Thanks Hugh, I'll try the inter-library loan....
I remember reading this one that you published as well....
The Man Who Shot Simon Fraser
I remember reading this one that you published as well....
The Man Who Shot Simon Fraser
Revolutionary War Tactics
- Thread starter datsun40146
- Start date
I don't wish to nitpick, but there are significant differences between the (19th--not 18th century) Baker rifle and the rifles our colonial predecessors were using a few decades prior. The Baker could be loaded quite a bit faster.
doublesharp
Member
The Frontiersmen: A Narrative by Allan W. Eckert.
Don't know if this qualifies but it is a great read and a Kentucky legend, Simon Kenton, is prominently featured. Fact based fiction, the author makes the time period come alive. Not a short book, at some 600 pages, it is compelling and goes into much detail about the time period. I highly recommend reading this one.
Amazon.com: The Frontiersmen: A Narrative (9780945084914): Allan W. Eckert: Books
From Amazon
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
The frontiersmen were a remarkable breed of men. They were often rough and illiterate, sometimes brutal and vicious, often seeking an escape in the wilderness of mid-America from crimes committed back east. In the beautiful but deadly country which would one day come to be known as West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, more often than not they left their bones to bleach beside forest paths or on the banks of the Ohio River, victims of Indians who claimed the vast virgin territory and strove to turn back the growing tide of whites. These frontiersmen are the subjects of Allan Eckert's dramatic history.
Against the background of such names as George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone, Arthur St. Clair, Anthony Wayne, Simon Girty and William Henry Harrison, Eckert has recreated the life of one of America's most outstanding heroes, Simon Kenton. Kenton's role in opening the Northwest Territory to settlement more than rivaled that of his friend Daniel Boone. By his eighteenth birthday, Kenton had already won frontier renown as woodsman, fighter and scout. His incredible physical strength and endurance, his great dignity and innate kindness made him the ideal prototype of the frontier hero.
Yet there is another story to The Frontiersmen. It is equally the story of one of history's greatest leaders, whose misfortune was to be born to a doomed cause and a dying race. Tecumseh, the brilliant Shawnee chief, welded together by the sheer force of his intellect and charisma an incredible Indian confederacy that came desperately close to breaking the thrust of the white man's westward expansion. Like Kenton, Tecumseh was the paragon of his people's virtues, and the story of his life, in Allan Eckert's hands, reveals most profoundly the grandeur and the tragedy of the American Indian.
No less importantly, The Frontiersmen is the story of wilderness America itself, its penetration and settlement, and it is Eckert's particular grace to be able to evoke life and meaning from the raw facts of this story. In The Frontiersmen not only do we care about our long-forgotten fathers, we live again with them.
Researched for seven years, The Frontiersmen is the first in Mr. Eckert's "The Winning of America" series.
Don't know if this qualifies but it is a great read and a Kentucky legend, Simon Kenton, is prominently featured. Fact based fiction, the author makes the time period come alive. Not a short book, at some 600 pages, it is compelling and goes into much detail about the time period. I highly recommend reading this one.
Amazon.com: The Frontiersmen: A Narrative (9780945084914): Allan W. Eckert: Books
From Amazon
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
The frontiersmen were a remarkable breed of men. They were often rough and illiterate, sometimes brutal and vicious, often seeking an escape in the wilderness of mid-America from crimes committed back east. In the beautiful but deadly country which would one day come to be known as West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, more often than not they left their bones to bleach beside forest paths or on the banks of the Ohio River, victims of Indians who claimed the vast virgin territory and strove to turn back the growing tide of whites. These frontiersmen are the subjects of Allan Eckert's dramatic history.
Against the background of such names as George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone, Arthur St. Clair, Anthony Wayne, Simon Girty and William Henry Harrison, Eckert has recreated the life of one of America's most outstanding heroes, Simon Kenton. Kenton's role in opening the Northwest Territory to settlement more than rivaled that of his friend Daniel Boone. By his eighteenth birthday, Kenton had already won frontier renown as woodsman, fighter and scout. His incredible physical strength and endurance, his great dignity and innate kindness made him the ideal prototype of the frontier hero.
Yet there is another story to The Frontiersmen. It is equally the story of one of history's greatest leaders, whose misfortune was to be born to a doomed cause and a dying race. Tecumseh, the brilliant Shawnee chief, welded together by the sheer force of his intellect and charisma an incredible Indian confederacy that came desperately close to breaking the thrust of the white man's westward expansion. Like Kenton, Tecumseh was the paragon of his people's virtues, and the story of his life, in Allan Eckert's hands, reveals most profoundly the grandeur and the tragedy of the American Indian.
No less importantly, The Frontiersmen is the story of wilderness America itself, its penetration and settlement, and it is Eckert's particular grace to be able to evoke life and meaning from the raw facts of this story. In The Frontiersmen not only do we care about our long-forgotten fathers, we live again with them.
Researched for seven years, The Frontiersmen is the first in Mr. Eckert's "The Winning of America" series.
Maggie Drawers
Member
Thanks Hugh, I'll try the inter-library loan....
I remember reading this one that you published as well....
The Man Who Shot Simon Fraser
You DO have a long memory! That was a preliminary look at the Murphy story. The Jo of Military History article is much enhanced. Thank you for reading my work for such a long time.
Maggie Drawers: I wonder how many besides you and I know what that means?
I suspect that Ferguson could have used a few of his own rifles at King's Mountain.
Buck
I use a short barrelled Jaegar in 60 cal. It has a coned barrel so I can actually thumbstart my ball. It is both historically correct and period correct for a Rev War era gun. Not a military gun, by any means... It's a hunting gun.
Pray tell, how could you load and fire a Baker "Quite a bit Faster" than my Jaegar?
Maggie Drawers
Member
Ha! I've been using it for years and you're the first person to acknowledge understanding the term.
Maggie Drawers
Member
Gizamo - that's a beautiful rifle. I have a 50 cal flint in a early Virginia style. I've often thought of coning the barrel but didn't want to screw it up. I agree - thumbing is fast. I don't believe that short starters were used historically - they used a much looser ball/patch fit.
Maggie Drawers
Member
Thank you, Sir!
nicky4968
Member
This is the true explanation of how the Revolutionary War was fought. Also an interesting insight into part of a later conflict.
YouTube - Bill Cosby - Toss Of The Coin
YouTube - Bill Cosby - Toss Of The Coin
Maggie Drawers; My father, infantryman in WWI and NYNG between the wars, taught it to me. It was Maggie's drawers, then.
Cyrano,
It's sad to me, and probably would be to your dad also, that today's infantryman doesn't know the meaning of "Maggie's Drawers". But then, I realized that the longarm that most of them are issued isn't effective much beyond normal hailing distance so there is little need for a communication between the target pit and the firing line. And to make matters worse, little emphasis is put on a "miss". After all, there is a magazine full to follow up with.
Bob
Maggie Drawers
Member
I agree. Marksmanship is a thing of the past. A friend in the Air Force told me that today's airmen are not taught to adjust the sight - if they need to shoot at a bit further distance they just hold over a tad. Hmmmm........sounds a bit like the fixed sights on my trusty flintlock. I wonder if they sight in using a file, too.
I agree. Marksmanship is a thing of the past. A friend in the Air Force told me that today's airmen are not taught to adjust the sight - if they need to shoot at a bit further distance they just hold over a tad. Hmmmm........sounds a bit like the fixed sights on my trusty flintlock. I wonder if they sight in using a file, too.
Had a chance to read your most recent addition to the story of the rifleman. It was a great treat. Well done and a well researched read....
Sometimes the truth is much more interesting than the stories we were taught in school. When I started down the path of independant research into our nations Colonial Era, and the subsequent founding of our Country ~ it was dumbfounding....
Evidently "Spin" is not a modern thing....
Ha! I've been using it for years and you're the first person to acknowledge understanding the term.
Sir, I first heard the term "Maggie's drawers" in boot camp in 1984, and it was used in the Corps into the early '90s, though the more common term was "disked you a miss." The Marine Corps being what it is, I'd bet that both terms are still in common use.
Hope this helps, and Semper Fi.
Ron H.
of the military, the term "Maggie's Drawers" is no longer PC.
zan516
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datsun40146,
I found "Sharpshooting in the Civil War" (by Maj. John L. Plaster) in the NRA Library today. I know it is the wrong time frame, but it might have some "lessons learned" from the Revolutionary War era.
Hope this might be of some help.
todd
I found "Sharpshooting in the Civil War" (by Maj. John L. Plaster) in the NRA Library today. I know it is the wrong time frame, but it might have some "lessons learned" from the Revolutionary War era.
Hope this might be of some help.
todd
Maggie Drawers
Member
Gizamo - please excuse my long absence and way overdue thanks for your comments regarding my Tim Murphy article in Journal of Military History. I assure you it is much appreciated.
Had a chance to read your most recent addition to the story of the rifleman. It was a great treat. Well done and a well researched read....
Sometimes the truth is much more interesting than the stories we were taught in school. When I started down the path of independant research into our nations Colonial Era, and the subsequent founding of our Country ~ it was dumbfounding....
Evidently "Spin" is not a modern thing....
I write for Patriots of the American Revolution magazine. In my research I find some of the most incredible "facts" parrotted endlessly by people with excellent reputations. I've gotten very leary of authors who cite secondary sources. Hunt down the origins of the "facts" and sometimes, not always, it is truly eye-opening; and discouraging. But, it's the primary resources where the fun and the truth is found.
Thanks again for your comments. It is a real pleasure to hear from a reader.
Hugh
