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Interesting fight during the revolution.
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Booshway
Picture of Crawdad
posted
Pretty interesting skirmish played out in this article,

https://allthingsliberty.com/2...s-first-sniper-team/

Here is also one of the rifles captured and taken back to England,

https://www.royalcollection.or...1069/flintlock-rifle


Its once again too bad that the actual fight is not well described and used vague terms that we may be unfamiliar with such as 'Running bullets.'

Also the family was Presbyterian and that would mean to me that they were from the Philadelphia area more so than the Lancaster area. But does that rifle look like a rifle built in Lancaster Pennsylvania?

Thoughts? Opinions? Comments? All welcome.
 
Posts: 678 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: 30 January 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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Good info. Thanks for sharing the links. I have not seen this website before this.
 
Posts: 101 | Location: Davidsville , PA | Registered: 10 August 2016Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Crawdad
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I agree John that is a good website. I enjoy reading more about the skirmishes rather than the larger set piece battles as you can learn so much more about tactics employed during that era.
 
Posts: 678 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: 30 January 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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That is one of the reasons I like "That dark and bloody river",book. Tells of small skirmishes with the Indians and such in areas I hunt and fish. This is a very good website...
Thanks again!
 
Posts: 101 | Location: Davidsville , PA | Registered: 10 August 2016Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Crawdad
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It would have been interesting if the author could have shed more light on the term found in the journals of 'running bullets.' Did it mean casting bullets or rolling paper cartridges? During a fight? We have to question why wasn't this done prior to the fight or to get ready for a fight.

As a side note I was at a match and a feller was reloading his rifle. He short started the ball but then took a spit soaked patch out of his mouth and place it on his ramrod before seating the ball. After seating the ball he brought his ramrod back up with the cleaning patch on the tip, filthy.

I asked him about this and he said he read it in a journal during the Revolution that this is how rifleman would clean their rifles during a fight not taking the extra time to run a separate cleaning patch down the barrel. They would do this over so many shots.

I've never been able to find the source or verify this for myself but it seems reasonable.
 
Posts: 678 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: 30 January 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Hanshi
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That's a great site and I put it into my computer.

That rifle, looks to me, to have a Southern influence rather than Lancaster. I find it sort of reminiscent of a "Virginia" rifle style.


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3560 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Crawdad
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I agree Hanshi, and it struck me as I looked at it that it was more Virginian than Pennsylvanian.
 
Posts: 678 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: 30 January 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Crawdad
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Looking at Henry J. Kauffmann's 'The Pennsylvania - Kentucky Rifle' on page 36 under Chapter 3, County Characteristics - Lancaster County, there is a picture (Plate 30) of a rifle built by Peter Brong and on page 38 (Plate 32) there is another rifle built by Jacob Hoak that is almost the spitting image of that rifle.

Maybe it is a Lancaster.
 
Posts: 678 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: 30 January 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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quote:
Originally posted by Crawdad:
I agree John that is a good website. I enjoy reading more about the skirmishes rather than the larger set piece battles as you can learn so much more about tactics employed during that era.
Except for Famous battles such as the siege of Charleston, King's Mountain, and Camden, the Revolutionary War in South Carolina was a bloody civil war fought between loyalist and patriot militias in a series of backwoods skirmishes. If you get a chance read about Musgrove's Mill, Blackstock's Plantation, The long canes, etc.
 
Posts: 552 | Location: SC | Registered: 03 May 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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quote:
But does that rifle look like a rifle built in Lancaster Pennsylvania?


Well I noticed several things..., first it's a single-set trigger...note the screw behind the trigger? Second, no nose cap. Third, metal patch box WITH a hinge paralel to the comb of the rifle, not perpendicular as with most metal patch boxes at the time of the revolution. The barrel is held in place in the stock with keys, not pins, AND the stock is two pieces of wood glued together..., you can see the glue-joint just prior to where the rear sight and first key are located. There is only one lock screw and no sideplate...odd. So IF it was a rifle actually used in the AWI..., I'd say it was brand new when it was used, so it was "refurbished" and given to George IV...which means it probably was captured with part of the stock missing...... with the forward bit having gone missing, which was redone in London in the early 19th century ...explaining the two-piece stock and keys and lack of a nose cap...perhaps even the metal patchbox added later ???

LD

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Loyalist Dave,


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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