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"I don't know how "common" it was to change cylinders but the practice is well documented."
Please show this documentation. I've studied the civil war for over 20years and have found no such documentation. I would seriously like to see it if you have any. If one reads about the "bushwhackers" during the war, one will find they were known to carry as many as 8 revolvers about their person and mount. In the regular cavalry on both sides, paper cartridges were issued for revolvers. In warfare of the day, pistols were rarely used at all in the regular ranks (not talking about bushwhackers and such) The carbine was the main weapon. Some cavalry units went the whole war without firing their pistols in combat. Cavalrymen carried usually no more than 2 revolvers on them at a time but more often than not only 1, and in some cases none. The military didn't put a lot of focus on pistols because as I said, the rifle and carbine were the main weapons just like nowadays. If extra cylinders were as common as some here claim, why then does one not see them in museums? You often see revolvers, rifles, sabres, personal items, and equipment that have been recovered from the battlefields but no cylinders. Why is that? A cylinder would shurley survive as well as a whole revolver, but you never see them. I would figure that if a soldier in the heat of combat could drop an entire gun, one could also drop a cylinder.
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