Post by goomba on Jun 3, 2009 18:40:09 GMT -5
Riflemen of the Revolution
By Maj. John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.)
From the opening battles of the American Revolution through its conclusion, American longrifles and the men who wielded them with skill and accuracy played a significant role in securing American freedom and independence.
The Revolutionary War had just begun when the Second Continental Congress met in emergency session in Philadelphia. At Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill—and now, in June 1775, amid the Boston siege—the Minutemen's inaccurate smoothbore muskets stood slim chance of hitting a Redcoat beyond 50 yds. What could be done?
John Hancock, whose elegant signature graces the Declaration of Independence, urged his congressional colleagues to recruit America's frontier riflemen, "the finest marksmen in the world." Future president John Adams agreed, noting that they could fire with "great exactness to great distances." Thus, by special Act of Congress the very first unit of what became the U.S. Army was as revolutionary as the war itself—an all-volunteer rifle battalion. From the trackless forests of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, marksmen by the hundreds grabbed their fine longrifles and set off for Boston.
ETA: fixed broken link