April, 2020
Battle of Nashville Colt 1851 Navy Revolver Gets Restored, Fires Again
The story of Nashville songwriter Taylor Agan and his discovery of the history of his 4th Great Grandfather, 1st Lt. Jonathan J. Rapp of the 49th Ohio, is chronicled below in the Features section. Lt. Rapp was wounded on December 15, 1864, during the Union assault on Redoubt No. 1.
Taylor began collecting his family’s history when he was a student at Belmont University, and eventually located his 4th GGF’s diary and his classic Colt 1851 Navy, the .36 caliber revolver the officer was carrying with him on the Nashville battlefield.
He has now taken it to firearm specialist Rocky Marcario of Spring Hill, TN (another location where the sidearm had been carried in battle by Lt. Rapp), who restored it to shooting condition. In the video below, for the first time in many years, perhaps since the end of the war in 1865, Taylor has the privilege of firing the classic 6-shooter. His ancestor, who was 27 years old at the time of the Battle of Nashville, died at the age of 86, having survived wounds at Chickamauga and Nashville during the Civil War. (Click photo below)
Note: A Colt 1851 Navy revolver played a historic role in Spring Hill, TN, during the mysterious shooting of Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn by Dr. George Peters on May 7, 1863. Scroll down to read to story of “Crime of Passion? The Day the Doctor Shot the General.”
