In a private message Miqueleter suggested that I check out
Observations upon the History of Hand Firearms and their Appurtenances by Samuel Rush Meyrick Esq (1827). I've been able to locate a copy via Google Books.
The Dragon
The troops called Dragoons have been most absurdly said to have been so denominated from the Draconarii of the Romans They were raised about the year 1600 by the Mareschal de Brisac in order to be superior to the German Reiters who used the pistol to so much advantage On this account they had a more formidable weapon like a small blunderbus the muzzle of which being ornamented with the head of a dragon gave it its denomination and from this weapon those who used it were called dragoneers and dragoons Markham in his Souldier's Accidence printed in 1645 thus describes them The last sort of which our horse troops are composed are called Dragoons which are a kind of footmen on horsebacke and do now indeed succeed the light horsemen and are of singular use in all actions of warre their armes defensive are an open head piece with cheeks and a good buffe coat with deep skirts and for offensive amies they have a faire dragon fitted with an iron worke to be caryed in a belt of leather which is buckled over the right shoulder and under the left arme having a turnill of iron with a ring through which the piece runnes up and downe and these dragons are short pieces of sixteen inches in the barrel and full mus quet bore with fire locks by which he means wheel locks or snaphaunces also a belt with a flaske pryming box key and bullet bag and a good sword Grose who in his Military Antiquities has given a representation of a dragoon as he was equipped about ten years earlier erroneously infers that the weapon had its name from the troops Captain Cruso applies the designation dragoon to the lancier as well as the horseman who used a fire arm though this must have been an extension of the term confined to England In his Military Instructions for Cavalry published in 1632 he says There are two sorts of dragoons the pikeman and the musketeer The latter is to have a strap or bolt fastened to the stock of his musket almost from one end to the other by which being on horeback he hangeth it at his back his burning match and his bridle in his left hand The English appear from this in the first instance to have adopted the name and duty of the dragoon rather than his true equipments and compelled him to submit to the inconvenience of a match lock piece and the carrying of a burning match Sir James Turner seems to have formed his strange opinion from this fact his words being For what they got the denomination of dragoons is not so easy to be told but because in all languages they are called so we may suppose they may borrow their name from dragon because a musketeer on horseback with his burning match riding a gallop as many times he doth may something resemble that beast which naturalists call a fiery dragon This was the surmise of an English writer in the time of Charles the Second Pere Daniel who published his Mili9e Fran9aise in the time of Louis the Fifteenth imagines they were called dragons from the celerity of their motions and the rapidity with which they ravaged a country thereby resembling the fabulous monster of that denomination and a modern German writer gives this as the true origin of the name But a moment's reflection will show that it might equally as well have been applied to the mounted arque busiers and indeed a fortiori from their having been the first troops on horseback with fire arms A Manuscript in the Harleian library at the British Museum marked 6000 and entitled A brief Treatise of War &c by WT in the year of our redemption 1649 shows the equipments of dragoons at that period As for dragooniers they are to be as lightly armed as may be and therefore they are onlie to have as followeth calivers and powder flasks I would also have each dragoonier constantly to carrye at his girdle two swyn feathers or foot pallisades of four feet length and a half headed with sharp iron heads of six inches length and a sharp iron foot to stick into the ground for their defence whereas they may come to be forced to make resistance against horse This extract will account for the use of a larger species of fire arm than the dragon which had been their original weapon as it shows the necessity for it arose from the frequent use of dragoons when dismounted The dragon will be found among Skelton's engraved Illustrations.