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This article describes the features of the Spencer rifles, which were used extensively by rival armies in the American Civil War. The Spencer carbine was rapidly emerging as the wonder weapon of the civil war during the 1860s. Chambering a waterproof 0.52-caliber rimfire cartridge via an ingenious union of a seven-round tubular magazine and slickly operating lever action, inventor Christopher M. Spencer's handiwork had given soldiers so armed the ability to fire 21 rounds per minute at a time when Southerners armed with single-shot muzzleloaders could fire but three shots in the same time.

This article presents information related to civil war soldiers. In a war that saw repeating rifles, machine guns, land mines and submarines come into use, a scattering of Civil War soldiers on both sides still charged into battle bearing variations. At least one officer in the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia customarily marched into battle bare-chested and hefting an ax instead of a sword and Private Tom Boss, who rode with Company C, 2nd Kentucky Cavalry of John Hunt Morgan's cavalrymen, also carried an ax.

The article profiles Ambrose E. Burnside, a subaltern in the 3rd U.S. Artillery, who took part in the American Civil War. He graduated from West Point in the summer of 1847, and briefly worked as an artillery lieutenant in the 2nd Artillery in Mexico as the 1846-48 conflict was winding down. Burnside's battery was stationed in the highlands north of Santa Fe at the isolated village of Tecolote. The village, which existed since 1824, was a prominent landmark on the Santa Fe Trail was under constant threats of Apache raids.