Fighting for independence
By MARJ LAW
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
Doesn’t every American know at least the first verse of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem: “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere?”
And no, no one is still alive to remember that particular fateful day of 1775, but we remember this poem. I thought of our colonists gathering their firearms to defend themselves from the lines of British soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder. What do people think today of this time in history?
High school kids were on their way home. I decided it would be a good time to ask them what they thought it was like when Paul Revere called the colonists to grab their arms as the British were coming.
One boy ventures to say: “While the British were advancing in their straight lines, our colonists were taking cover in trees and in their branches, behind fences and buildings; anywhere in our rugged terrain.”
“And what were our colonists using for firearms?” I ask him.
“Make my day!” he grins. “The .44 Magnum!”
Remember, this was 1775. Movies make a huge impact on kids, and I certainly recall the phrase: “Make my day.” However, Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum was only invented in 1956, so naturally it could not have been used in the Revolutionary War.
“Oh,” he says. “So, they couldn’t have used a .44 Magnum back then.”
“You’re such a Jellohead,” his friend jabs him with his elbow. “The Peacemaker was the gun of choice. It’s much older than the Dirty Harry gun. It was the gun that won the west.”
“Yes, it is an older gun, but it still wasn’t around in 1775,” I say. “The Peacemaker was first manufactured in 1873; long after Paul Revere’s midnight ride.”
Then the guys brighten and say together: “The blunderbuss! They used the blunderbuss like we saw in the movie ‘Pirates of the Caribbean!’”
Were our colonists protecting themselves with the blunderbuss?
“Yeah!” The guys are excited.
“The blunderbuss was that real cool gun with the wide opening in front!”
“Yes, the blunderbuss could have been one of the guns used by our colonists,” I agree. “Although many of them were farmers. When called to arms, they would grab the only gun they had. That would probably be the flintlock .36 or .45-caliber long rifle which could shoot up to 250 yards. It shot longer than the ordinary musket because the bore was grooved, which made the ball come out like a football quarterback as he gives the football a twist. He does this to improve accuracy and distance. This works in the rifle, just as it does with the football. Some colonists would have the cheaper, smooth bore muskets which might be able to shoot a distance of 80 yards. These guns would be used to provide meat for their families or to defend themselves from large animals.”
“The blunderbuss might have been used as well,” I continue. “The blunderbuss was found on Revolutionary naval ships such as the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) used to repel boarders. Unfortunately, the blunderbuss was more of a close-up gun and could only shoot about 25 yards. So, it was more likely they would be using their old muskets or their rifles if they were going to fight the British. Besides the long rifles and muskets took a lot less time to load than the blunderbuss. Where the rifles could be reloaded a few times per minute, it could well take the blunderbuss from two to five minutes to load. When someone is shooting at you, loading time becomes important!”
“Yeah, but the blunderbuss could do what muskets and rifles couldn’t!” The first boy maintains, excited. “It might be hard to have sufficient ammunition for the muskets and rifles, but not for the blunderbuss! Because of that flared end of the barrel, when you run out of lead balls, you just lean down and pick up gravel, nails, glass… whatever you can find and you can still have plenty of ammunition to shoot at your enemies!”
“That might be an advantage,” I agree, “but what would that do to your soft brass barrel?”
“Oh.” The boy looks crestfallen. “But why else would the blunderbuss have a flared barrel?”
“Ease of loading is one reason. But you’re not entirely wrong about finding whatever is around as ammunition. If your life were at stake and you ran out of ammunition, then you might use whatever you could find. This would be a last resort, as otherwise, you might ruin your barrel.”
“Darn,” says the second boy. “If you didn’t want to use whatever is at hand because you might ruin your barrel, then why bother to make the blunderbuss?”
He thinks for a moment. “Oh, I know. The flared barrel would send out shot in a wide area. Our guys could take out several of the British at once!”
“Sorry.” I hate to remove that last romantic but not practical thought. “The blunderbuss was like a shotgun. Since the shot follows the bore, you’re not going to get a wide disbursement. Also, remember the blunderbuss was made for close targets, and the shot would not have time to disburse.”
“Yeah,” agrees the first boy. “Blunderbusses were used in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. On the deck of a ship, they wouldn’t have to shoot far. If pirates were about to board the ship, you could pick them off before they even reached the deck!” He looks happy at this gory thought.
“I read in my history book that they were also used in coaches to defend from highwaymen who wanted to steal money and jewels. And you could shoot easily on horseback because the barrel is a lot shorter than the rifles,” he continues. “So maybe the blunderbuss didn’t shoot far, but they had their use.”
“Until the double barrel flintlock shotgun came out,” says the second guy, not to be outdone. “Two shots were a whole lot better than one. And then when percussion guns came out in the early 1800s, well, the blunderbuss just about became obsolete.”
“That’s too bad,” says the first boy. “Those blunderbusses looked really cool. But if I were a colonist up in a tree, and the British tramped down in a straight line, I’d want a Kentucky Rifle to pick them off before they got too close.”
Happy 250th birthday, America!
Marj Law is the former director of Keep Wakulla County Beautiful who has become an avid shooter in retirement.