The Spencer repeating rifle was a manually operated lever-action, repeating rifle fed from a tube magazine with cartridges. It was adopted by the Union Army, especially by the cavalry, during the American Civil War, but did not replace the standard issue muzzle-loading rifled muskets in use at the time. The Spencer carbine was a shorter and lighter version.
Famous quotes containing the words spencer, repeating and/or rifle:
“Anyone can see that to write Uncle Toms Cabin on the knee in the kitchen, with constant calls to cooking and other details of housework to punctuate the paragraphs, was a more difficult achievement than to write it at leisure in a quiet room.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (18511931)
“I have met few men in my life, worth repeating eight times.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (18151902)
“Truth is his inspirer, and earnestness the polisher of his sentences. He could afford to lose his Sharps rifles, while he retained his faculty of speech,a Sharps rifle of infinitely surer and longer range.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)