L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

He then dropped back to the lieutenant in charge, and modestly asked to exchange his lame horse for the pack-horse, and being particularly frank in his address, his request was at once granted, without a suspicion of its object, or a thought of the fatal carbines on the pack-saddle. I used some little skill in diverting the attention of the lieutenant while the pack was readjusted; and as the rain had now begun to fall freely, no one of the guard was particularly alert.

I was presently gratified with the sight of Mack riding ahead on the pack-horse, with the two carbines still strapped to the saddle, but loosened and well concealed by his heavy poncho, which he had spread as protection front the rain.

These carbines are seven-shooters, and load from the breech by simply drawing out from the hollow stock a spiral spring and dropping in the seven cartridges, one after the other, and then inserting the spring again behind them, which coils as it is pressed home, and by its elasticity forces the cartridges forward, one at a time, into the barrel, at the successive movements of the lock. I could see the movement of Mack's right arm by the shape into which it threw the poncho; and while guiding his horse with his left, looking the other way and chatting glibly with the other boys, I saw him carefully draw the springs from those carbines with his right hand and hook them into the upper button-hole of his coat to support them, while he dropped in the cartridges one after another, trotting his horse at the time to conceal the noise of their click, and finally forcing down the springs and looking round at me with a look of the fiercest triumph and heroism I have ever beheld.