he Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is the single repository for the institution’s extensive collection of Civil War small arms. Its collections include both weapons issued by the tens of thousands to federal soldiers as well as such rare Confederate arms as the Tarpley carbine, of which only a few hundred were made. In addition, the Smithsonian has acquired a collection of guns and swords owned by many of the major figures of the antebellum and Civil War eras, including John Brown, Ambrose E. Burnside, Abraham Lincoln, George B. McClellan, and J. E. B. Stuart.