Good morning everyone welcome to another session of ask a ranger and
curator. I'm very pleased today to be joined again by doctor emily murphy the curator
at Salem maritime and Saugus Iron Works national historic site
"Hi everybody." And I would also like to thank the friends
of minuteman national park for their continuing support of this program and other programs and
the quick safety message as per usual the park grounds remain open
and the parking lots are open however the visitor centers are
closed and public restrooms are closed. If you do choose to visit to take a hike along the Battle
Road trail please visit responsibly maintain at least six-feet of distance
between yourself and other visitors an per order of governor baker if you're in a
situation where you can't maintain social distancing please wear a mask. Now I want to let you all know
of a slight format change starting next week. So what we're going to do next week, we'll
still take your questions and I ask that you get them in a little earlier
maybe get them in by tuesday afternoon that would be great and we're going to do is pre-record
the session. Now there's a good reason for this and it has to do with capturing and
accessibility. So live captioning, this is a live show... live captioning
is possible however it's not really feasible for us at this time so what
we're going to do is pre-record, edit the auto captions and then we'll still
premiere the video same time same place ten o'clock friday morning
and I will be with you responding in the chat so
it actually more it'll probably end up being a little bit more interactive and, I
welcome your feedback on that format change so we're going to
start out this morning with a question from a young man named jack
age nine how many cannons did they have that morning.
So, by the word they I assume you mean both sides the colonists
in the british so I'm going break this down into a couple of different areas here
first of all regarding like how many cannons were used on that
day of april 19, 1775. The simple answer is the colonists
used zero cannons that day and the british regulars used
to the british relief column the reinforcements under
Hugh, Earl Percy brought out with them to six pounders,
that means that they are guns that fire a six pound
cannon ball and they're maneuverable
on a field carriage. So he brought out two six pounders.
So, the colonists used zero, and the
british used two. There were actually no artillery casualties that day
Hugh Percy's cannon we're very effective at,
you know, relieving pressure on the column scattering the pursuing
rebels however didn't actually hurt anyone but they did some damage to property
certainly and it's very difficult to argue with the six pound cannon ball which is why when
they start bouncing along toward you people get out of the way. However if we're going to expand your question
out to a larger context, how many did
each side have well that's a whole different question so?
We have the account from the Colonel James Barrett papers, and
Colonel Barrett was the militia officer in charge of all of the military stores in
concord.
So, he has an account of all the province store sent to colonel james barrett of Concord, partly in
his own custody and partly elsewhere all under his care and
he lists artillery. Two pieces of cannon brought from watertown
eight pieces of cannon brought to the town by mr harrington
four pieces of brass can and two mortars those are these really short
stubby guns that fire s bomb, meaning an
iron ball that's hollow, filled with gun powder that you can send it up in a
long arc to get it over fortifications. So for brass pieces of
cannon and two mortars from colonel Robertson. So if we take that we have
two, plus eight so that's ten, plus
four brass guns so that is fourteen.
Plus two mortars, so that sixteen guns in
concord, and there's also more artillery in the town of worcester
And, there was also spy account that was sent to general Gage the day before he
sent the troops and that according to that spy report, and that's very similar to
Colonel Barrett's report he said there are twelve pieces of iron
cannon mounted in the center of town plus three twenty four pounders.
Those are big guns those you cannot maneuver on a battlefield. Those are
usually in a fixed position like on a fortification on the coast, but they were there they
were there in concord, probably brought out from one of the batteries on the coast and they were not mounted on
carriages.
So, that's twelve pieces field guns iron plus the three
twenty four pounders, so that gets up to fifteen.
Plus the four brass guns so that's nineteen plus the
two mortars that's twenty one pieces of artillery all told. There
was a member of the provincial congress, james warren, who wrote this about
the town of Concord in april of 1775, "All things wear
a war-like appearance. The town is full of
cannon." So they had a lot of guns.
Now if you want to talk about the british.
All right, the british had four companies
of the royal artillery as part of the boston garrison so
if you figure each artillery company has four guns that gets you to
twenty four field guns now if you bring in the navy?
Listen to this... so between twenty four armed vessels
belonging to the british navy,
floating in boston harbor, between those twenty four vessels they
had four hundred and eighty four guns. Yikes! That is a lot of
artillery.
Now speaking of artillery and boats doctor emily has something
on her mind. She has something that she would just love to discuss with you and,
it has to do with the revolution on the waves. So, Emily?
so yeah, we talk a lot about when you think the revolution most of the time which you think
about our land battles you lexington Concord, Yorktown ...,
you know, some of the big some of the big ones in the middle, Morristown and places like that,
but, what we often forget is that there is
a whole section of the american revolution that takes place
on the water. Jim referenced the royal navy coming in and
blockading ports and the real navy was a really,
really effective weapon that the british could use. Because, I mean
one of the large royal navy ships could be as well-armed or better armed
than a shore fort and they could bombard an
entire town from the water - destroy a town from the water - so,
there is a so, what the of course the
colonists don't have that kind of naval power. What they do have
are mercantile vessels and,
there is a long tradition in european warfare
of basically creating a naval reserve so,
it's a way of increasing your naval force without having to
have the government take on the enormous expense
of building ships and out fitting ships and hiring crews, so
privateering as it is known it has become
privateering as it's known
has become a huge part of the naval
efforts. "Now, Emily, when you say privateering, I mean, I think
it's just piracy, I mean they're going out and...no, no,"
Privateering is not piracy. "You're welcome..." I'll say this again
privateering is not piracy. I will try not to
rant about this. So, "good luck..."
so privateering is a is a legal.
Well actually, first let me talk about
piracy. Piracy is flat-out thievery and,
if you were a merchant.
In the eighteenth-century pirates were a huge problem
because.
A lot of times if they captured one of your vessels
It would...
It is not piracy with a license Adam Gresak, I saw that comment...
A pirate would often kill the entire crew
destroy the vessel destroy the cargo and, it was and
if a pirate was captured by a british
naval vessel they could be summarilly executed so,
it was pretty risky business for the pirate and, it was such
a - in eighteenth-century was considered such a horrible
accusation to give to somebody that there's actually letters that
I've read in the darby family papers from salem.
Where...
Richard derby senior is very angry
about the british capturing one of his vessels
for smuggling, which he was - to be quite honest - he was doing and,
he says these people are pirates but,
because
It would... would open him to a libel accusation he actually says
p-----s. He doesn't actually spell out the word pirates so, he could,
you know, say, well if it got you've got the wrong hands, you could say well this is not...
I wasn't saying pirates, I was saying something else
"parrots." They're parrots so, that so being
so piracy was a very serious thing it was a very.
Very bad thing in the
eighteenth-century. Privateering on the other hand is...
is covered by international maritime law at the time it
is very regulated activity by
the... the governments so if you
became a privateer, first off you had to put up a bond
of a quite a substantial amount it could be
couple of thousand pounds of for you good behavior. If you are a
privateer captain you had to, if you captured a vessel, there
were specific instructions about what kind of vessel you could capture so,
it had to be a vessel that was carrying things that
were going to support the war effort so a vessel carrying
say immigrants was not...would not be considered a
good... a proper capture and that vessel
will be returned to its owners. A vessel carrying
supplies to the british troops in boston on the other hand that was fair game?
So, you had to yet
the you had to capture the vessel and then you had to bring it back to a
port that was controlled by or friendly to the americans and I
saw a comment earlier from someone in southern france and that was one of
benjamin franklin's biggest diplomatic coups was that he
was he got the french to agree that we could get privateers adjudicated in
their ports, so, if you capture the vessel around the coast
of england you didn't have to bring all the way back to america you could take it to port in france.
So, the and then you had to have a court hearing
with the captain or highest-ranking surviving officer of the product of the privateer
that was captured and,
the judge would say whether this was a good capture and,
then they we basically go through
the vessel anything was of military use will be sent to
the military everything else would get auctioned off
And the captain
the crew any investors in the privateer would the split the proceeds
This was a great way, a
great way to make a lot of money very quickly and,
I think one of one of john adams friends writes to him at one point and says
"The whole country is gone privateering mad..."
because it was as I said a great way to make a lot of money yet, you know,
if you're if you're of fishermen out of, you know,
gloucester or you work on some of the vessels that are regularly going down to
the to the caribbean it's a pretty decent living but,
you know, as a privateer, even as a crew member of one of these privateers
if you caught a couple of really rich vessels you
could you could make quite a bit of money on just a couple of voyages so
the when privateering gets started massachusetts they actually
pass laws for privateering in order for you to
get what's called the letter of marque, or a license saying that you are a privateer, you actually had to have
a certain percentage of your crew be what they call landsmen, so people who are on
their first voyage so the idea is to train
up more sailors who could potentially, if we do end up with
a navy, which we did in the post revolution period. I saw
...I thought I saw question earlier about the uss constitution.
constitution is built in 1797 so it's part of the
american navy that's being formed in the ...
as our country. So didn't actually fight in the american revolution and,
Where was I? I just got lost...
"Training sailors" Training sailors for the navy so the idea is because,
because one of the problems with privateers is that they
don't defend ports so if you want some if you
want a naval force that's going to go up against the royal navy and
actually defend boston defense salem defend Newburyport, your privateers
aren't going to do that. They don't want to hang around waiting,
Waiting, you know, waiting for the navy to approach and fight
them off. Their job is to go out and basically cut supply lines
and our privateers were extremely effective at
doing that. There were, I only have the statistics really for salem because that's where I work,
there about a hundred privateers sailing out of salem together over the course of the american
revolution they captured over five hundred british vessels of
various sizes so,
it was a it was a huge economic boost in terms of
...in terms of the actual the american economy especially coming out of
the american revolution. So I talked about the profits but I should also mention
there are huge risks with being a privateer.
One of the problems with being a privateer is if you do
get captured, unlike if you're captured in the army... the
british don't really know what to do with you at this point.
Because.
As a as a privateer carrying a
letter of marque, there are certain protections that it
gives you in terms of what happens when you are captured.
The capturing vessel cannot touch the private
property of the crew or the captain's. They have to be treated, you know,
like prisoners of war not like
pirates, and this creates a problem.
For the british because...
If the british recognize our privateers
as legitimate, sailing under
a letter of marque issued by either the massachusetts provincial
congress... or the U.S. Congress.
They are de facto.
acknowledging the legitimacy of
these governments. They can't do that
and still claim we are in rebellion against them. So this
creates a huge issue for them.
So, what they end up having to do because
they cannot exchange these guys as prisoners of war,
they end up having to warehouse
them and many of you may have heard about the infamous prison
...ship, the jersey, … outside of new york and the
prisoners on the jersey were almost entirely
captured crews from privateers.
And...and the conditions on that vessel
were horrible and, hundreds and hundreds of people died.
If you had if you were captured closer to
...britain
the likelihood was that you be sent to the mill prison
dartmoor. And this actually became another sort of diplomatic
coup by benjamin franklin because what ends up happening with a lot of
the prisoners at the mill prison in dartmoor is, to prevent
over-crowding, they basically farm these guys out as indentured servants
to local farmers or trades men or something like that
so all of a sudden you've got all these americans many of them
from new england so they have generally a higher education level and very
articulate people moving out into the country side and,
actually interacting with every day british citizens.
And, it in so the treatment of these prisoners
becomes part of this whole debate that's going on in england.
About the rights of citizens and it supports
a lot of the folks who were in parliament who were actually very supportive of the american
cause because they see what we are doing as fighting for the rights of Englishmen. They're known as the
Whigs so, it's actually ... these
captured prisoners, actually go into helping to reduce
support for the american revolution in england and bringing the
conflict to an end in 1783. So have I covered having covered enough about privateers?
If people have specific questions I can come back on next week
and answer them. I've kind of seen some of the questions
...that have been coming through and
I'll show..."Well one of them was whether there were any ex-pirates that became privateers."
Yes, that was one way for if you were a pirate that was
one way that you could legitimate yourself now it didn't happen as much
in the american revolution but in earlier,in earlier times
in earlier periods in earlier wars that was something
that very often folks would do and there's actually ...
it go the other way as well there's actually a couple
of examples of folks who started out as privateers
then either decided not to follow the laws or
did something to make the british establishment angry and suddenly
they start being labeled as pirates and being hunted as such.
And there's a couple of examples that. "But it sounds like most of them came from the from the mercantile..." almost,
almost exclusively there, you know, because they're coming out of the mercantile thing and this is something that,
you know, that they figured so is the minute this conflict get started they're actually,
the merchants are chomping at the bit to get out there and in fact the first
vessel that's captured and come back and they're like hey we caught
some thing and everybody's like what do we do with the prisoners so there's a
great example of like richard derby junior who's a member of
the legislature from salem at one point ends up just getting handed like
twenty three swords
from various officers of british vessels that have been captured
and he's kinda like, what do I do with these? So they figured out pretty quickly how-to-do-it
There's some fantastic sources of things like
auction records and privateer hearings from later in the war.
"Well thank you for that." You're very welcome. "So they're not pirates? No.
they are so there are naval reserve the same way or naval reserve operates today
So private individuals who, during war time, ...take on
a military aspect and then once the war's over
all privateering agreements cease and, that's another very important
difference is you can't keep doing this after the war's over. "Darn."
All right well thank you for that Emily, That was a very clear
explanation of how privateering is not piracy. Now
speaking of privateering, so we have a question from Ronald, The story goes that samuel
prescott was returning from a date with his fiance that would be lydia muliken
of lexington on the night of april eighteen into the early morning of april
nineteenth which is true he was courting his fiancee little symbolic and
at her home in lexington and he was riding home after midnight to his
home in concord when he met up with paul revere and william dawes and
helped to spread the alarm that night and he actually made it through
and, deliver the alarm to concord. so the question is what was
the dating scene like in concord in seventeen seventy five
where the dashing young minuteman go to meet the ladies?
So, where's the privateering connection and this? Well actually I do
want to acknowledge that the tale of samuel and lydia is not a
happy one. Unfortunately Lydia mulliken's house, her family's home,
was destroyed during the fighting in the afternoon as the british were retreating to boston so she certainly had a
very difficult day and samuel did go on to serve
as a surgeon with the army and then later on board a privateer,
and as emily and talked about one of the dangers of course of
being captured by the royal navy and he died in the british
present sometime late seventeen seventy six early seventeen seventy six or
too late seventeen seventy seven so unfortunately though they were
betrothed, they were engaged to be married, but it never came to be because
events and the war intervened between them. "There's another privateering connection with
minuteman as well. Doesn't captain smith of Lincoln, he ends up
doing privateering and also unfortunately gets captured he did and very likely have
ptsd from that experience, kind of affected the rest of his life after."
So, it wasn't all fun on high seas making money, but getting back to the dating
scene so, there are lots of opportunities for young men and women to meet and
interact in colonial massachusetts so if you live in the country side, you know,
these are agricultural communities so you have times where people share labor,
you know, whether they're threshing the grain or in the fall and they're
calling the apples and drying them so,
that's where people come together to share labor and then at night they could have what's
called frolic. So a frolic is usually accompanied with music and
dancing, men and women mixing together, very supervised of course, but,
a lot of the social restrictions are relaxed and people can just enjoy
each other's company so that was a great way for young men and women to meet, to socialize
and to get to know each other and, I should say... "If you can't dance you're not going to get a date let's put it that way."
Pretty much you better be either really wealthy or
really good-looking if you can't dance if you can't dance so.
It pays to practice dancing so that was one way,
you know, in another way that's often overlooked is the sunday meeting.
sabbath, going to church on sunday. the whole town pretty much
is there and that's a great opportunity to meet the young the
eligible young men and young women from the other families there's usually a break in the middle
of the day it's a great time to go for a walk with your sweetheart and what have you
so lots of opportunities to meet. however in this society marriage
was hugely important unmarried men unmarried women
were very little account so there's a lot of pressure to get married it was it was not about
the individual society was structured around the household so if
you're young man one you want to get your inheritance from your father
so that you can establish your own income and
household want to get married you want to have children and that is how you get a
standing in the community so very important. courtship -
So, courtship; these are small communities and everybody knows what's going
on so when you decide you're going to court young lady.
Essentially you're declaring publicly what your intentions are
and it was also expected that you would speak with her parents and get permission to
court their daughter so everyone knows, you know,
everyone knows when they see, you know, your horse tied up to the palings outside the house.
And, they also know when the horse is no longer seen
tied up to the palings outside of house.
they know when you have been turned off when you have been dismissed by the young lady
you're suit has been rejected you were, to use a period
term, "bagged" so you are and that's publicly
humiliating … "that's a great term."
So, everybody knows that your courting and they also know if
you failed so you have to be bold you know,
it's humiliating, it's a public embarrassment. It could also mean
for young man the loss of reputation at least temporarily so,
there's kind of a lot at stake when you enter into a courtship with a young
lady. So one of the sayings that they used to have back in those days was that a
faint heart never won a fair lady, or to put in more modern terms
and my generation and the nineties the great young mc, "don't just stand there
busta move."
I actually said that. "I should probably get going to do actual curatorial things but,
it has been wonderful being here for at least the first part of asking
ranger and by everybody I hope you have a great weekend and
may or may not see you next week depending on what questions come up." all right thank you Emily.
I just don't think she's a fan of eighties rap.
And, to be honest neither am I.
Right so we have another question from Pete.
And, this one has to do with the militia. so he says "I believe the
militia system went back to the massachusetts bay colony charter which
require them to be formed. yes you are correct. did the use of alarm riders
and minute companies also date back to those days or
were they improvements that were added over the years? all right so I'm going to talk a little bit
about the origins of the massachusetts
militia system and how it was organized and how it was used and kind of
take that through to 1775. so first of all I want
to start by saying that these were english men and women who migrated
to massachusetts bay. massachusetts bay was founded in 1630 so
the came over here and they know they're going to have to defend themselves they are
surrounded by enemies of course you have native american people
who are here and now they're getting pushed off there's a lot of interaction between
the english and the indians very early on. it wasn't immediately
angry or violent however
does develop as more and more english are coming over and they want land and
they're taking what land is available and native americans are feeling they're being pushed off
their land and they're going to start to push back you know,
some certain tribes and there's also inter tribal politics that are still happening and the english
are getting involved in that so it does it does go badly.
In a relatively short amount of time. within fifty years there's a major war, king phillip's
war in 1675 that was absolutely devastating. you also have the
french the traditional enemies of the english in canada and,
they would get very active and start invading the area
of new england in the late seventeenth century so in the 1680s and,
those french and indian wars we continue all the way through to 1763
so warfare here in north america was established very early on
and continued periodically all the way through the american
revolution.
What they carry-over with them is an adaptation of the english
militia system which really you could dated back to the
middle ages to the assize of arms in the late
twelfth century which the laid out what ours each man
should keep according to his station is economic status so
what it basically means that men between the ages of sixteen and
sixty some of them had to keep arms but all of them were essentially liable to be called
up for military service you owe the king duty in war, you owe him service.
and local lords were generally responsible for the men in their districts however there
is no real standardized training requirements so getting into the
tudor period, so into the early to mid and late
in the sixteenth-century use you see the establishment of what are
called train bands so these are made up usually of the better sort
economically the middle class you know, you're free holding farmers your yeoman so,
no, not the, you know, the present working out on-the-field but the people who have property
in families and they were expected to keep arms according to law and,
according to their station and they were also required to train.
So, you have.
A set of soldiers who are armed and trained.
Ready quickly.
But, there's a catch when the king engages in warfare on the
content in europe in ireland and scotland you can't use the train
bands. the train bands were strictly for defense of the realm.
So, they can't leave the borders but,
it does establish a class of men who are not only
armed but trained arms that could be called upon to defend the realm
internal strife and what have you. and also Charles I, so
he was the reigning monarch when the massachusetts bay colony was founded. he tried
to establish what he called the perfect militia and what he did was so
...militias were organized by county.
they were placed under a set of men called the lords lieutenant and these were people who usually were
well-connected court, appointed by the monarch and
people were seeing a loss of local control and Charles I
was notorious for drafting men for either
foreign service or domestic service as well and,
people had no say no control over it and that left a really bad taste in
their mouth particularly in east anglia, that was a place where the puritans, in the
east of england, where a lot of the puritans came from and that was also a place where
troops were frequently sent to embark for the continent, that it was also
the place where they return, so there was always bands of armed men coming in and out of
the area and causing lots of problems for the locals so when
they have that in mind when they come over here in massachusetts, massachusetts bay, and they
form a military system right at the start.
And, it follows the english tradition that all men between the ages of sixteen
sixty are required to serve in the militia to be ready to
serve in the military and to keep arms.
what they do they make a big change first of all these more local control in the early
days actually men were allowed to elect their own officers so every town would maintain
a company. so company was anywhere from between sixty four to say, you know,
a hundred men and they could elect their officers and send a lieutenant captain and
non commissioned officers who were then commissioned by the general
court and then later by the royal governor so,
there's more local control but also instead of having
two sets where you have the train band
who trains and then everybody else it just sits around going about their daily lives and
then can sometimes be scooped up and sent across to a foreign war,
Everybody in the massachusetts militia belong to a trained
band so you don't have those two sets of men. everybody's trained everybody
is prepared whether to counter an emergency like an alarm or
to be called up for active duty service in war against the french
or the indians. now your duty as a militia
man in massachusetts bay so first of all you have to keep your own arms
as according to laws so you have to have a musket, cutting sword, later
bayonets were required, ammunition for your weapon and,
provision, you know,
bread dred meats and things like that, a canteen for your water, so you had to keep these things ready
fixed and you also have to
turn out six days every year for inspection and for drill,
so basic training, it doesn't sound like a lot but actually when you do this year after year
six days a year is not that bad and they were much more familiar with arms
than we usually give them credit for in addition to that you had to be available for
service now we do have some very dramatic episodes in history like during
king phillips war in 1675-1676 where
there were towns that were being attacked by indians and you had to be
ready quickly. you had an alarm, so it was a system called
alarm and muster. so an alarm signal could be firing a gun, ringing a
bell and all the trained soldiers in the town would gather at the place
of rendezvous and then march off to where the danger is but,
more commonly you have something called watch and ward, so like during the wars against the french
you would have men that were called up for basically garrison duty you know,
on the coast or on the frontier or if they're town
was exposed to potential enemy action they would - it's basically a night watch but,
you also have something called ward which was you could be called by the constable to help
the suppress any civil unrest you know,
any drunken behavior any sort of disorders so,
watch and ward, and alarm and muster
being in the case of emergency. most often however the way the militia was used.
was a recruit depot so everybody's armed everybody's trained now during the
french and indian wars from the late sixteen eighties all the way through the seventeen sixty five.
Excuse me seventeen sixty three if there was a campaign planned against the
french the governor would call for troops say he's going to raise three thousand troops
for that season's campaign usually starting in march or april and extending through
to october november and the towns
would raise men to serve in those provisional units,
those provisional regiment so it can be done by volunteer that was preferable
but if not enough men are coming forward, it could be raised by draft.
towns would have a quota they have to furnish so many men to the campaign so
that's where local control really comes in you have a militia committee that would decide okay who are
we going to take and also.
There is also where you know,
occasionally enslaved black men would be not called up, not drafted
but if their master, their owner, was drafted he could send an
enslaved man instead so, that's kind of how it works and actually there's
a wonderful quote from the historian fred anderson who wrote the book people's army
which is all about the massachusetts soldiers during the french and indian war, and he said by the middle of the
eighteenth-century the militia was an all purpose military infrastructure was
part home guard draft board in rear echelon supply network.
You know,
they really do have it all, alright. Now we get into 1775
and, you still have the militia system, you still have the required training six days every
year the men are expected to be armed as according to law you could be fined if you
want properly armed or if you fail to turn out it muster very serious.
But, they also realize are facing an extraordinary situation whereas the military threat is not the french it's
not the indians it's not an enemy that could come from somewhere
else, it's in boston with four thousand british soldiers and they knew that war was imminent so
minute men are raised
specifically in response to that threat that you know,
we have our soldiers, we're ready, but we need some that are going to be ready even more
quickly so their whole purpose was to train two or three times per week
because they know they're going to be going up against professionals so they want to achieve that level of proficiency
with arms and they also had to keep their weapons ready and to answer an
alarm as quickly as possible at a minute's notice which is where the
term minuteman comes from. So even though there's not a historical precedent like
a direct historical precedent, of raising minutemen and alarm
riders like you saw happening on the alarm of april 19th of 1775
it is part of a longer tradition of military preparedness that
began when the colony was founded in sixteen thirty when they formed
county regiments in 1636, the first muster 1637
all the way through today with the massachusetts national guard and
they're motto, "always ready, always there,"
or, always prepared, always there, so it definitely continues to this day.
So, we have another question from richard.
Came in last night. How many and what kind of fire locks does the museum
have and do they relate to april nineteenth? are there any of the
"bird guns" from the nineteenth of april in the collection? So to answer that
we don't have many firearms in our collection at minute man national historical park. We
do have some we have one that's on display at north bridge visitor center which unfortunately is
currently closed and that is a british musket,
it is a land pattern musket, the king's musket
As we know it as "brown bess." It's an older version called the
long land pattern and that has a forty six inch barrel it was later shortened
the forty two inches to create what's called the shortly and pattern service
musket, so it's a british military musket and it also has a matching bayonet
We did have, and this was really wonderful, we did have a musket
on temporary loan several years ago that belonged to captain david brown who commanded a
minuteman company and concord so we had it on loan from the museum
of the american revolution in philadelphia his
musket, and that is a fowling piece, so it has a very long barrel.
it's a sporting gun but it met the parameters for militia duty
meaning that the barrel had to be at least three-and-a-half feet long well-fixed fire
lock musket, of musket or bastard musket bore so you know,
military bore was usually between sixty nine and seventy five caliber
fowling pieces could be lighter, you know,
fifty caliber fifty five-sixty caliber and they could also be of larger caliber as well so
a great range of sizes and,
barrel lengths. Fowling pieces could be quite long which actually stabilized the round
and increases the range and effectiveness of the weapon, they
do take longer to load of course so, yeah, there were plenty of
fowling pieces around, there were plenty that exist in collections like in concord museum which has a great
collection of militia arms both military and civilian sporting arms that were adapted
to military use usually with the stock being cut down to mount
a bayonet. Now the next part of this question: Do you personally own a brown bess
or Charleville? can you talk about the difference? so the brown bess is the british musket
charleville is a french military weapon. I do have a reproduction
of a long land.
It's not a very functional one so I really only use it for display purposes.
However, the main difference between a british musket and a french
musket - first of all the british musket is a larger bore so it's seventy five
caliber whereas a french must get is slightly smaller
at sixty nine caliber so point six nine inches.
The british muskets are
pins secured so brought my example here.
obviously you've got the lock you've got the stock that's the wooden frame holding together
and the barrel. the barrel is secured to the stock
by means of pins so these little
tenon joints and mortise underneath the barrel, and you fit
a little pin through the stock, through that mortise
and that secures and as they go all the way up the barrel and
that secures the barrel to the stock, whereas french weapons
are secured by bands, metal bands, that are
secured by springs and that keeps them in place.
the advantage of the bands versus the pins is cleaning you can remove the
barrel and give it a more thorough cleaning whereas with you have a british musket
the less you remove the barrel the better quite honestly because every time you
knock in those pins out you're wearing way the wood they're not going to fit as well you could actually cause
damage so generally the less you do that the better if you have to, you know, you really have to get in
there and clean and certainly but anyway so it the more difficult to clean
where's the french weapons are easier to clean, and
french weapons were very popular in new england even during the french
and indian wars so militia men going to fight against the french were capturing
french weapons and bringing them home. there were new england gun makers that were reproducing, that
were making sporting guns based on french patterns very
popular. of course during the revolution we start receiving supplies of weapons from the
french so, we're receiving those french charlevilles from the king of
france and when the us government began making muskets
at the springfield armory in the seventeen nineties their
first
design of musket was based on french design with the band secured barrels so
very popular here. he also had a question about rifles and,
you know, where they really used. he said "I always thought
that came to be long after the revolutionary war but,
I read about morgan's rifle
men, can you comment on rifles and the revolution. so rifles in new england
we're not terribly popular they were not acceptable for militia duty most men who
had firearms had firearms for militia duty. you could bring a fowling piece
or military musket but there's no mention of rifles.
Any hunting that was done, these are farmers, and any hunting that was done was usually in the form
of fowling, meaning, you know,
shooting at turkeys and water fowl and things like that,
so, bird hunting. so you'll see those types of sporting guns
adapted for military use but again no rifles. but rifles did exist.
It's a german technology you know,
and it far predates the eighteenth-century and,
you see them being brought to the colonies, you know,
usually by the people of german ancestry and you see
them actually proliferating on the frontier. During the siege of boston there were companies of riflemen coming
up from virginia so you do see rifles being used not by the new
Englanders but by southerners and men from the back country.
Difference between a musket and a rifle, a rifle has spiral grooves carved inside the barrel
called rifling, and that increases the range the accuracy of the
round, it stabilizes it because it causes it to spin
through the air. the challenge of a rifle, one you have to know-how to use it, takes a lot of training to be
accurate with a rifle, and also.
It requires... it takes longer to load.
So a musket in the hands of a trained soldier, can be loaded and fired three times in a
minute whereas a rifle maybe once or twice in a minute. you have to have a tighter fitting
round and it has to be patched and you have to force it down past all of those
lands and grooves to the breech to take your shot, so usually battles are
fought at closer range so having a faster rate of fire and
of course a bayonet is going to be much more effective on the battlefield. that's how you win battles. riflemen
were usually specialized troops you know, sent off a greater distance
away to take out officers, musicians you know,
elements of command and control to give the troops and unsettled feeling so,
you know, they were use they were terrifying but ultimately
it's the infantryman with the musket and bayonet that that's going to win the war.
and lastly we have a question from bob. he said "can you describe the volunteer program
at your park and what's involved with it?" so at minute man we rely
on volunteers you know, they're only so many rangers. all of our patriot's day events,
you know, all the living history events they're volunteers but,
we also have interpreters and visitor center guides, so people who help us out of the visitor centers or
help us out giving talks and tours that are trained volunteers. we have people that help
with our education programs as greaters, so they meet the school group and they
bring them down to meet the ranger who's going to do a program and they also help us out when we do our musket
demonstrations and they are demonstration safety officers. we train them in the
manual of arms and they watch the range for us and they watch the audience and make sure that
everybody's safe. so that's another rule for volunteers. we have internships
for young people who come in and be trained as a ranger essentially and work
along side of the ranger staff and doing the job of a ranger
talks and visitor center duty, living history. most of our living history volunteers we
recruit from among the already active reenactor community. that's a question we get a
lot where somebody comes and says I want to be reactor and if they volunteer for us
that will give them the stuff. we don't actually do that just because of the
expense of acquiring properly made
historical clothing, so we do recruit from among
the already active reenactors. so if you want to be a reenactor, the best thing to do is to join
a local unit and I'm happy to, I know a lot of the local units, and
I'm happy to recommend units for you based on your level of
interest and what particular impression you want to do and,
then through that you can come and get involved the park and another great way to get involved in the park is through our
friends group. go online friendsofminuteman.org and get involved through
the friends. and if you want to be a volunteer helping out with talks and tours and
visitor center duty you can also go on our website
nps.gov/mima, so that's minute man...
.gov
MIMA, and there's a link to get involved
in volunteer. so that's all I have for you this week
and again next week we're going to have a slightly different format so if you're
going to send-me questions please send questions by tuesday and that'll give me time
to research them and record and edit the auto
captions which took me six hours last week I paid very
heavily for my incomplete sentences, bad grammar and regional
accent - hoping this will be slightly better - and we'll get
everything captioned so it'll be a pre-recorded session but I will be live with you on
the chat. So thanks for joining us this week and we'll see you next week
In the chat so thank you very much for watching everyone bye.