About Civil War Revolvers

Almost all Civil War pistols were single action revolvers. Several hundred thousand were made by Colt, with half as many made by Remington, and the next most prolific manufacturer folded financially shortly after the Civil War after making about 25,000.  Many other manufacturers tried to get into the revolver business with mixed results.  Colt went after most of them in the North for patent infringement for making pistols like Colt's.  Most of the Southern attempts also looked like Colt's, but the production was very low. 

Except for Smith and Wesson, these revolvers were tediously loaded with either combustible paper cartridges or with loose powder and ball. Both methods inserted the powder and bullet from the front, and a rammer was built into the gun to swage the bullet into place. The swaging held the bullet from falling out when the gun recoiled when fired.  Finally, a percussion cap was individually fitted to the back of the cylinder with one required for each of the five or six chambers.

Because reloading could take minutes, if extra cylinders could be found, two or more spare cylinders were carried pre-loaded. The cylinders would be switched much more quickly than reloading a fired one.

Civil War guns fired an older powder, now called BlackPowder, that creates clouds of smoke.  Back then, the propellant was called gunpowder, and the cloud was called gunsmoke.  Six shots rapidly fired from a revolver, or a line of muskets, on a windless day could create a smoke cloud so dense as to obscure the targets from the shooter.

Shooting a full sized revolver rapidly with small hands could be challenging.  People were smaller back then.

This adult's hands are two small to hold the grip of this Colt 1860 44 caliber revolver and cock the hammer without shifting the shooting hand's position on the grip.  The shifting up and down of the hand takes time.  Here two hands are used: one holds the grip and is prepared to pull the trigger as soon as the other has thumbed the hammer all the way back.  The stiff mainsprings used in Civil War revolvers precludes the Hollywood stunt of fanning the hammer with the palm of the other hand.

None of the Civil War revolvers had good sights by more recent standards.  The rear sight on the Colt was a notch in the nose of the hammer, but the hammer had some lateral freedom for movement.  The moving rear sight, a poor front sight, and the Colt's removable barrel also moved around, were all detrimental to what would now be called long range accuracy.  In the field, the average Remington could hit the same size target at about one and a half to twice the range of the average Colt.  Some are better then others.  These guns shot bullets that will go up to a mile (always use a good backstop), but the sights on revolvers had to evolve.  The Smith and Wesson 44 cartridge revolver shooting from a rest a few years after the Civil War could regularly hit a man's torso at 200 yards, but the Civil War revolvers would be lucky to consistently do that at 50 yards, or less.