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Old March 23, 2011, 03:50 AM   #18
Doc Hoy
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Join Date: October 24, 2008
Location: Naples, Fl
Posts: 5,440
Thanks, Gatofeo

The reason I asked is because I was curious about official Confederate policy regarding arms acquired through non-official sources.

Your OP made me wonder about two numbers:

1) the actual number of revolvers that were carried by soldiers during the conflict
2) What percentage of those revolvers were officially provided to the combatants.

I think the historians among us have a good handle on how extensively the two governments armed their troops with captured weapons. I am no historian, myself, but my sense is that the Confederacy with its less than optimal manufacturing structure might have been compelled to rely on the practice a bit more than the Union.

That loading recommendation is an interesting bit of history.

The person who wrote the original recommendation (or the member of the Confederate Army who promulgated it to the troops) must have been driven by a perceived need to make the data available. Perhaps he believed that the use of the revolver was more prevalent among the troops than would be indicated by official purchases of the revolver. Prevalent enough that it was worth his time to find and publish the recommendation.

We didn't see the original document and of course it is possible that the loading recommendation for the 1860 Colt was at the bottom of a long list that included every weapon that might be encountered by a Confederate soldier.

My rambling doesn't go anywhere. I was just wondering.
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