DALLAS – A derringer once owned by George Armstrong Custer, the lieutenant colonel who died at the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn in Custer’s Last Stand, sold for $40,000 at Heritage Auctions’ June 19 sale offering the single-owner collection of Michael Ward. The pistol was created by the National Arms Company in Brooklyn, N.Y., and featured a scroll engraved barrel and frame.

It was accompanied by a 1961 letter from Custer’s great-great-grand nephew Lt Colonel Marvin Brice Custer to a James S. Hitchings, as well as a newspaper article picturing Marvin Brice Custer holding the derringer.

The note read, “This collection consists of a saddle, a pair of spurs, a derringer pistol, neckerchief, an oil painting and a horseshoe. These items have been handed down in the Custer family for a number of years. The saddle and spurs were given to my grandfather, Marvin S. Custer, from his father Brice W. Custer in 1889. The pistol, neckerchief, oil painting and horseshoe were presented to my father, George A. Custer, II, from Elizabeth Custer, wife of General Custer, during a visit to New York in 1923.”

Watch for a full review of this sale in a future issue.