readily identify their unmarked products.

The Burger & Brother Bowies follow a distinct pattern, the blade is flat, having no ridge, the clip point has a false edge, the back is beveled, the two-piece wooden slab grips are attached by three iron rivets and the lozenge shaped cross guard is made of sheet iron or in this case with brass guard and brass rivets. These desirable knives are encountered with slight variations on the above; but the knife pictured here has all of the desirable "characteristics”.

The Bowie is just over fourteen inches in length and the blade is an inch and three quarters wide. About a quarter inch of the tip has been broken and some fool touched the very edge of the blade with a file; less than 1/32 of an inch thankfully. The knife is a very good, solid Burger & Brother Bowie knife with excellent original grips. There is slight play in the brass cross guard but none at all in the original slab grips.

The negatives are that someone ran a fine file on the very edge; only about a 32^nd of an inch. This is minor and hard to see, but it is there. Also, an eight inch of tip had been broken, and when it was filed, the filer slightly rounded, but did not repoint the tip. And last, someone had previously cleaned the blade with a wire brush. (I say previously, because the file marks are bright, but the blade has a nice patina)

These various things lower knife’s value but it is still a pretty darn nice example of a rare knife, and is priced very reasonably.

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