They had different roles on the battlefield. The first horse soldiers to carry a carbine were the bandeliers of the late 16th-17th century, but dragoons also carried long arms.Īs the firearms started to dominate warfare, the cavalry arm lost a large portion of its importance on the battlefield, while kept its traditional roles outside the battlefields, like fighting the small war, reconnaissance, keeping contact between bodies of the army.īy the beginning of the 19th century the cavalry was divided into light and heavy cavalry. All type of cavalry men carried at least pistols from the first third of the 16th century. Arming the cavalry with firearms is just as old as the invention of the wheel lock mechanism. Burnside in the 1850s.Ĭarbines were not new items in warfare in the middle of the 19th century. This breech loading percussion or capping carbin was designed by Ambrose E. The Burnside carbine played an important part in firearms history as this was the first arm of the US Army to shoot metallic case cartridges.
