Working The Trapline — Drone Blasters, Poor Yorik & Long Rifles

The estimable historian Brady Crytzer has announced his next book, which details the multiple crises that unfolded on the western frontier during George Washington’s presidency in the 1790s. The western confederacy of tribes destroyed two armies sent into the Ohio country against them, and the Whiskey Rebellion threatened to unravel the unity of the new nation.

Two American armies marched west and were annihilated. The second suffered the deadliest defeat the US Army would ever endure at the hands of Native forces. As panic spread, Washington turned to Revolutionary War hero “Mad Anthony” Wayne to build a professional national army. Meanwhile, western Pennsylvania rebels rose against the whiskey tax and dared the government to stop them.

By 1794, Washington faced frontier war, domestic insurrection, and foreign powers waiting for an American collapse. Crytzer makes the provocative case that America’s first potential civil war was not North versus South, but sectional rupture of East versus West that would decide whether the United States survived.

The book publishes next spring.

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Ethan Yazel of I Love Muzzleloading has served up 45 minutes of footage from the Contemporary Longrifle Association Show. A soul-satisfying collection of frontier Americana…

A small, slightly embarrassing confession: This video was still rolling on my computer when I set it aside, and the ambient birdsong Ethan runs in the background had Lady Marilyn and I convinced that a bird had infiltrated our attic. The silliness was productive, though, because I found Yorik. I knew him, Horatio…

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Speaking of birds: The grand tradition of blasting pigeons has an important tactical application.

The Economist:

It was a bad day to be a clay pigeon. On a misty morning in Wiltshire, British soldiers gathered for their annual shooting championship. Around 100 shot at 100 targets each—a massacre. Shotguns boomed, and neat clay discs were blasted into bright bursts of colour.

Clay-pigeon shooting was born in the late 1800s to help hunters improve their aim. In the second world war it was used to train fighter pilots. Today Peter Meager, boss of the army’s clay-target shooting team, hopes it can help prepare soldiers for drone warfare. “I think there are huge transferable skills,” he says.

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Sport to tactical/tactical to sport… The Munich Loop One Festival wrapped up with Sweden’s Martin Ponsiluoma winning back-to-back, and Italy’s Lisa Vittozi coming back to defend her title. Vittozi was clearly using this tune-up event to really push the speed of her shooting. Ponsiluoma was methodical and relentlessly fast on the skis.

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Keep an ear out on October 23 when Hawken Horse drops his rendition of Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier. He offers the background on this song on his Substack.

James Taylor and Mark O’Connor recorded a rendition of this Irish folk song for the documentary series Liberty! from back in the late 1900s (as the kids say). It’s a poignant piece told from the perspective of a woman left behind as her lover marches out to war.

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I have been remiss in never having sent up a smoke signal about Lady Moon (Eva Holbrook). This lovely young woman from Fort Collins has made a mark with the octave mandolin. She plays with extraordinary feeling and fluidity — and she both looks and sounds like she stepped through a portal from another time and perhaps from the land of Fennario.

And a little whimsy from Prof. Tolkien…