FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA—The Free Lance-Star reports that the excavation of a Civil War trench at Fredericksburg’s Riverfront Park has yielded three spent .54 caliber brass cartridges for a Burnside carbine, an innovative firearm loaded at the rear portion of its barrel. The cartridges were found together in the trench, and may have been fired by an individual soldier. The weapon, designed by Ambrose E. Burnside in the mid-1850s, was used by 43 Union cavalry regiments. Some Confederate cavalry units also carried Burnside carbines, but those weapons were probably obtained from fallen Union soldiers. Burnside rose to the rank of major general in the Union army and oversaw Union defeats at the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. For more, go to “A Civil War POW Camp in Watercolor.”
