Footnotes

• Note: This significant historical document was found in the 1960s, hidden in the walls of the former home of Confederate Colonel Armistead Burt in Abbeville, South Carolina, known as the Burt-Stark house, now a National Historic Landmark. It was discovered during remodeling and was subsequently sold to the consignor by the home's owner Mary Stark Davis. Dated just after South Carolina succeeded from the Union, it is the first and only such document known. The guns were contracted from Colt in early January of 1861 and delivered to South Carolina prior to the opening shots of the war at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Subsequent research indicates that half of the revolvers were sent to the Citadel Military Academy and the other half was issued to members of the Lucy Holcombe (Pickens) Legion. She was the wife of Governor Pickens and the legion was raised, according to tradition, with funds obtained when she sold jewlery that had been given to her by the Tsar of Russia when her husband was the ambassador. The cavalry arm of the legion, which one presumes received the revolvers, later became the 7th South Carolina Cavalry Regiment.
  
  This very interesting document, received by Governor Pickens the day after South Carolina succeeded from the Union and acted upon shortly afterward is both an interesting example of Col. Colt's aggressive attempts to sell arms to the southern states even though the outbreak of war must have seemed inevitable at the time and an important memento of this turbulent time in the history of South Carolina, the Confederacy and these United States.