An Illinois Colonel felt it his duty to praise these double-acting arms. Said he, “In platoon firing with the Belgian musket, I can tell what I cannot with any other arm, and that is, how many pieces have been fired.”

“How can you tell that?”

“O, I count the men on the ground. It never deceives me. It is ‘fire and fall back,’ flat.

“One of these Belgian muskets will kick like a mule, and burst with the greatest facility. Several soldiers in our Illinois regiment have been killed in this way. The bayonet, too, is a novelty–a soft-iron affair, apparently designed to coil round the enemy, as it is introduced, thus taking him prisoner.”

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