“Tag: Cavalry”

The Cook & Brother firearms are one of the great rarities of collecting southern-made Civil War guns.

The French had a tradition of building well-thought-out longarms and handguns.

In the 1850s, Britain’s military, like others in Europe and the New World, realized that breech-loading arms were the wave of the future and began experimenting with various systems—primarily with which to arm its mounted troops.

The term “holster” dates back to somewhere in the mid-17th century. Its origins are a combination of Dutch, Old English and German.

Author Charles W. Pate has again provided the gun collecting community with another remarkable tome, this time on the most popular revolver of the Civil War era.

In the 1860s, at the dawn of the self-contained metallic cartridge era, the military armsmakers of Great Britain and other major powers decided to alter existing muzzleloading rifle-muskets into breechloaders. Reasons included saving production costs and buying time to permit experimentation.

Though eclipsed by other repeaters—such as the Henry and Spencer—the rifle version of Col. Colt’s percussion revolver saw field service with Yankee forces throughout America’s bloodiest conflict.

Adopted alongside the U.S. Model 1855 Rifle and Rifle-Musket, the Model 1855 Pistol Carbine mated a shoulder stock to a big-bore handgun. While soon rendered obsolete by better carbines, such as the Sharps, the M1855s saw service against the Apache and Cheyenne and in the American Civil War.

When well-trained and equipped, a determined light horseman of the American Revolution was a fearsome combined-arms foe.