Weapons

Spencer carbine

Seven shots without reloading.

Spencer carbine
Spencer carbine, with the magazine tube, the metallic cartridges and the Blakeslee cartridge box. Reference model.
Capacity
Seven metallic cartridges in a tube inside the butt
Caliber
.56-56 Spencer ‡
Effective range
About 460 m
Arrival
Purchase of 1866; wide issue from 1867
Users
Brazilian mounted infantry and carbineers

It was the first repeating weapon of the Brazilian imperial army. It was reloaded simply by lowering the trigger-guard lever and cocking the hammer. Caxias asked for 2,000 to be bought in 1866, and they reached the troops in larger numbers in 1867, after delays with the ammunition. The 1868 report of the War Ministry stressed that it let a horseman “fire 7 successive shots”.

It was a minority weapon: no battle explicitly mentions the Spencer in the primary sources consulted.

‡ Disputed.The claim that it played a “decisive role” at the end of the war has no documentary support. Argentina may have bought about 500, according to a single source, with no documented use against Paraguay.

Sources: Rudolph Schubert, Revista Brasileira de História Militar no. 36 (2024); Aureliano Pinto de Moura, Navigator no. 9; Thomas L. Whigham, The Road to Armageddon (2017).

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