On the question of carbine or rifle for cavalry, I found this in Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry by Eastham Tarrant (pp. 49-50). "Soon after entering camp we were introduced to active service. A detachment of picked men, armed with flintlock "horse" pistols, a relic of by-gone days, was sent under Lieut.-Colonel John W. Letcher to Nicholasville, on the north side of the Kentucky river, some fifteen miles distant, to guard arms through to camp. After returning from this expedition, companies A, B and C were armed with the Army Sharpe rifles with saber bayonets, one of the most effective arms in the service, and especially adapted to the dragoon or heavy Cavalry service. The other companies were afterward armed with the musket, a very inefficient arm, and particularly inconvenient for Cavalry. The men were compelled to retain these for a long time, much to their displeasure." This was in August or September of 1861. Maj. John A. Brents, in his Patriots and Guerrillas of East TN and KY (KY Jayhawker Press edition, p. 42) states that after the regiment's service at Wildcat Mountain (October, 1861), "The enemy ever after was heard to say that they feared the `Old Wolf` with his Sharp's-rifle boys." The 'Old Wolf' was Col. Frank Wolford. It has been some time since I read Wild Riders, but I do not recall a description of how the regiment was later armed. Tarrant does refer to their sidearms as Navies or Navy, as I recall. On a side note, my great, great grandpa was one of those Sharp's-rifle boys, having served in B Company from the very beginning until the muster out of the regiment three years later (after they had to leave their horses, which most men had provided themselves, in Georgia during the Atlanta campaign.)