Southern Derringers of the Mississippi Valley

Before mass production, Southern gunsmiths crafted their own derringers by hand, compact, elegant, and deadly. Turner Kirkland spent decades tracking down these rare weapons, tracing the work of 29 authenticated makers across the Mississippi Valley from 1855 through the 1870s. His book is part detective story, part collector's catalog, as he distinguishes the genuine Southern articles from the Philadelphia-made pistols that inspired their name. Each maker gets individual attention: their signatures, their regional variations, when they started and stopped production. Kirkland writes with the infectious enthusiasm of a man who has handled hundreds of these guns at shows, estate sales, and fellow collectors' cases. For firearms historians and serious collectors, this remains the foundational reference on a forgotten chapter of Southern craftsmanship, where a small pocket pistol carried enormous personal significance.