Note: I’ve edited this piece from its original version. My tone was too snarky and harsh and I was a bit unfair to Holton. I think he over-egged the cake in his assertion about native use of rifles at Braddock’s Defeat because he’s trying to foreground the native peoples, but it’s not a willful distortion, which is the impression I gave.
Woody Holton’s Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution is getting a lot of buzz. It purports to be…
“A sweeping reassessment of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans — women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters.”
I get the feeling that his work is going to be full of … unconventional … assessments. I’m 11 pages in and I hit this in Holton’s account of Braddock’s defeat at the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania at the outset of the French & Indian War 1755:
“Surprisingly, the Indians had a technological advantage over the redcoats. Most of their firelocks were rifles, not muskets, as indicated by the sound they made when fired — ‘Popping shots with little explosion, only a kind of Whizing noise’ — and by the smaller-than-normal lead balls that surgeons later extracted from the few wounded who made it off the battlefield; rifles fired smaller rounds.”
I can’t discern from Holton’s end notes from whence he derived this notion, but it’s wrong, or at least significantly exaggerated. Sorry, but I have to be a pedantic bastard about this, because if Holton gets his interpretation wrong here, it’s liable to be suspect elsewhere — and that’s asking for trouble when you are claiming to make “a sweeping reassessment” of a major historical event.
If you’ve ever fired a flintlock rifle, you know that it doesn’t make a popping sound. It cracks — not like a modern, smokeless powder centerfire rifle, but a crack nonetheless. A patched round ball, tight in a rifled barrel, forms an effective seal, especially compared to a loosely-loaded smoothbore musket. That makes for a distinctive song — but it ain’t pop.
Anyway, Natty Bumppo — La Longue Carabine — notwithstanding, rifles were not all that common on the frontier in 1755. Fifteen or 20 years on, yes, you’ll see both European American hunters and native hunters turning by preference to rifles. Missionary David Zeisberger noted that “Delawares use no other than rifle-barrelled guns,” but that was in 1773. This is not to say that rifles were not in use among both colonials and native peoples in the F&I War period. “Rifled guns” literally came over on the Mayflower, and there is documentation of scattered use among rangers, etc. in the F&I War. It is entirely possible that some of the Indians who defeated Braddock were armed with rifled guns, most likely the contingent of Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo who had more access to British trade, where most (but not all) rifles would have come from — but it is a significant distortion to argue that “most of their firelocks were rifles, not muskets.”
In the 1750s, the vast majority of people on the frontier, white or Indian, carried a smoothbore military musket, a fowling piece, or a trade gun. The rifle culture started gaining momentum in Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolina backcountry right in this period — in New England it wouldn’t catch on until after the Revolution.
New France was not a rifle culture, and Indians who ambushed Braddock traded mostly with the French.
So… what did the Indians use that went “pop” and blew “smaller-than-normal lead balls” into British flesh? My fellow Frontier Partisans, I give you the Fusil de Chasse.
That’s just a French-elegant term that means “hunting gun.” Long, light and graceful, the .62 caliber (20 gauge) barrel did, indeed, deliver a smaller ball than a French musket (.69 caliber) or the mighty Brown Bess that threw a .75 caliber ball. If the Indians were using shot, the individual balls pulled out of wounds would have been smaller still.
Manufactured in the Tulle arsenal, the fusil was the workhorse of the French fur trade for a century. It was as ubiquitous as the AK-47 has been since the mid 20th Century, and for the same reason — it was inexpensive to manufacture, robust and got the job done.
Matthew says
The Founding Fathers may very well have been influenced by more than just white men, but if he makes a lot of errors it is hard to take him seriously.
Paul McNamee says
That’s a doozy of a mistake.
People get worked up enough about fiction having the wrong firearms details. If you’re writing history, you really need to get it right.
And relying on someone’s interpretation of the sound? When there is plenty of other evidence – not hard to research either, as indicated by what you’ve written here.
As the kids say – SMDH.
JimC says
I don’t like jumping on mistakes — as you and I and any other writer knows, we all make em, see em in print and say many bad words. This is bigger than referring to a “buck elk” and that kind of thing.
lane+batot says
Well now, that just depends on what you are a geek about! As a critter geek, I’m far more likely to bristle up about a “buck elk” than anything in the firestick department! We geeks are underappreciated by the uninformed, certainly, but we are VITAL in order to keep the ignoramouses in line! Or is that ignoramii?…..
Quixotic Mainer says
The “revisionist” types sometimes make overeager charges in their lust to waggle their fingers under some noses. As you said, it’s likely there are other gaps in his proverbial line!
JimC says
Yeah, i’m afraid that’s what’s going on here.
Matthew says
Off topic, but SOFREP has a story about a man who survived scalping.
https://sofrep.com/news/the-man-who-survived-being-scalped-by-cheyenne-warriors/
The article starts with it saying that no one knows if it was the Indians or the colonists started scalping. I thought that there was historical evidence to suggest it was the Indians. Though God knows that gory trophy taking was common through out human history.
lane+batot says
Depends on WHICH Indians, and when in history you are talking about. Some tribes never scalped. Before scalping became popular, some tribes(prior to European contact and early after that), often preferred to take whole heads, or limbs of their enemies. I always found it rather surprising that the Apaches, who were often vilified as the most savage of savages, were very reluctant to take scalps–they eventually did–more in revenge against those who scalped their own people–but they wouldn’t keep them as trophies, discarding them after a dance or two. They feared keeping any part of a dead person. No doubt, though, the Europeans popularized scalping by making it lucrative–in offering bounties for them!
Stephen Fox says
Does Holton give any primary documentation for his assertion? I think most of the rifled guns in the colonies in the middle of the 18th century would be the large caliber Jaeger type. The small caliber Kentucky squirrel gun wouldn’t be prevalent till decades later. I’d way rather get in a bush fight with my .62 TVM fowling piece than a slower to load rifle.
JimC says
The endnote citation is a bit obscure and I’m trying to run the references down. He cites David Preston’s Braddock’s Defeat as a contrary source, and I think Preston is the best on the Monongahela Battle. I’m pulling the book from the library to see what I can glean. I’m well down this sidetrail, now, so I’ll follow it out and report back what I find.
I think you are spot on re: rifle types. The British Army actually issued what are described as “Riffled Carbines” (sic) which sure sound like Jaeger-type. And early rifles did tend to be heavy caliber. The description of the rifle Daniel Boone carried into Kentucky on his long hunt in 1769 (from his grandson Nathan Boone) was that it threw a one-ounce ball, which contemporary maker Mike Miller translates to .66 caliber. Like you say, that classic Kaintuck Rifle was several decades down the line.
Absolutely. And you know that you can get plenty good accuracy out of that piece at forest combat ranges. The Indians deserve credit for whipping the regulars, but it was tactical superiority, not technological superiority that won the day.
NathanR says
Didn’t they use buck and ball? Would not the “buck” be smaller? Possibly the size of a “rifle ball”?
JimC says
That tracks perfectly.