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CHAPTER 23 Yankee Revolvers

For half a century the halls of official Washington resounded with the clamor of disappointed inventors of revolving breech firearms. Seeking the patronage of the War Department or Navy Department, they thronged the anterooms of the respective Bureaus of Ordnance, but to no avail. Elisha Collier, inventing his revolver in , had to take the idea to England to find capital and manufacturers. A mysterious Mr. Chambers, who appears to have developed a “Roman candle” type of load for fighting tops of warships, received so little recognition that the physical description of his invention is lost. Persistently, unfailing (but he failed), a Mr. Cochran tried to have his turret-chambered revolver adopted. Even Colt failed for 15 years, before at length, in , some measure of success in having his revolvers adopted by the Army brought him modest riches and the beginnings of fame and fortune. Then, suddenly, the War Department seemed convinced that the rotating chambered breech firearm was here to stay. By the time the First Regiment of United States Dragoons was reorganized into the First Regiment United States Cavalry in , official Washington was willing to buy virtually any type of cylinder-breech hand arm offered. In one or two cases influence seemed necessary, commissions were paid to members of Congress, and scandals arose, but in the main, anybody with a decent pattern of repeater and some hope of a factory could get a contract.
The list of officially purchased revolvers and pistols is not large but it embraces a number of distinctly different types. Curiously, the most “modem” of all, the Smith & Wesson, is not listed. For reasons best known to themselves, but perhaps principally that policy of conservatism and refusal to over-expand, that marks the firm’s policies even today, Smith & Wesson deliberately held out on their larger military revolvers and did not launch one into production until the War was well over. Next best were the imported arms, especially the Lefaucheux and the Raphael and Perrin types. But among the standard brands in use by the cavalry were old favorites: the Colts of Army and Navy sizes, the Whitneys, Remingtons, Starrs, and Adams. Four hundred and fifteen Adams revolvers were bought, seemingly obtained all from Schuyler, Hartley & Graham, and in several different patterns. Of arms discussed in this chapter, the following were obtained:
536 Allen’s revolvers ..............................$9,130.50
1,100 Joslyn revolvers...............................24,793.00
2,001 Pettengill’s revolvers ......................40,287.10
11,284 Savage’s revolvers ........................221,355.75
5,000 Rogers & Spencer’s    revolvers ..    60,739.90
11,214 Whitney revolvers..........................139,690.39
200 Horse pistols ................................1,400.00
348 Signal pistols ................................1,938.50
Of foreign handguns, the following were obtained not otherwise listed:
200 Perrin’s revolvers ........................$4,000.00
12,374 Lefaucheux revolvers ..................167,489.99
978 Raphael’s revolvers ....................16,181.73
100 Foreign pistols ............................1,000.00
In addition, notes of Ordnance purchases include the following handguns:
346 Cavalry pistols 68 French revolvers 772 Percussion lock holster pistols 453 U. S. holster pistols
The exact nature of these different arms will be considered; the first to be mentioned is a revolver which is in fact not a U. S. military arm at all, the Freeman revolver of C. B. Hoard.

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