Mosby's Rangers: Uniforms, Arms and Accoutrements Part 5: Accoutrements and Arms   "We lived on the country where we operated and drew nothing from Richmond except the gray jackets my men wore. We were mounted, armed, and equipped entirely off the enemy..." -- Col. John Singleton Mosby, The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1917. Arms: Revolvers: "Each of Mosby's men was armed with two muzzle-loading Colt’s army revolvers of forty-four caliber. They were worn in belt holsters. Some few who could afford it, or who had succeeded in capturing extra pistols or who wanted to gratify a sort of vanity, wore an extra pair in their saddle-holsters or stuck into their boot legs." -- John Munson (Ibid.) The preferred weaponry of this command was the Colt Army or Navy revolver, generally captured from Federal sources. As noted by Munson, the men sometimes carried two on their person and, (if they were lucky enough to have four) two on the saddle, giving them a total of 24 rounds. The usual Mosby raid was quick, and conducted on horseback with revolvers. Sabres: "We had been furnished with sabres before we left Abingdon, but the only real use I ever heard of their being put to was to hold a piece of meat over a fire for frying. I dragged one through the first year of the war, but when I became a commander, I discarded it." -- Col. John S. Mosby, Memoirs John Munson (ibid.) wrote, "We carried no sabres, being in no manner familiar with the weapon’s use. My keenest recollection of the value of a sabre takes me back to the time when a large curved blade, sheathed in clanking steel, was brought in with some captured Union man. None of us dared swing it at arm’s length, for fear of killing a neighbor, but we subsequently found it was a splendid weapon with which to bat a refractory mule over the back. " He continued, "Once only did I see this deadly engine of war in bloody action, and that was when young Emory Pitts of my Company playfully drove its point into the body of a Thirteenth New Yorker who had fired at him and then dodged under an army wagon to escape." However, despite Mosby's own anti-sabre bias, and Munson's account, several men of the command did use sabres, largely as back-up in case they expended all their ammunition and had no time to reload. Sam Chapman is documented as having fought ferociously with a saber in the Miskell's Farm action of April 1. Sabers documented to have been owned by Mosby rangers have appeared on EBay and elsewhere in the collectors market. Long Arms: Munson wrote: "Contrary to a popular impression we did not carry carbines at any time during the war." However, there are several documented occasions where captured US Army Sharps carbines were used, but these were almost always used for sharpshooter work, fighting dismounted, like dragoons. For example, there is this account by Ranger John H. Alexander (Co. A) in his memoirs, Mosby's Men (1907), describing the use okf carbines for dismounted work: "Captain (William) Chapman was put in charge of six or eight carbineers afoot and ordered to march straight down the pike until he came to something, after which his movements were left to his own discretion, to be guided by circumstances which the Colonel proposed to help develop with the mounted men. I had a carbine and fell into Chapman’s detail." Despite carbines being much shorter than other long arms, their length nonetheless often put their users at a strategic disadvantage when fighting at close quarters. For example, in the Command's encounter with Union cavalry troops at Mount Carmel Church, near Paris, the roadbed was so narrow and surrounded by tall embankments, that the union troops could not manouver their carbines in time to be effective against Mosby's men, armed with pistols. Saddles and Tack: On numerous raids, the Rangers were documented as having captured US Cavalry saddles, bridles and other cavalry gear, which they shared out among the command, and either gave or sold the surplus to the CS Army. It is therefore probable that the majority of their gear was Federal issue, although some men who had come from the regular cavalry may have preferred and therefore retained CS issue cavalry saddles. Others, such as local farm boys who initially provided their own mounts, may have stuck with civilian / plantation type saddles if that was what they were used to. For further discussion on this point, see section 6, reenactor guidelines.   The Context: Background on Confederate Uniforms: The Influence of JEB Stuart The Uniforms of Mosby's Rangers: Overview & Conclusions Uniforms: Individual Men Uniform & Equipment Guidelines for 43rd Battalion Reenactors Other Pages in this Section: History of the command: Regimental Rosters Chronology of Raids and Engagements: Their Key Opponents: Uniforms, Arms and Accoutrements of Mosby's Rangers: The Men of Mosby's Command Related Materials Online:

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