Best quality hand-built Whitemore unmarked  half stock 45 caliber sporting target rifle with presentation case. The oval lid plaque of German silver, engraved: "Presented to /Brig. Gen. R.A. Peirce./1865."  Whitmore was one of the  most distinguished of mid-nineteenth century riflemakers; he also built silver-mounted target rifle for presentation to President Ulysses S. Grant. From the collection of William B. Ruger and featured on page304 of "Ruger & His Guns" A History of the Man, the Company and Their Firearms" by R.L. Wilson.