Military - Overview The Museum's superb military collections
document the history of the men and women of the armed forces of
the United States. The collections include ordnance, firearms,
and swords; uniforms and insignia; national and military flags
and banners; and many other objects. The strength of the
collections lies in their enormous depth. Some 3,000 military
small arms and 2,400 civilian firearms document the mechanical
and technological history of the infantryman's weapons from the
beginning of the gunpowder era to the present. Among the 4,000
swords and knives in the collection are many spectacular
presentation pieces. The collections also include Civil War era
telegraph equipment, home front artifacts from both world wars,
early computers such as ENIAC, Whirlwind, and Sage, and
materials carried at antiwar demonstrations.