January 2009

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byCLAYTON E. CRAMER

HIS TOR Y

Legend and truth often differdramatically. A firearm historian digs

into the literature to see just howgood American marksmen really were

during the Revolutionary War.III

I n

We have all grown up with an image of the AmericanRevolution-wily American marksmen behind treesand stone walls, picking off formations of Britishsoldiers in scarlet uniforms at outrageous distances. It'sa charming idea, but myth and history aren't the samething. So, just how good were they?

and taught the use of arms:' Ramsay alsoobserved, "Europeans, from their beinggenerally unacquainted with fire arms areless easily taught the use of them thanAmericans, who are from their youthfamiliar with these instruments of war .. :'

Richard Frothingham's 1903 History

Until very recently, historiansassumed that the American colonistswere crack shots. David Ramsay's 1789History of the American Revolutionobserved: "For the defence of thecolonies, the inhabitants had been, fromtheir early years, enrolled in companies,

of the Siege of Boston described thehigh quality of marksmanship amongordinary Americans: "[A 1 martialspirit had been excited in the frequenttrainings of the minute-men, whilethe habitual use of the fowling-piece[shotgun 1 made these raw militiasuperior to veteran troops in aimingthe musket:' Frothingham's accountof the Battle of Bunker Hill emphasizedthe tremendous effectiveness of themilitia in cutting down the advancingBritish soldiers:

"Many were marksmen, intent oncutting down the British officers;and when one was in Sight, theyexclaimed, 'There! See that officer!''Let us have a shot at him!'-whentwo or three would fire at the samemoment. They used the fence as arest for their pieces, and the bulletswere true to their message."

According to Frothingham, Britishjournals sought to explain the enormousloss of life at the Battle of Bunker Hill asevidence of both uncommon valor byBritish troops, and remarkable shootingby the Americans:

"Attempts were made to accountfor the facts that so many ofthe British, and so few of theAmericans, fell. One officer writesof the former, that the AmericanrHles 'were peculiarly adapted totake off the officers of a whole lineas it marches to an attack.' Anotherwrites, 'That every riflem,n wasattended by two men, one of eachside of him, to load pieces for him,so that he had nothing to do butfire as fast as a piece was putinto his hand; and this is the realcause of so many of our braveofficers falling.'"

Not only did historians claim thatAmericans were good shots; theirtargets claimed that also. British Armyofficer Charles Stedman, who servedunder General William Howe, describedin The History of the Origin, Progressand Termination of the American Warwhy even able officers and brave menwere unable to fight back effectivelyagainst the Minutemen: "The people ofthe colonies are accustomed to the useof fire-arms from their earliest youth,and are, in general, good marksmen.

AMERICA'S l" FREEDOM I January 2009 37

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would very often hit such a mark250 Yds."

Unlike Lee'sletter, Madison's claimsare much more carefully phrased, andwritten to a fellowAmerican. Bradfordwas in no position to influence Britishopinion. Madison's description requiredthe average riflemen to shoot withinfiveminutes of arc, and the very bestable to hit targets within two minutes ofarc. The Nov. 3, 1775, Virginia Gazettereported that "a rifle-man killed a manat the distance of 400 yards:' This isplausible, but it was probably reported asnews because it was unusual.

Most of the shooting in the firstbattles of the Revolution would havebeen with muskets. New Englanderswere not making much use of riflesthis early.By July 1775, frontierriflemen were moving to the front lines.Frederick County, Maryland, raisedtwo companies of riflemen to join thearmy forming outside of Boston. Aneyewitness, J.Thomas Scharf, in Historyof Western Maryland, described ademonstration by Captain MichaelCresap's rifle company of "upwards of130 men":

"(To] show the gentlemen of thetown their dexterity at shooting. Aclapboard, with a mark the size ofa dollar, was put up; they began tofire off-hand, and the bystanderswere surprised, so few shots beingmade that were not close to or inthe paper.

"When they had shot for a timein this way, some lay on theirbacks, some on their breast orside, others ran twenty or thirtysteps, and, firing, appeared to beequally certain of the mark. Withthis performance the company wasmore than satisfied, when a youngman took up the board in his hand,not by the end, but by the side, andholding it up, his brother walked tothe distance, and very coolly shotinto the white; laying down hisrifle, he took up the board, and, .holding it as was held before, thesecond brother shot as the formerhad done.

"By this exercise I was moreastonished than pleased. But willyou believe me, when I tell you,

Infantry in theWorld:' Further, itclaimed that everyman could hit anobject the size ofan orange at 200

yards: "Every shot isfatal:' Richard Henry Lee'sletter wouldrequire every frontier rifleman to makeshots of two and a half minutes of arc.This would not be a difficult feat witha modern rifle, but it seems unlikely-especially in an era before telescopicsights-that this would be within thecapabilities of every frontier rifleman.

Arthur Lee was an agent of thecolonies in London, and dined withJohn Wilkes, London's Lord Mayor,who was sympathetic to the Americancause. Richard Henry Lee may haveintended his brother to show the letteraround. The prospect of going upagainst marksmen that good might havediscouraged the British governmentfrom going to war. Lee'sletter probablyexaggerated the abilities of the frontierriflemen-but it had to be sufficientlywithin the realm of possibility that itwould scare British officials. If Lee'sletter had claimed that the frontiersmencould consistently kill soldiers at 1,000

yards, it's likely that no one would havefound that believable.

We think of Iames Madison, thefather of the Bill of Rights, including theSecond Amendment, as an intellectual,not a man of the field or of action.However, Madison wrote a letter in 177 5to William Bradford in Philadelphia thatshows a different side:

"The strength of this Colony willlie chiefly in the rifle-men of theUpland Counties, of whom we shallhave great numbers. You would beastonished at the perfection thisart is brought to. The most inexperthands rec(k]on it an indifferentshot to miss the bigness of a man'sface at the distance of 100 Yards. Ial!" far from being among the bestBe should not often miss it on a fairtrial at that distance. If we corneinto an engagement, I make nodoubt but the officers of the enemywill fall at the distance beforethey get (within] 150 or 200 Yards.Indeed I believe 'we have men that

that one of the men took the board,and placing it between his legs,stood with his back to the tree,while another drove the center?"

Other eyewitness accounts ofCresap's company, published in TheVirginia Gazette, also report on theirmarksmanship, suggesting that theywere capable of one to two minutes ofarc accuracy:

",W]e mention a fact which canbe fully attested by several of thereputable persons who were eye-witnesses of it. Two brothers in thecompany took a piece of board fiveinches broad and seven inches long,with a bit of white paper, about thesize of a dollar, nailed in the centre;and while one of them supportedthis board perpendicularly betweenhis knees, the other, at the distanceof upwards of sixty yards, andwithout any kind of rest, shot eightbullets through it successively, andspared a brother's thigh!

"Another of the company held abarrel stave perpendicularly in hishands with one edge close to hisside, while one of his comrades,at the same distance, and in themanner before mentioned, shotseveral bullets through it, withoutany apprehension of danger oneither side.

"The spectators appearing tobe amazed at these feats, weretold that there were upwards offifty persons in the same companywho could do the same thing; thatthere was not one who could notplug nineteen bullets out of twenty,as they termed it, within an inchof the head of a tenpenny nail. Inshort, to prove the confidence theypossessed in their dexterity atthese kind of arms, some of themproposed to stand with apples ontheir heads, while others at thesame distance, undertook to shootthem off; but the people who saw.the other experiments declined tobe witnesses of this."

These skillswere not limited tohitting inanimate targets or wildgame. When the riflemen reached thelines outside of Boston, they took tosniping British soldiers, contrary to

40 AMERICA'S I" FREEDOM I January 2009

Washington's orders, and outragingthe British, who called "their twisted[rifled] guns the worst widow- andorphan-makers in the world:' Similaractions at Quebec City-but this timeoperating under orders-provokedsimilar reactions from the British.James Thacher's military journal ofAugust 1775 apparently referred tothis same group of frontier riflemen:

"They are remarkably stout andhardy men ... dressed in whitefrocks or rifle shirts, and roundhats. These men are remarkable forthe accuracy of their aim, strikinga mark with great certainty attwo hundred yards' distance. At areview, a company of them, whileon a quick advance, fired theirballs into objects of seven inchesdiameter at the distance of twohundred and fifty yards. They arenow stationed on our lines, andtheir shot have frequently provedfatal to British officers and soldiers... even at more than double thedistance of common musket-shot."

John Harrower recorded a similaraccount of how a rifle companycommander in Virginia sought toidentify the best marksmen out ofan overflow crowd of volunteers. Thecolonel's solution was a shooting contest:

"Col. Washington ... made ademand of 500 Riflemen from thefrontiers. But those that insistedon going far exceeded the numberwanted when in order to avoidgiving offence, the commandingofficer chose his company by thefollowing method, viz. He took aboard of a foot square and withchalk drew the shape of a moderatenose in the center and nailed it upto a tree at 150 yards distance andthose who came nighest the markwith a single ball was to go. But bythe first 40 or 50 that fired thenose was all blown out of theboard, and by the time his companywas [filled] up, the board shared thesame fate."

Here we have the best frontierriflemen shooting two minutes of arc-consistent with James Madison's claim-and the various accounts of the accuracyof Cresap's men.

British Army Major George Hanger,who held the accuracy of the commonsoldier's musket in contempt, hada different opinion about America'sriflemen. He was on horseback withLieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton,preparing an attack on the Americans. Arifleman 400 yards away fired at Hangerand Tarleton, who were less than twofeet apart. The shot killed the horse ofthe orderly standing between and justbehind Hanger and Tarleton. Hangerbecame a prisoner of war at the Battleof Saratoga. In conversations with theriflemen, they told him "that an expertrifleman ... can hit the head of a man at200 yards. I am certain that provided anAmerican rifleman was to get a perfectaim at 300 yards at me standing still, hemost undoubtedly would hit me, unlessit was a very windy day ... " Hanger's

Whittemore was not only a goodshot, but a tough old bird, accordingto Frank Warren Coburn's accountin The Battle of April 19, 1775. Thesmoke from his musket gave him awayand soon British flankers surroundedhim. "With one pistol he killed thesecond Briton, and with his other fatallywounded a third one. In the meantime,the ever vigilant flank guard wereattracted to the contest, and a ball fromone of their muskets struck his head andrendered him unconscious:' The Britishsoldiers clubbed him, then bayonetedhim. The village doctor decided thathe was beyond hope, but "Whittemorelived eighteen more years, dying in 1793at the age of ninety-eight:'

The mechanical accuracy of modernrifles (except for a very few,veryexceptional target rifles) is typically

" Another of the company helda barrel stave perpendicularly in hishands with one edge close to his side,while one of his comrades, at the samedistance, and in the manner beforementioned, shot several bullets throughit, without any apprehension of dangeron either side. "

statement would suggest that the bestAmerican riflemen were capable ofshooting within three to four minutesof arc.

While the most impressive examplesof accuracy involved rifles, we havesome astonishing reports concerningmuskets. "Samuel Whittemore, agedeighty years;' upon seeing Britishsoldiers marching towards Concord onApril 19, 1775, prepared by oiling "hismusket and pistols and sharpening hissword:' When the soldiers returned,"Whittemore had posted himself behinda stone wall, down Mystic Street aboutfour hundred and fifty feet ... Thedistance seemed an easy range for him,and he opened fire, killing the soldier heaimed at:'

one-half to two minutes of arc. Thelimiting factor is almost always theperson shooting the rifle, not themechanical accuracy of the gun itself.Yet these accounts from a variety ofsources suggest that Americans familiarwith the rifle were quite capable of fiveminutes of arc accuracy and the verybest marksmen were regularly shootingwithin two minutes of arc, if not better.

The evidence is pretty clear: ourRevolutionary ancestors were a nationof marksmen. ~

Clayton E. Cramer is a historian.This account is adapted from ArmedAmerica: The Remarkable Story of Howand Why Guns Became as American asApple Pie (Nelson Current, 2006).

AMERICA'S I" FREEDOM I January 2009 41

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