Crawdad1
Member
From Bruce Catton's The Army of the Potomac, Glory Road,
page 245;
"They generally managed to buy or steal great piratical boots, into which they stuffed their pants legs, with a revolver tucked into the right-leg boot along with the pants. They were beginning to discover that the revolver was a better weapon than the traditional saber. The handgun furnished cavalry at the start of the war was just about useless, a cumbersome museum piece known as a dragoon pistol, a muzzleloader a foot long with a ramrod swiveled on the under side of the barrel. In the course of time the army replaced these miserable weapons with up-to-date revolvers, with which the men felt much more at home than they felt with sabers. Left to himself though he usually preferred to use his revolver."
Foot notes sited;
Reminiscences and Record of the 6th New York Veterans Volunteer Cavalry
page 245;
"They generally managed to buy or steal great piratical boots, into which they stuffed their pants legs, with a revolver tucked into the right-leg boot along with the pants. They were beginning to discover that the revolver was a better weapon than the traditional saber. The handgun furnished cavalry at the start of the war was just about useless, a cumbersome museum piece known as a dragoon pistol, a muzzleloader a foot long with a ramrod swiveled on the under side of the barrel. In the course of time the army replaced these miserable weapons with up-to-date revolvers, with which the men felt much more at home than they felt with sabers. Left to himself though he usually preferred to use his revolver."
Foot notes sited;
Reminiscences and Record of the 6th New York Veterans Volunteer Cavalry
