In real life Civil War what was the most ways a revolver was loaded?

If I could just be like Clint Eastwood….but I’m not.

If it were me, I would preferably have 3 or 4 preloaded cylinders and then carry paper cartridges as a back-up. What did the soldiers do back then? I'm old but not that old.

Remington vs Colt cylinder swap. Hell on Wheels. Plus my GF Lily.

JamesA said:

If it were me, I would preferably have 3 or 4 preloaded cylinders and then carry paper cartridges as a back-up. What did the soldiers do back then? I'm old but not that old.

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Usually carried 2 revolvers or waited for a lull in the battle to reload.

From what I read CSA calvary mostly carry pistols. As many as 6 if they could get them. Two on the hip, 2 on the saddle, shoulder and pockets. They charged in, shot there wad, ride out reload and charged again if needed. They picked extra arms from the field.

Daveboone said:

As most revolvers were officers weapons, I would make an educated guess that they would hand it to thier orderly to take care of. Southern cavalry particularly were fond of carrying a fistful of revolvers...no reloading...grab the next one. I wonder if during war time production, spare cylinders would have been widely available. Possibly if the weapon was purchased independently...but then, what is the likelihood of someone carrying a mallet/whatever, to knock out a wedge in the midst of a battle?
How many officers were actually in a position/range, to use thier revolvers? Of course it happened, but not typically...(cavalry of course, very likely, artillery officers likely...infantry...eh....thats what the line of troops were there for.

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The movie Gettysburg shows Jeff Daniels taking his 1860 apart and presumably swapping cylinders, this scene no doubt added fuel to the fire for "Civil War cylinder swapping"

It was most likely almost never done. People who research this stuff for a living have found very few written accounts remotely related to cylinder swapping but it was apparently actually done by a CS Cavalry troop, or unit, etc that had the cylinders fitted or at least made to work. And one vague letter that was mentioned here on the forum by a Confederate private who wrote something about finding a broken Colt and taking the cylinder out of it.

There is so much weird "lore" to the Civil War , there's constantly things being found or uncovered that no one would even have thought of. Body Armor, poisoned bullets, catching impact grenades in blankets, submarines, etc etc it's pretty certain that at some point some guys played around with swapping cylinders. Just like we probably would if we were Cavalrymen and we had endless days of laying around in an encampment playing around with revolvers out in the woods, seeing if it would work.

Like was mentioned above, guys would be more likely to keep the whole gun if they recovered or found a revolver vs taking the cylinder out and discarding a functional weapon. Plus taking guns apart or rolling cylinders in under full adrenaline dump during the chaos of a battle would be less preferable than trying to shove nitrate cartridges into chambers and fumbling caps on

I feel like Officers wouldn't bother with this stuff, it would probably seem "beneath them" to be playing with extra cylinders.

If anyone has any period evidence (not western movies) of period pistols shipped with spare cylinders, I would like to see it. Or any military records of issued spares.

ADK Bigfoot

ADK Bigfoot said:

If anyone has any period evidence (not western movies) of period pistols shipped with spare cylinders, I would like to see it. Or any military records of issued spares.

ADK BiP

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Many Patersons and some Navy cased sets came with a number matched, fitted cylinder

Ed C. said:

Seems like 6 'n done. Good question. Imagine what a few unmentionables could have done back then.

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I was watching an old west movie that had muzzleloaders, percussion revolvers, and lever actions (all had to have been BP). There was a fight scene at the end, where a group of like 200 guys comes over a hill on horseback, and I just couldn't help but wonder what a modern military machinegun or even a few guys with semi-auto civilian stuff and a bunch of mags could have done from a few hundred yards out.

We have to remember that although battles took hours or days, most of that time was marching around, placing cannon, scouting enemy positions
Gettysburg was busy in day one, till the collapse of the union position. Then the union fell back through town then to cemetery hill. They got reinforced the confederates reorginzed.
Second day most of the day was movement, till late afternoon fight. Third day same way. Most of the day was quiet till the push to the north, then pickets charge.

This was a long battle and how did it play out. Regiments fought hard for a few minutes only to fall off and be replaced.
There were not hour long trading lead. Furious fire, terrifying but quickly over. It’s unlikely that a pistol wielding soldier ever needed a quick reload.
Exception being irregular bushwhackers who were about killing not about winning battles

tenngun said:

We have to remember that although battles took hours or days, most of that time was marching around, placing cannon, scouting enemy positions
Gettysburg was busy in day one, till the collapse of the union position. Then the union fell back through town then to cemetery hill. They got reinforced the confederates reorginzed.
Second day most of the day was movement, till late afternoon fight. Third day same way. Most of the day was quiet till the push to the north, then pickets charge.

This was a long battle and how did it play out. Regiments fought hard for a few minutes only to fall off and be replaced.
There were not hour long trading lead. Furious fire, terrifying but quickly over. It’s unlikely that a pistol wielding soldier ever needed a quick reload.
Exception being irregular bushwhackers who were about killing not about winning battles

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Bushwackers? You mean like the murderers Jayhawks and Redleggers who was looters and pillagers and not about winnings battles.

tenngun said:

We have to remember that although battles took hours or days, most of that time was marching around, placing cannon, scouting enemy positions
Gettysburg was busy in day one, till the collapse of the union position. Then the union fell back through town then to cemetery hill. They got reinforced the confederates reorginzed.
Second day most of the day was movement, till late afternoon fight. Third day same way. Most of the day was quiet till the push to the north, then pickets charge.

This was a long battle and how did it play out. Regiments fought hard for a few minutes only to fall off and be replaced.
There were not hour long trading lead. Furious fire, terrifying but quickly over. It’s unlikely that a pistol wielding soldier ever needed a quick reload.
Exception being irregular bushwhackers who were about killing not about winning battles

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You would have been a revolver carrying Officer or enlisted man in a war where most of the combatants had muzzleloading muskets or rifles firing 3 rounds per minute , and other Officers had the same revolvers, more or less

Piquant said:

Bushwackers? You mean like the murderers Jayhawks and Redleggers who was looters and pillagers and not about winnings battles.

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Yup
They were blue and grey, but they were spending more time killing stealing and settling scores to fight for a cause.
No moral one upmenship there
We hear about Lawrence Kansas, but what sent Quintral there?

tenngun said:

Yup
They were blue and grey, but they were spending more time killing stealing and settling scores to fight for a cause.
No moral one upmenship there
We hear about Lawrence Kansas, but what sent Quintral there?

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Retribution, for the murder of his sister and raids on their families. A payback.

tenngun said:

We have to remember that although battles took hours or days, most of that time was marching around, placing cannon, scouting enemy positions
Gettysburg was busy in day one, till the collapse of the union position. Then the union fell back through town then to cemetery hill. They got reinforced the confederates reorginzed.
Second day most of the day was movement, till late afternoon fight. Third day same way. Most of the day was quiet till the push to the north, then pickets charge.

This was a long battle and how did it play out. Regiments fought hard for a few minutes only to fall off and be replaced.
There were not hour long trading lead. Furious fire, terrifying but quickly over. It’s unlikely that a pistol wielding soldier ever needed a quick reload.
Exception being irregular bushwhackers who were about killing not about winning battles

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tenngun is spot on, the actual time an individual soldier spent in active battle was not very long. Fire fights are like that. Men became exhausted, they ran out of ammo, orders changed, the enemy moved. It wasn’t an all day slug fest.

JamesA said:

If it were me, I would preferably have 3 or 4 preloaded cylinders and then carry paper cartridges as a back-up. What did the soldiers do back then? I'm old but not that old.

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My first handgun was a Pietta '58 Remington. After watching Pale Rider I bought some spare cylinders and tried it. Swapping was quick and easy after a litle practice, but by the third cylinder the fouling was bad enough to make it really tough to pull the hammer. By the fourth it was almost impossible. This was using real black powder, not a substitute. From my experience more than one spare cylinder would be pointless.

Piquant said:

Retribution, for the murder of his sister and raids on their families. A payback.

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Yup
But take one more step back, why were the women grabbed?
The whole theater was one of revenge and scores.
I just can’t look at that time and place and hold one high and condem the other, grey and blue there were no white hats and black. All grey

tenngun said:

Yup
But take one more step back, why were the women grabbed?
The whole theater was one of revenge and scores.
I just can’t look at that time and place and hold one high and condem the other, grey and blue there were no white hats and black. All grey

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When you go off to war, that is one thing, but when war comes to your home, your farm, and your family it becomes very personal which brings it beyond just fighting for a cause.

sgtsquid said:

My first handgun was a Pietta '58 Remington. After watching Pale Rider I bought some spare cylinders and tried it. Swapping was quick and easy after a litle practice, but by the third cylinder the fouling was bad enough to make it really tough to pull the hammer. By the fourth it was almost impossible. This was using real black powder, not a substitute. From my experience more than one spare cylinder would be pointless.

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I don't swap cylinders but can I shoot 3 or 4 cylinders easily using 25 grains of BP and felt wads soaked in 1:1 beeswax/olive oil mix with no cleaning. I also put 3 very shallow groves on the cylinder pin to keep the cylinder lubed and rolling. One of the places where bore butter does seem to work well. If you are swapping out the cylinders, where is the binding happening?

The smart money was to carry a Smith &Wesson Model 1, and a pocketful of cased ammunition -- in .22 Short, black powder!