I have been perplexed for some time by a comment made by the "number two" man in the CS Signal Bureau in Richmond--the man responsible for supplies and training. He was seeking small arms for issue and had no success, so he asked, "what about Bentley Patent Revolvers"? Not having heard of the Bentley, I searched the 'Net and discovered the cap-and-ball revolvers (some double-action) produced in the mid-1850s and later; Canadian and UK sites seemed reasonably familiar with these "Adams-like" revolvers, but they were a strange beast to the US world.
Checking again recently (with Firefox and Google), I encountered several indications that Bentleys were imported, were issued to cavalry units (e.g., 18th Va Cav), and were/are now considered among the secondary CS small arms, suggesting research and scholarship in recent years. Can someone "put me in the picture"? Has this been "written up" somewhere? Are there import figures, numbers? (I have no evidence that they were ever issued to the CS signal service, but then, again, I never imagined that Kerrs, for example, would be readily accepted.)