Annie (Sofie), Git Yer Gun! (November Road Trip, Part III)

Tom Carson is a good teacher, perhaps because he is a good story-teller. He tied a demonstration of firing his musket to tales of homesteaders on the Pennsylvania-West Virginia frontiers and the value of the musket in providing security and sustenance for the pioneers.


He talked about the differences in accuracy and speed between the flintlock musket such as he had and early rifles. While a shooter could load and fire three balls from a musket in the same amount of time one could load and fire the rifle, the musket ball wobbled and was less reliably accurate than the rifle. Because of the rifling (spiral grooves) inside the rifle barrel, the rifle ball/bullet was more stable in flight, thus providing greater accuracy in hitting one's target. Accuracy is important, Tom said, when in battle or "when facing down a bear on your front porch."
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Maybe it was his costume or the setting or my gullibility, I don't know, but I had no trouble believing Tom had had personal experience with the latter example.
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Tom, locking the strike plate.




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"Now, you don't want to go off half-cocked here, Martha"

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"Going off half-cocked" was a common experience with flintlock muskets and not just for novices like me.

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To save time when hunting or in gunfights, the musketman would half-cock the firing mechanism, saving a precious few seconds in the shooting process. Sometimes, whether because the cock wasn't securely in place or because it became jarred loose, the cock would fly forward, the flint would strike the plate, creating a spark and -- POOF-BANG! -- the musket would fire prematurely.

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Bad news if one were stalking a deer or trying to stay hidden from an enemy...and let's not forget the bear. One could become snack food for bruins in the blink of an eye, or the "going off half-cocked," as it were.

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One of the things I found most interesting in Tom's lecture-conversation was about the command, "Ready! Aim! FIRE!" American-Revolution militias were the first military groups in the world to use the word "aim" in their firing command, and the Europeans (primarily the Brits and the French) called us barbaric for doing so. Evidently, it wasn't gentlemanly to actually take aim at an enemy soldier.
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In Europe, Tom told us, if it could be shown that you deliberately took aim at an enemy and were successful in killing him, you could be tried for murder in criminal court! European-trained armies walked in long rows toward an enemy, bayonets affixed and guns cocked and ready. But one didn't aim specifically for any single enemy. One fired his weapon in the general direction of the oncoming flank of men, hoping to be effective. Of course, 50 or so men, lined in a row, all firing at the same time (more or less) pretty much guaranteed some success. The front row fell back after discharging their weapons, and the next row, "locked and loaded," became the front line.
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Not only did we "barbarians" take specific aim, we also didn't follow the English/European model of fighting, either. In fact, we were following the American model -- the First American model, which we had learned through friendship and fighting with Native American tribes as we pushed our way into their territories. This was the original guerrilla warfare.
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As Tom pointed out, accuracy was more likely if one kept his or her eyes open while taking aim.

This shot was a "flash in the pan" -- a misfire. Also not uncommon with muskets...and rookies.
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Despite the fact that I wasn't firing any ball, and therefore there was no kickback to speak of, as this picture shows (below), I wasn't taking any chances!



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At the end of my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fire a flintlock musket, minus the ball, I bent to the ground to retrieve the top of the paper cartridge I had bitten off so I could pour the blackpowder onto the flash pan and down the barrel. (Blackpowder tastes awful, by the way!) Tom assured me I didn't have to clean up the grounds, but I told him I wanted the cartridge top for a souvenir.

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"Well, here! I have a better souvenir than that for you," he said, while reaching into his cartridge tin. "Take this for a memory."

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He handed me a 50-caliber musket ball. It felt heavy and cold against my palm. I tried to imagine how being shot with one of those would feel, the ball heated in the explosion and by the friction as it made its way down the barrel, shot with enough force to drop a deer in midstep.

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Thank you, Tom Carson, for making our history come alive for me. I will remember you always, musket ball or no ball, flintlock sizzle or not.

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(c) 2009, all rights reserved. Photgraphs by Martha McLemore and Sandria Letellier.