Carabine

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The “Carabine” belongs to the second group of short articles beginning with C Engels sent to Marx after the dispatch of the first three articles of this group on January 7, 1858 (see Note 293). On January 22 Marx made an entry in his notebook about the dispatch of the following seven articles he had received from Engels by then: “Carabine”, “Carabineers”, “Carcass”, “Carronade”, “Cartouch”, “Cartridge” and “Case Shot”. The second article was not published in The New American Cyclopaedia and the manuscript is not extant.

In The New American Cyclopaedia the article “Carabine” ends with the sentence: “Several improvements in breech-loading carabines have recently been made in the United States, and submitted for trial to an ordnance board at West Point (July, 1858).” The date quoted shows that this was added by the editors.

Carabine, or carbine, a short barrelled musket adapted to the use of cavalry. In order to admit of its being easily loaded on horseback, the barrel ought not to be more than 2 feet 6 inches long, unless it be breech-loading; and to be easily managed with one hand only, its weight must be less than that of an infantry musket. The bore, too, is in most services rather less than that of the infantry fire-arm. The carabine may have either a smooth or a rifled bore; in the first case, its effect will be considerably inferior to that of the common musket; in the second, it will exceed it in precision for moderate distances. In the British service, the cavalry carry smooth-bored carabines; in the Russian cavalry, the light horse all have rifled carabines, while of the cuirassiers 1/4 have rifled, and the remaining 3/4 smooth barrels to their carabines. The artillery, too, in some services (French and British especially), carry carabines; those of the British are on the principle of the new Enfield rifle. Carabine-firing was at one time the principal mode of cavalry fighting, but now it is principally used on outpost duty, and with cavalry skirmishing. In French military works, the expression carabine always means an infantry rifle, while for a cavalry carabine the word mousqueton is adopted.