What Is A Revolver?

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 519, 10 December 1853

revolver - colt - india wars - manufacture

But what of the revolvers? We are now in a condition to understand these, and to do honour to the redoubtable Colonel Colt. A revolver may be either a pistol or a gun, for the principle is applicable to either; but it is usually a pistol. Its merit is that it may be fired many times in succession with great rapidity; and its name is due to the circumstance, that the effect is produced by the revolving of a particular part of the apparatus. From a very early period in the history of firearms, fighting-men have wished to find out some mode of firing two or more shots in succession, without waiting to reload after each firing. Some of the old matchlock and wheel-lock guns had as many as eight chambers each, to receive eight charges, and apparatus for firing all the eight in succession; but in these, as in later inventions, there was a constant tendency in two or more of the charges to ignite at once, from imperfection in the adjustment - thus rendering the weapon as formidable to the user as to the object fired at. Colonel Colt, living in the United States, recognised the peculiar want of efficient arms in a country whose inhabitants were constantly moving onward towards new settlements, where the pioneers were required to protect themselves and families by their personal prowess, frequently against fearful inequality or numbers, from the attacks of the aboriginal Indians: the mode of warfare adopted by these Indians could only be coped with by rapid and repeated firing; and thus the colonel was led to try his skill in the production of a kind of gun or pistol which could be fired rapidly many times in succession. He was but partially acquainted with what had been done in Europe, and he spent much time in trying plans and contrivances which had already been found in the Old World to be valueless. At length he produced the revolving pistol which now hears his name, and which has a great reputation for the quickness and safety with which many shots may he fired in succession.

To describe the detailed mechanism of a Colt's revolver, would he difficult to the writer and tedious to the reader; but the general principle can easily be understood. In a double-barrelled, or a four-barrelled, or a six-barrelled pistol, there are two, four, or six barrels, each bullet having a barrel to itself; but in the revolver there is only one barrel, through which all the bullets pass in rapid succession. There is a revolving cylinder, with six chambers or receptacles, each of which is brought by the revolution successively in a right line with the barrel. The rotating of the cylinder is effected by a self-acting lever, to which motion is given by the act of drawing back the trigger. Each little chamber is separately loaded with its quota of powder and ball; and when all are loaded, and the percussion-caps applied, the weapon is ready for firing. Each chamber, when its charge is fired, being in a right line with the barrel, the bullet passes through the latter as in an ordinary pistol; and the cylinder then traverses one-sixth of a circle, to attain the requisite position for the firing of another chamber.

To a professional man, everything is beautiful which shews skill and efficiency in his own particular profession; and thus a murderous weapon is beautiful to a soldier in proportion to the execution it will commit. The United States' military officers seem to be quite in ecstasies about Colt's revolver. In September 1850, the Senate passed a resolution, requesting the secretary at war to obtain the opinion of officers in the army concerning this weapon; the secretary appointed a Committee to manage the affair; and this committee published a report of their proceedings. It appears that there are four kinds of revolving pistols in America, by four different inventors, but nearly all the officers award the palm of superiority to Colt's. It was about the year 1840 that Colonel Colt surmounted the difficulties of his task, and produced an efficient weapon; and soon afterwards it gradually came into use in the United States' army - first by the Mexican ranger troops, and then by the mounted riflemen. One officer, who reported his opinion to the committee - Colonel Morgan - fights the battle of Waterloo over again in imagination; for he says :- 'In the field of Waterloo, we have a case directly in point. The French cavalry charged the English squares, again and again, without effect; and finally became so desperate, that they sought to back their horses through the English formation. Let us suppose the cavalry to have been armed with Colt's revolvers; that after having drawn the fire of the squares, they had borne down upon them, and, with the rapidity of thought, poured into their faces six well-directed volleys. I will not say that such would have been the result, but there is a strong probability that the squares must have melted away before such a storm of balls.' Whether English Officers would endorse this theory, we cannot say. Major Howard and Captain Sutton give a brief but graphic notice of the hand-to-hand conflicts which frequently take place on the Texan frontier with the prairie Indians, and the value of a six-shot revolver at such a time:- 'Those prairie tribes ride with boldness and wonderful skill, and are perhaps unsurpassed as irregular cavalry. They are so dexterous in the use of the bow, that a single Indian, at full speed, is capable of keeping an arrow constantly in the air between himself and the enemy. Therefore, to encounter such an expert antagonist, with any certainty of doing execution, requires an impetuous charge, skilful horsemanship, and a rapid discharge of shots, such as can only be delivered with Colt's six-shooters. They are the only weapon which has enabled the experienced frontiers-man to defeat the mounted Indian in his own peculiar mode of warfare: in those encounters which, though soon over, require a steady nerve, the greatest possible precision and celerity of movement, there is no time to reload firearms, even were it possible to do so, and manage your horse, in the midst of a quick and wily enemy, ever on the watch and ready to lance the first man who may lose the least control of his animal'.

Colonel Colt is not only a pistol inventor, but a pistol manufacturer also; and a manufacturer, it may be added, on a remarkably scientific and comprehensive system. The Americans carry out the factory system, the well-planned division of labour, to a greater extent than we do. They have not more hands than are requisite to do the work which is to be done; and they have not before their minds that fear of strikes, and grumblings and discontent, which frequently deter inventors from introducing new machines in England. Among us, guns and pistols are handwork, made in pieces by artisans who use the hammer and file, and other hand-tools; but in the United States the art is regarded as a kind of engineering, in which steam-power and beautiful machines are employed. Brother Jonathan is just now beginning to teach us how to make locks by machinery; and he has already begun to shew that pistols can be made by similar means; for Colonel Colt has now taken his rank among English manufacturers.

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