Tim Murphy is a legend among riflemen — a Frontier Partisan sharpshooter who, deploying his long rifle on October 7, 1777, turned the tide of the American Revolution.
According to folklore that has accreted over a couple of centuries, Murphy — under direct orders from Colonel Daniel Morgan — climbed a tree during a heavy firefight at Bemis Heights (New York) and picked off British General Simon Fraser as he was rallying his troops at a critical moment in the Second Battle of Saratoga. Fraser’s death turned the tide of battle; the Americans soon took the surrender of General John Burgoyne; the French agreed to enter the war, an alliance that would, in 1781, prove decisive in winning American independence. You could argue that Tim Murphy’s shot won the American Revolution for the American Patriots.
Such is the folklore — a tale I cherished from the sixth grade on. There is, however, nothing that proves that Murphy actually fired that fatal shot.
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There is no argument over whether Murphy could have made the shot.
Tim Murphy was a badass. He was born in 1751 out of Irish heritage traced back to Donegal. At the outbreak of armed hostilities, he was living in the Wyoming Valley, bordering Seneca territory on the Pennsylvania frontier. He and his brother John enlisted in Captain John Lowdon’s Company of the Northumberland County Riflemen. The riflemen harried British pickets during the siege of Boston in 1775, got pushed off Long Island with the rest of George Washington’s army, and participated in the near-miraculous victories at Trenton and Princeton that kept Washington’s army alive at the end of 1776.
In July 1777, Murphy was one of 500 riflemen hand-picked by Col. Morgan to serve in a dedicated rifle corps in the campaign to stop General Burgoyne’s invasion of the colonies down the Hudson River from Canada.
Washington described the riflemen thus:
“Chosen men, selected from the army at large, well acquainted with the use of rifles, and with that mode of fighting which is necessary to make them a good counterpoise to the Indian.”
American Rifleman by David Wright.
The standard arm of the day was the smoothbore musket. Both sides relied on the .75-caliber Brown Bess, a stalwart, soldier-proof warhorse. The smoothbore could be reasonably accurate at 50 yards; beyond that, the wobbly projectile couldn’t be relied upon. And the weapon had no sights — just a bayonet lug at the muzzle that served as a kind of shotgun bead. It was a weapon suited for massed volley fire and to mount a bayonet.
British Army Colonel George Hanger rather caustically evaluated the Brown Bess’s effectiveness:
“I do maintain that no man was ever killed at 200 yards by a common soldier’s musket by the person who aimed at him. A soldier’s musket, if not exceeding badly bored and very crooked as many are, will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at 100 yards; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; and as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may just as well fire at the moon and have the same hopes of hitting your object.”
In comparison, the American long rifle, which had evolved out of the German Jaeger rifle, was a marvel of accuracy. It had fixed iron sights. It was rifled, which stabilized the projectile. The rifles of the era were of much smaller caliber than the musket — .40 to .54 or so (some larger, but unlikely to go over .62 at the most) — and they were loaded with a patched round ball. The greased patch made for smooth loading and formed a gas seal that improved velocity and consistency.
Contemporary descriptions of the riflemen’s prowess demonstrate the superiority of the arm as a precision weapon. The Virginia Gazette, September 9, 1775:
“A man held between his knees a board 5 inches wide and seven inches long, with a paper bulls-eye the size of a dollar. A rifleman at 60 yards without a rest, put eight bullets in succession through the bulls-eye. From the same source we are told that the rifleman gave an exhibition “in which a company, on a quick advance, placed their shots in 7 inch targets at 250 yards.”
That’s damn good extreme long range shooting, and since Tim Murphy was among Morgan’s 500 chosen men, he was certainly capable of delivering it.
The disadvantage of the rifle was that it was comparatively slow to load and could not mount a bayonet. To be effective, riflemen had to be supported by musket-armed light infantry who could keep up a volume of fire and defend against a bayonet charge.
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Here’s what we know for sure about Murphy and the battlefield death of Brigadier General Simon Fraser: Murphy was part of Morgan’s rifle corps and he was a capable marksman. Fraser was a conspicuous target on horseback, rallying his troops (mainly comprised of German Hessians) in the heat of a hard-fought battle. It seems clear that Fraser was singled out by General Benedict Arnold (this was before he turned his coat) and Col. Morgan to be targeted by rifle fire.
Shots hit the crupper of Fraser’s saddle and parted his horse’s mane before a ball took him in the belly. He slumped in the saddle and was escorted by an aide off the field of battle. He died later that night. The elimination of Fraser did seem to throw the hard-pressed British troops into disarray and contributed to Burgoyne’s defeat.
The only sources that single out Murphy as the marksman who killed Fraser are from many decades after the events, and as is often the case when folklore becomes history, a story is repeated as “fact,” and embellished with the telling.
BTW, there’s another candidate for the honor — an old man with “a long hunting gun” witnessed by one Ebenezer Matoon, who reported that:
“…several officers, led by a general, appeared moving to the northward, in rear of the Hessian line. The old man, at that instant, discharged his gun, and the general officer pitched forward on the neck of his horse….”
Hugh T. Harrington picks apart the sourcing on the Murphy story in detail in The Journal of the American Revolution and in even greater detail in The Journal of Military History. Worth the time to read one or the other.
Other aspects of Murphy’s purported feat have grown in the telling. He was supposed to have been armed with a Golcher double rifle, enabling him to fire shots in quick succession. This is almost certainly not the case. Murphy appears to have owned a Golcher later in his life, when he was a farmer in the Mohawk Valley, but this would have been in the 1790s at the earliest and probably in the early 19th century. That tracks with Golcher’s career. Murphy was almost certainly armed with a conventional long rifle at Saratoga.
The distance of the kill shot has been stretched to absurd lengths. I spent many years shooting flintlock long rifles, and I can assure you that, given roundball ballistics and fixed iron sights, shots over 200 yards get complicated. Harrington thoroughly describes the ballistic problems with the notion that Murphy shot Fraser at a quarter-mile (440 yards). For the sake of space, let’s just stipulate that a 28-foot holdover on a moving target, to say nothing of wind-drift is… absurd.
Matoon’s old man allegedly fired on Fraser from 66 yards (why so precise a figure I do not know). If Murphy did shoot Fraser, the range was closer to that than to a quarter-mile.
Murphy could have made the kill shot on Fraser. Maybe he did. We just can’t know. It’s safe to assert that General Fraser was killed by aimed rifle fire from Morgan’s men, and that his death was decisive. More than that is folklore.
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It doesn’t diminish Tim Murphy a bit to let the Saratoga shot-heard-round-the-world story go. He was a real deal Frontier Partisan warrior, and his actions on the Mohawk Valley frontier during the years after Saratoga are enough to bring honor upon his name. We’ll take that story up in Part II.
Matthew says
Great piece, Jim!
JimC says
Thanks Matthew. Always appreciate your interest.
Paul McNamee says
That’s what I love about the blur of myth, folklore, and history. They all make for good stories.
(Though I am partial to the real history as it is often fascinating in its own right. See; the Vinland Saga 😉 )
JimC says
Where I live.
wayne says
In September of 1777 on Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania, British Major Patrick Ferguson claimed to have had a similar opportunity to change the course of the war. He had a clear shot at a colonial officer on horseback. “I could have lodged half a dozen balls in or about him, before he was out of my reach,” Ferguson recalled, “but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an unoffending individual, who was acquitting himself very coolly of his duty—so I let him alone.” He later learned the officer was most likely George Wahington.
Ferguson improved upon an earlier design of breach loading flintlock that would have allowed sharpshooters to remain prone or kneeling while reloading, but the British army wasn’t forward thinking enough to adopt the “Ferguson rifle.” It might have altered the course of the war. He died leading British troops at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.
JimC says
That’s one of those real historical what-ifs that make the hair on the back of the neck stand up.
Rick Schwertfeger contributed a post on Ferguson a while back:
https://frontierpartisans.com/10405/the-scottish-marksman/
Jim Callow says
This brings to mind the death of Gen John Reynolds at the hands of a Confederate sniper on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Snipers can make a great deal of change through fear, and intimidation. I personally like Chris Kyle – 150 dead jihadis makes for great stories.
JimC says
Then there’s Union General John Sedgwick at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse whose famous last words were “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance,” as a Confederate sniper armed with a Whitworth Rifle killed him.
Matthew says
I’ve heard Sedgwick’s actual last words were something more mundane (likely orders to his subordinates), that said I believe he did say they could not hit an elephent.
JimC says
Another case where definitively separating folklore from fact is not really possible. He was, however, definitively shot with one o’ them weird, long, hexagonal Whitworth bullets.
RLT says
The funny thing is that Sedgwick is often portrayed as an idiot. In reality, the guy was a seasoned leader with a decades of military experience—but THAT’S what got him killed. For his entire career the effective range of small arms was almost the same as in Tim Murphy’s day. A headshot at 900+ yards was probably unfathomable.
felonious monk says
There’s no one like Billy Sing !
And by the way, new Bob Lee Swagger: “Game Of Snipers” this July.
JimC says
What now??? Game of Snipers…
When Bob Lee Swagger is approached by a woman who lost a son to war and has spent the years since risking all that she has to find the sniper who pulled the trigger, he knows right away he’ll do everything in his power to help her. But what begins as a favor becomes an obsession, and soon Swagger is back in the action, teaming up with the Mossad, the FBI, and local American law enforcement as he tracks a sniper who is his own equal…and attempts to decipher that assassin’s ultimate target before it’s too late.
felonious monk says
Yep, dirty white boys it ain’t
felonious monk says
But I am not worried, got a Paul Andrew Hutton freebie called “The Captive”,
I think you would like it and I know you are as exited as I am about Earle doing
Guy.
I really like the story of Billy getting shot, via his scope thru his cheek into his spotter’s
shoulder, the spotter none other than Ion L. Idriess.
There is another good one in S. C. Gwynne’s:”Rebel Yell” about a man getting away on horse
back only to get shot and killed by someone behind him………..no entry wound could be found!
The blur……. tis where we live!
Matthew says
Off topic, but there is going to be a new Tolkien bio pic that deals with his time in the First World War.
https://www.cbr.com/tolkien-biopic-summer-release/
JimC says
Interesting. I’ll surely see it.
USMC SctSnpr says
My question would be what was the elevation difference of Murphy and Fraser. If Murphy was firing either upward or downward. The distance of the shot may have been further than the effect of gravity of the ball. If that were the case he could have had much less of than a 28 foot hold-over ( wind hold would not change), a concept easily demonstrated using the Pythagorean theorem. This concept is taught at the Marine Corps Sniper High angle package at Bridgeport Ca.
Anthony Gray says
Another opinion is that the short was fired by William Crithchlow who was also a member of Morgan’s sharpshooters. He was detailed with a small detachment to dislodge Fraser from a farmhouse oblique to the British line. After several volleys and being unsuccessful, Critchlow, covered by his team, got closer, fired one round and ran back to the house, not knowing if he hit the target or not. He obviously did. This story is MUCH more believable than a guy trying to shoot and reload a revolutionary war firearm from a tree, without receiving about 100 rounds in return.
While we will never know, this story seems much more plausible.
JimC says
Thanks for this.
Paul Whitmore says
As a direct descendant of William’s brother James, I tend to believe this more than Murphy. Where did you get the detail in your comment?
Alexander James Heath says
Hello Jim. I have located the issue of the Virginia Gazette from September 9th, 1775. The quote you have provided I have seen quoted before with a reference to the same source. However, I cannot find this exact phrasing anywhere in that paper. Did you happen to find this quote directly from the Gazette or from another source? I am doing some research on riflemen companies during the American Revolution so if you could help me out it would be greatly appreciated.
JimC says
It was definitely a secondary source — and it’s been repeated a lot, so if it’s spurious I’d like to correct the record. Do you have a digital copy you could share?
Jim Morgan says
My Pennsylvania, Kentucky rifle shoots such a tight group aiming dead on at 100 yards can hit a coke can every time. It’s a 50 caliber and I use 70 grains of black powder. I shot a deer 100 yards away from a tree that I had climbed up And the marvelous thing is in a tree you can lay the gun down and you’re almost shooting from a bench. I don’t doubt that someone who shot his rifle is much as Timothy Murphy did could hit a man at 200 yards. Morgan‘s rifleman were up on a hill And Benedict Arnold was laying at on a cot at the bottom of the hill because he had been shot in the leg. he had a runner run up the hill and tell Morgan to have his men kill General Frazier. Frazier was on the other side of the valley on another hill. I believe it is said that Murphy hit Frazier with his second shot. I also believe that if so, many people gave credit to Murphy at that time, he is probably the one that made the shot.
James spain says
I believe he did have A Golcher over under rifle a hus first shot went through the General, s coat .That aloud Murphy enough time to adjust his second kill shot.
Hugh T. Harrington says
Hello Jim Cornelius. I started a real storm years ago with my analysis of the Fraser shooting. Rather than going into all the technical aspects of velocity, wind, distance, drop, eyesight, etc. I now find it easier to defend the position of Murphy NOT making the shot by asking what would YOU have done if you were Morgan and could see Fraser off in the distance? Would you call upon Tim Murphy to attempt what, at best, was an extremely low percentage shot? Or, would you call upon every man within shouting distance and tell ALL OF THEM to take a shot at Fraser?
JimC says
Yep. Simplifies the tactical question, doesn’t it?
You direct all fire (or a significant percentage of it) at Fraser until he’s taken out. And I believe that is what Morgan did.
Thanks for stopping by the campfire. Appreciate your work.
People really hate having cool myths debunked, and they often go after the messenger. But truth matters — and in this case the truth does nothing at all to diminish Murphy, who was an outstanding soldier and Frontier Partisan regardless of the Saratoga shot.