Identified in earlier Civil War collector references such as Lord's Civil War Collectors Encyclopedia as a surgeon's amputation knife, today's collectors generally recognize the style as one intended primarily for use by butchers in their work with cattle however the fact that examples appeared in better private and respected museum field hospital equipment displays (old Gettysburg Visitor Center collection) leaves a place for these combination knife /saw instruments in quality Civil War era collections. Frankly one should not be surprised if such a thing had been selected by the resourceful Civil War army field surgeon. (There is an example of such used by a Maine surgeon in the Maine Historical Society Civil War collection.) This example measures approximately 17 inches in total length with an 11 1/8 inch, 1 5/8 inch wide W. STILLMAN - CAST STEEL - PATENT blade. W. Stillman apparently patented the saw knife in the late 1830s as they were listed for sale in the 1838 William H. Carr & Co. Phila. catalogue. William Stillman was awarded at least three patents between 1801 and 1818 for veneer and cloth cutting implements, and he may have had others however most of the early patents were lost in a fire in December 1836, and the patent records for Stillman's saw-knife was among them. The Civil War collector should note that these knives were also made by Henry and Charles Disston after Stillman's patent ran out in 1865.
This circa late 1830s through early Civil War saw-knife remains in excellent condition while offering eye appealing evidence of age, period use and originality.

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