Pretty cool, I did not know Washington was a collector of swords.
I started collecting swords when I had one commissioned in Scotland from a guy that had been making display replicas for the British Museum. (I couldn't afford an original) and since that time have ended with about half a dozen. There is a tremendous amount of depth and variation in what is essentially a piece of steel on a handle.
I got really into 19th century British military swords after discovering the Scholagladiatoria YouTube channel [1].
I've always like swords, but the 19th century is so interesting to me because you can actually find relatively affordable originals. Plus we know a lot more about how 19th century swords were actually used because of the abundance of military manuals.
Very interesting read, for context small sword is a dueling gentleman weapon. Not very good at protecting yourself in battlefield. Problem is that it is very hard to parry a bayonet or a heavy sword with it, too light and since it lack an edge it is also hard to snipe the hands of the opponent with bayonet with a quick cut.
I wonder if Washington ever actually came to blows early in his career. What sword he used on that occasion and what his thoughts of the effectiveness were.
For an officer sword was weapon of last resort, however if you were gona have one might as well be useful weapon. When someone wants to spear you with a bayonet saber seems like a much better choice.
Quite funny that I visited his estate in Mt Vernon just hours ago and now seeing this on HN frontpage. BTW, I think swords were necessecity in his time as army man because guns were unreliable and slow to reload after one shot. So all soldiers had to carry both. Washington was very wealthy man after he married wealthy widow Martha and as a famous general I can imagine him having collection of swords. He also had collected horse carriages. However on the whole he lives very simple life style.
Matt Easton's schola gladiatoria youtube channel is mentioned elsewhere in the comments, and he's of the opinion that, in addition to the facets of unreliability and slow reloading (such that it was difficult to take a second shot if you missed), the lack of stopping power was another considerable factor towards the continued usefulness of swords, especially when considered in combination with a pistol (i.e., weapons used at close range). There are, from Easton's citations, many accounts from soldiers during the era of black powder that describe assailants who had been shot, and hit, in an eventually lethal area; however, they had enough left in them to carry through their attack, resulting in both the assailant and defender killed or injured. At close range, early pistols, even early revolvers, had decent offensive capability, but no defensive capability, in case your attack, even if it hit, did not stop or kill, so it was still handy to have a sword around to parry if need be.
Modern combat rifles have much worse stopping power than older muskets, too, because the old guns fired really large and damaging bullets. The difference is you now get 30 shots before having to reload instead of one, so you don't resort to hand to hand combat when the first shot doesn't stop them; you just keep shooting.
It's definitely not true that all soldiers carried a sword at the time -- for the most part, only the cavalry and officers did. Infantrymen had muskets (rarely rifles) and bayonets, and often knives/daggers. Even in the pre-gunpowder era most soldiers did not carry swords; the spear/shield was much more typical as a primary infantry armament. In massed warfare a spear is a better weapon than a sword, and it's cheaper to boot. Bayonets of the revolutionary war era basically served the purpose of turning muskets (which were already long) into spears, for use in close combat and especially against cavalry.
The most notable exception being a few centuries' worth of Roman doctrine, in which swords were used in combination with throwing spears as primary armament.
Well soldiers today all still carry and sometimes use bayonets, which some regiments call 'swords', in case they need to fight in close quarters, so not much has changed.
They sure as hell do not "all" carry bayonets. Most don't (dead weight), and they are so very rarely used in modern combat that every time I ask for a cite it's always that one skirmish in Afghanistan from over a decade where no one was even stabbed with a bayonet that gets linked.
Bayonets are obsolete, period, full stop. They aren't used in modern warfare to any degree that affects anything at all.
The reason they’re able to use them sometimes is that they’re routinely carrying them. Fixing your bayonet is still a taught step in the drill for clearing an enemy position in at least the British Army I think.
Ah, so two bayonet "charges" in two decades. So relevant in modern warfare. And in neither situation were the bayonets even used, just affixed.
It's worth pointing out that modern bayonets are basically just knives that can be attached to some rifles. Knives are useful for all sorts of things outside of combat. Bayonet length has also continuously decreased over time as they've essentially turned into knives (we're now down to a third of the original length). This is the modern US "bayonet". Note that it's essentially just a fixed knife. Hunters and hikers carry very similar knives for similar reasons, and not because they're being mounted on a rifle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKC-3S_bayonet
Then by your standards bayonets have long gone extinct, as they are now regular knives that can technically still be attached to some rifles, but rarely are. See my link.
I started collecting swords when I had one commissioned in Scotland from a guy that had been making display replicas for the British Museum. (I couldn't afford an original) and since that time have ended with about half a dozen. There is a tremendous amount of depth and variation in what is essentially a piece of steel on a handle.