Stephenson M. Patriot Battles. How the War of Independence Was Fought

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The Things They Carried

WEAPONS, EQUIPMENT, AND CLOTHING

he technological restrictions, and possibilities, of the eighteenth-

century soldiers’ weaponry lie at the heart of any understanding

of the nature of the combat in the War of Independence. The

range, accuracy, and, above all, lethality (or lack of it) of the musket and

cannon to a large extent determined not only the tactics of the battlefield

but also the soldiers’ training.

The range and accuracy of firearms, for instance, set the distance

at which opposing forces could engage each other. The ability of

the individual soldier to carry his personal necessities on his body

directly affected the need for a baggage train and consequently the

speed with which a unit could maneuver . . . It is impossible to

understand a war without understanding the armies which fought

it, and it is impossible to understand an army without a knowledge

of the physical objects with which it functioned.

It was a handmade war. In the pre-mass-manufactured world of the

late eighteenth century, every musket, rifle, and cannon; every canteen,

cartridge, and cartridge box; each piece of the soldier’s uniform was

handcrafted. Each musket or rifle, although sharing close similarities,

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was unique, and this individuality was, in a profound way, an expression

of the society that produced it. Throughout the eighteenth century there

was a tension between the idiosyncrasy of the unique and the drive for

uniformity. The highly formalized nature of volley firing and the often

intricate regimentation that had to be instilled in the soldier through

his training was a response to the waywardness, the unpredictability,

the resistance to standardized performance, of his musket. If the

soldier could be trained to work on the battlefield as a coherent mass,

the weaknesses inherent in individual man and musket could be

overcome. At another level, the same tension between individuality and

homogeneity can be seen at work. George Washington’s insistence on a

centralized, “national” army rather than a disparate conglomeration of

state militias and provincial regiments was inspired by the drive toward

uniformity and the predictability in performance that it was thought to

guarantee. His passion for standardized drill, even for a standardized

uniform, sprang from the same impulse.

So it was with weaponry. The American forces at the beginning

of the conflict were armed with a hodgepodge collection of muskets

of various calibers, some dating back to the French and Indian War;

a scattering of rifles, mainly from the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and

Virginia backcountry (the rifle was virtually unknown in the New

England colonies; John Adams called it “a peculiar kind of musket”);

fowling pieces, and even blunderbusses of antique origin. The value put

on a gun by the provincial assemblies of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts,

and Virginia ranged from £3 to £5, when £5 represented about two

weeks’ work for a laborer, so for many it represented a considerable

investment.

At the beginning of the war, firearms were, more often than not,

provided by the men themselves. It was an individualistic practice

Washington wanted to replace with standard, “national” weapons:

“King’s Musquets, or Guns as near that quality as can be had.”

Just as

he sought to emulate the British army in organization and training, he

wanted his army equipped with British-style firearms. The individuality

of the American soldier in the early months of the war expressed itself

in another way. When their term of service expired the soldiers took

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their guns home with them, against Washington’s express orders. He

had intended to reimburse them for their privately owned weapons, but

in January 1776, after many men had returned home, he found himself

with only 1,620 serviceable muskets. Apart from those that left with

the men, many were rejected because they were worn out. In February

1776 2,000 soldiers lacked a musket because many recruits had turned

up without a weapon.

It may have given Washington succor if he had known that his

predicament was shared by the British army. Many redcoat regiments

had old and defective firelocks. (The term firelock is interchangeable

with musket.) On the eve of the rebellion the 7th Foot was armed

with thirty-six-year-old muskets; those of the 37th Foot had been

issued in 1742, and of the 390 firelocks of the 34th Foot, 351 were

defunct.

Another deficiency shared by both armies was the lack of

artificers—arms repair technicians. (The Prussian army of the period

had sufficient artificers, a major factor in its superior musketry on the

battlefield.)

The American army relied on three sources for its muskets:

domestic production, “inherited” British firelocks, and imports from

France. Domestic manufacturers, understandably, conformed as closely

as possible to the musket they had known down the years—the British

“Brown Bess.” On 4 November 1775 Congress issued to each colony a

specification that was a close replica of the British musket and known

as the “Committee of Safety” model.

Resolved. That it be recommended to the several Assemblies or

conventions of the colonies respectively, to set up and keep their

gunsmiths at work, to manufacture good fire locks, with bayonets;

each fire lock to be made with a good bridle lock,

¾ of an inch bore

[same as the British Brown Bess], and of good substance at the

breach, the barrel to be 3 feet 8 inches in length [Brown Bess was

3 feet 6 inches], the bayonet to be 18 inches in the blade [British

17 inches], with steel ramrod, the upper loop thereof to be trumpet

mouthed: that the price to be given be fixed by the Assembly or

convention, or committee of safety of each colony.

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Not many Committee of Safety muskets survive. They quickly wore

out and were superseded after 1777 when the French shipped 23,000

Charleville muskets, which became the standard for domestic American

manufacture. Charlevilles were inexpensive ($5) compared with the

domestically manufactured musket ($12) because they were turned out

in great numbers from the manufacturies at St. Etienne, Maubeuge,

and Charleville (all in the iron-and-coal region of northern France),

and over the course of the war, more than 100,000 were imported. They

were valued for their sturdy construction, though their smaller caliber

(0.69 inch) and therefore lighter ball (twenty to the pound compared

with fourteen to the pound for the Brown Bess) did not pack the same

punch as the Brown Bess. Another shortcoming was that it fouled more

quickly than its British counterpart, requiring cleaning every fifty

discharges or so. Nevertheless, some historians have claimed that the

greater range of the Charleville made it superior to the English model.

Contemporary accounts suggest otherwise. The proof of the pudding

was in the eating. William Lloyd, a New Jersey militiaman, was at a

skirmish at Freehold, New Jersey, in 1778: “The enemy then retreated

precipitately, throwing away many of their guns. I was, I believe, the

foremost in following, got as many of their guns as I could conveniently

manage on my horse, with their bayonets fixed upon them. Gave them

to the [American] soldiers as they stood in rank. They threw away their

French pieces, preferring the British.”

John Henry was part of the

American force that stormed Quebec in 1775 and recounted that at a

certain point in the battle “many of the party . . . threw aside their own

[muskets] and seized the British arms. These were not only elegant, but

were such as befitted the hand of a real soldier.”

The truth was that the Brown Bess, with all its faults, was the most

successful firearm of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

During the 140 years of its production more than 7.8 million were

made. The very name became synonymous with British power, but

the origin of the name itself has become something of mystery. One

American historian has suggested that the Bess refers to “Good Queen

Bess,” Queen Elizabeth I, in whose reign the predecessor to the firelock,

the matchlock, was introduced. Another theory is that the word Bess is

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a corruption of the German Büsche gun; another that the Brown refers

to the pickling of the barrel to retard corrosion, yet another that the

stock, originally painted black, was, in the eighteenth century, made

of walnut, hence brown. In any event, it probably would not have been

called by its famous nickname during the American war. (The first use

in print was not until 1785.)

Contemporaries knew it as the King’s, or

Tower, musket. The Tower of London was the Royal Armoury and

issued patterns to the myriad small gun-making shops that clustered

around it. (London and Birmingham were the largest gun-making

centers in Britain.) Because production of the parts, rather than the

whole gun, was carried out by hundreds of small workshops, uniformity

and interchangeability of parts were almost impossible to guarantee,

and the main bottleneck to production was the assembly of parts from

various subcontractors.

The flintlock musket derived both from the snaphaunce, a sporting

gun developed in Holland and France in the early seventeeth century

(the name comes from the Dutch snaphaan, meaning “pecking hen,” a

description of the action of the beak-shaped hammer or cock striking

the frizzen), and, more important (because snaphaunces were rare),

from the more numerous English lock gun, also from the early 1600s.

The introduction of the English lock changed radically how battles

could be fought. In matchlock firearms, the forerunner to the flintlock,

the pan holding the priming powder was open and therefore prone

either to dampness or to accidental discharge from a carelessly handled

“match” (a slow-burning wick). Placing a movable cover (frizzen) over

the pan could lessen both these disadvantages. Now, when the cock

struck the frizzen it automatically pushed it forward, exposing the

powder in the pan and allowing a spark struck when the flint of the

cock hit the frizzen to ignite the powder in the pan, which, in turn,

ignited the powder charge in the barrel. Safety was further enhanced

by providing a “half-cock” position for the hammer, so that if it was

accidentally triggered it would not have the power of a hammer at

“full cock” to discharge the gun (hence the term to go off at half cock,

meaning prematurely and ineffectively).

The earliest version of the Brown Bess, the Long Land Service

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pattern (its barrel was three feet ten inches), is dated 1718,

but most

historians date its general issue in the British army from the late 1720s

to early 1730s. Around 1740 the barrel was shortened to three feet six

inches to give the soldier increased mobility, and it was this model—the

Short Land Service—that was the primary British army musket in the

American war. The Long Land Service was relegated to use in Loyalist

regiments.

How effective was the musket? It is a crucial question because from

it flows the whole “architecture” of eighteenth-century battle: the way

troops were trained, how they were disposed on the battlefield, the rate

and range of fire, and, most important, the lethality of the weapon. It

was certainly inaccurate, and that inaccuracy was, in a fascinating self-

fulfilling cycle, reinforced by training and tactics. In order to counteract

inaccuracy, much emphasis was put on maximizing the number of troops

delivering fire and the rate at which they could deliver it. In order to

increase the rate of fire, the loading sequence had to be made as swift as

possible, and in order to speed it up, the ball had to be able to be inserted

easily. The difference between the internal diameter of the barrel (the

bore) and the external diameter of the ball is called windage; the greater

the windage, the easier it is to insert and seat the ball in the barrel. (The

windage on a Brown Bess was 0.05 inch.) The problem with windage is

that it allows the gases from the fast-burning powder on which the ball

sits in the barrel to escape around the edges of the ball, thus reducing

range (the power of the propelling explosion is dissipated) and accuracy

(the ball is buffeted by the gases in a ricocheting pattern down the

length of the barrel). If the ball was a tight fit in the bore, as it was in

the rifle, it cut down the gases escaping through windage and increased

range and accuracy, but it took much longer to load. This, anyway, is

the theory. A dissenting voice comes from the War of Independence

historian and reenactor Lawrence E. Babits, whose personal experience

has been radically different: “Even with undersized bullets it is possible

without ramming to hit a man-sized target eighty yards away with five

out of six shots in one minute . . . the extreme windage [a 0.63-caliber

ball in a 0.75-caliber barrel] did not cause any loss of accuracy.”

The loading sequence for a musket was intricate. The soldier raised

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the gun vertically until the hammer was about level with his shoulder

and pulled back the hammer to the half-cock position, which opened

the pan by activating a spring that lifted the frizzen. He lowered the gun

until the butt was grounded somewhat behind him (thereby pointing the

barrel away from him) and steadied it with his left hand. Next, he reached

into a cartridge box or pouch slung on his right hip or to his front and

took out a paper roll about two inches long and three-quarters of an inch

wide, sealed at both ends (with twine or paste), which contained powder

and a ball. He bit off the soft end (American recruits were required to

have at least two upper and two lower teeth which had to meet to enable

biting)

and poured a little of the powder into the pan. He then poured

the rest of the powder into the barrel and inserted the ball, shoving the

remains of the paper roll in as wadding to prevent the ball from rolling

out. He then slid out his rammer (an iron rod housed in a tube on the

underside of the barrel), inverted it in order to place the trumpet-shaped

end in the mouth of the barrel, and tamped down the contents of the

barrel (the harder he did it, the better the result). He then withdrew

the rammer, inverted it, and slid it back into its housing. He raised the

weapon and nestled the butt into his shoulder. He closed the frizzen and

pulled the hammer back to the full-cock. He was now ready to fire.

In parade ground conditions a well-trained soldier could fire four,

maybe five, times a minute, but battle conditions were very different.

There was the cacophony and chaos of officers shouting orders, muskets

discharging as the historian Richard Holmes has evocatively described

it “with the flat boom of a modern shotgun,” and men screaming and

huzzahing. At Cowpens, for example, the Americans almost lost the

battle because the order for the right wing to “refuse” its flank (turn

outward to repel a flanking attack) was misheard in the din as an order

to turn about and retreat.

The stink of the smoke, the watering eyes, the adrenaline coursing

through him, perhaps the unnervingly resonant thump of a one-ounce

ball hitting the man next to him, the thirst created by fear, and a mouth

fouled with gunpowder from the bitten cartridges were all powerful

distractions. With shaking hand, the intricate coordination of placing the

ramrod into the barrel mouth took much longer than it was supposed

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to. There was not enough time to replace the ramrod in its sleeve, so he

simply stuck it into the earth beside him. He would regret it later, because

earth would go into the barrel on the next loading, fouling it. Distracted,

he might forget to retract the ramrod altogether and fire it. Sometimes he

would not even bother with the whole paraphernalia of ramming. Instead,

he emptied the contents of the cartridge into the barrel and banged the

butt once or twice on the ground to settle powder and ball.

In combat, distances seem foreshortened. When a person is in

desperate straights, time seems to slow down; action seems to occur

in slow motion. Other thoughts intrude as the musketeer, under

the eyes of watchful sergeants, mechanically follows the manual

of exercise that will guarantee his survival. During loading and

firing, soldiers notice little increments of their task. The dry taste

of black powder and waxed paper cartridges was one step. Then,

a rattle of ramrods in the barrels as new charges of buck and ball

were forced home against the breech plug with a distinctive ping.

Platoon and division volleys crashed with bright yellow flashes

from pan and barrel, highlighting the firing sequence. The blast of

noise and light was so dramatic a soldier could not tell if his own

musket fired. During priming, only a wisp of smoke coming out

of the barrel’s touch hole would show that the gun went off. The

acrid smell of burnt powder, greasy black smears on hands and

face from ramrods grown slick with sweat and powder residue,

and cut thumbs from mishandling the musket’s cock added to the

individual’s perceptions of the fight.

The eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century musket had a

relatively low muzzle velocity (about 600–800 feet per second, compared

with modern centerfire velocities of 2,400–4,000 feet per second) and

an excessively parabolic trajectory at anything other than point-blank

range. The ball dropped about five feet over 120 yards, and as a result

“it was just possible for a good marksman to hit a man at 100 yards: a

volley could be fired with some chance of obtaining hits on a mass of

troops at 200 yards: but at 300 yards fire was completely ineffective and

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the bullet was no longer lethal.”

The British major George Hanger,

who fought in the War of Independence, wrote a classic account of the

accuracy of a Brown Bess in 1814.

A soldier’s musket, if not exceedingly ill-bored as many are, will

strike the figure of a man at 80 yards . . . but a soldier must be very

unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket

at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him, and as for firing

at 200 yards you might as well fire at the moon.

Accuracy trials of the black-powder period suffer from the distortion

of parade-ground formalities rather than battleground realities and

tend to err on the side of optimism. Trials in France in 1800 indicated 60

percent hits at 82 yards, 40 percent at 164 yards, and an unbelievable 20

percent hits at 328 yards.

William Müller, in his Elements of the Science

of War (1811), stated that a well-trained soldier had a 53 percent chance

of making a hit at 100 yards, 30 percent at 200 yards, and 23 percent at

300 yards. W. W. Greener, in The Gun and Its Development (1881), put

the accuracy on a twenty-foot-by-six-foot target at 75 percent at 100

yards, 42 percent at 260 yards, and 16 percent at 300 yards. In 1782 the

Prussian army tested musket fire against a target ten feet wide and six

feet high. At 100 paces (about 80 yards) the soldiers achieved 60 percent

hits, at 200 paces 40 percent, and at 300 paces 25 percent.

If these hit rates are applied to a theoretical battle situation, they

indicate casualty rates far higher than those actually experienced.

For example, if two 500-man battalions were facing each other, one

advancing, the other defending, by the time the advancing battalion

had covered the final 100 yards (it would have taken about a minute

to cover the ground in orderly fashion), it could reasonably have been

expected to absorb two volleys from the defenders. (Highly experienced

soldiers were expected to get off four discharges a minute, but in reality

the fire rate was perhaps two or three.) In theory the attackers would

have been totally destroyed.

In Firepower: Weapons Effectiveness on the Battlefield, 1630–1850

Major General B. P. Hughes makes the reasonable assumption that

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about 25 percent of muskets (125 muskets in a 500-man battalion) would

misfire. In addition, of the 375 successfully discharged muskets, Hughes

calculates that “at least half of those that left the muzzle failed to reach

their mark through a combination of inefficient distribution of fire,

inaccurate aiming and, to the greatest extent of all, the eccentricity of the

bullet.” Hughes’s calculation would result in 187 hits in one volley (37

percent of the total battalion). If the attackers had to endure two volleys,

they would, theoretically, have lost 374 men, almost three-quarters of

their strength, a massive casualty rate which finds no support in the

actual rates of eighteenth-century warfare. Marshal Maurice de Saxe of

France in his Rêveries on the Art of War (1757) was also skeptical about the

lethality of the musket-volley: “Powder is not as terrible as believed. Few

men in these affairs are killed from in front while fighting. I have seen

whole salvoes fail to kill four men.”

The eighteenth century was not

alone in the inefficiency of its rounds-to-kill ratio. In Vietnam American

troops fired 50,000 rounds for every enemy killed.

The relative inefficiency of the musket imposed its own tactical

boundaries when it came to battle. If individually aimed fire was

unreliable, mass and density, numbers of muskets, and speed of firing

and reloading would compensate. By the end of Marlborough’s wars

British infantry had “a sound appreciation of the supremacy of firepower

over all other forms of combat . . . By the time of Blenheim a new fire-

tactics—the famous platoon-fire system—had established itself as the

forte of the British foot.”

“Battles,” declared Frederick the Great,

“will be won through superior firepower . . . the infantry that can load

the fastest will always defeat those who are slower to reload.”

The

emphasis on unified and coordinated bodies of musketeers delivering

what the historian Robert L. O’Connell calls “corporate” fire

made

the European model “crystalline”: effective as long as its integrity and

coherence could be maintained. The corollary, however, was fragility.

Sometimes a blow against the tiniest flaw in crystal can cause it to

shatter. An oblique blow could destroy an enemy’s coherence—hence

the emphasis on flank attack. The British center at Bemis Heights, for

example, was almost destroyed by being knocked off kilter, and the

Highlanders at Cowpens came close to collapsing the American right