A presentation case containing two antique pistols, which were among the guns police said were stolen from the Civil War Museum last Sunday.
The antique guns stolen from the National Civil War Museum in Reservoir Park over the weekend were in fact taken from an NRA-sponsored exhibit there, and not from a separate part of the museum as officials previously reported, Harrisburg police said Wednesday.
The three guns, a pair of Colt revolvers dating to 1860 and 1861 and an engraved Henry rifle from 1861, were stolen shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday. The two revolvers were owned by the city, while the the rifle was on loan from a private donor, according to museum CEO Wayne Motts, who joined police Wednesday to release additional details on the theft.
All three firearms were claimed to have once belonged to Simon Cameron, a Harrisburg native who served as President Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war at the beginning of the Civil War. They were on display together as part of a new “Guns & Lace” exhibit that opened last week and was sponsored by a $25,000 grant from the National Rifle Association.
Police Capt. Gabriel Olivera confirmed that the thief made entry by breaking through a window and forcibly broke into the display case to remove the guns. The theft was not detected until 12:40 p.m. on Sunday, due to an apparent failure in the museum’s alarm system.
Olivera said the alarm was not triggered, but then added that the precise nature of the security lapse was not yet clear.
Olivera said surveillance footage captured images of a male thief, but that the images are not clear and that police are not yet releasing them because they “would not be of any use.” Police are looking for witnesses who may have seen someone in the museum area of Reservoir Park Sunday morning between 6 and 7 a.m. They have not ruled out the possibility of an inside job, Olivera said.
The city released the following information identifying the weapons:
- A .44 caliber M1860 Colt Army Revolver with serial number 11708.
- A .36 caliber Colt M1861 Navy Revolver with serial number 1825.
- An M1860 Henry Repeating Rifle with serial number 115, manufactured by the New Haven Arms Company and engraved with the word “Cameron” on the receiver.
The 1861 Henry rifle stolen Sunday, engraved with the name “Cameron,” shown in detail below.
