Dougherty's Artillery Short Sword

How does one go from three initials on a sword to knowing who carried it? Usually one can't, but in this case it happened.

First you need to understand that this type sword was a known product of the Memphis Novelty Works, Thomas Leech & Company. Also that dug examples of this sword are found just about exclusively in West Tennessee and the Mid-south area, where only select units of Confederate heavy artillery were deployed.

With that knowledge you can search the rosters of all those heavy artillery units, hoping for an exclusive match to the initials T.J.D. Having found that only one Heavy Artillery soldier operating in the "Memphis" region had those initials, Sgt. Thomas J. Dougherty appears to be our man. Nevertheless, more information is needed to increase certainty.

When you check Dougherty's records you find that he was living in Stewart County Tennessee (where Fort Henry was located) and that he enlisted in Company B, Taylor's Artillery when it deployed to Fort Henry. When you check the unit history of Company B (Taylor's), you find the unit was raised in Nashville and was sent to defend Ft Henry in the fall of 1861.

Records for enlisted men like Dougherty being relatively few in number and uninformative, you check the records of his commanding officer, Jesse Taylor, and find where Captain Taylor ordered and received supplies for his battery, including items needed to operate 32 Pdr Siege Cannons as well as 60 Heavy Artillery Swords from the Ordnance Office in Memphis. Memphis being the city where these swords were manufactured and issued to Dougherty's company, coupled with the knowledge that this type sword likely saw action only in the early battles (being soon found to be too heavy and impractical for use) like Forts Henry and Donelson, coupled to all the foregoing, reasonably establishes that Sgt Dougherty was the original owner of this sword.

Interestingly, Sgt Dougherty appears to have been somewhat dyslexic. He center-punched his middle initial (J) backwards, on one side of the brass cross guard, causing some to think the initials were "T.b.D.". It would have been odd for someone to use a lower case initial in between two upper case initials. In any event, the mystery was solved when the current owner acquired the sword and closely examined the opposite side of the counter guard. Here, Dougherty used a knife or scribe to finely carved his initials, using a style favored in the mid 19th century. This second set of initials clearly read "T.J.D". All upper case makes much more sense and shows that Dougherty simply made a mistake with the center punch.