Battle axe

From DwarfFortressWiki

A battle axe is both a weapon and a tool for wood cutting. Without at least one battle axe, your fortress will be unable to cut down any trees for wood. Axes can be made of silver, copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, and steel; all axes are equally good at cutting down trees, but stronger metals will do more damage in combat (see Weapon Stats).

Every Wood cutter who immigrates to your fort will come with one iron axe. When starting a new fort, however, you must "buy" axes out of your starting points for your woodcutters. An alternative is to take needed materials and forge axes on place. The only axes avaliable on embark screen are steel ones, which are worth a lot.

As a weapon, battle axes do "slashing" damage, which severs limbs and causes bleeding. Axes can be used with a shield.

Any dwarf that performs wood cutting will pick up an axe (if one is available) and not put it down until they are no longer assigned the Wood Cutting labor. You can make use of this to arm many or all of your non-military dwarves with axes, although if you designate a section of trees for wood-cutting, all your dwarves will rush out to cut them down.