If I was a man living on the frontier during the revolution what would I have carried?

[Flintlock]

Roughly 40 balls to the pound for a 50cal. and 20 balls a pound for a .62. That's big savings when lead is expensive and in short supply.

 

[Daveboone]

Besses were owned and issued by the army, it was kings property. One would ‘have some splaying’ to do if you had one.
That said, most every ship carried a musket that looked a lot like a sea service bess, and private folks did get officers fusils, again a gun that looked like a bess only smaller and lighter.

The start of the thread referred to post revolution.

 

[Artificer]

We have a prototype though. It was profitable because it was risky. Boone ended up in serious debt partly because he kept losing his behind when natives took his hides and guns. He owed money on those guns the hides would have paid for. Not to mention the land he owed money on. Rifles were not cheap even for the well healed. They were the Coopers, Dakotas, and Accuracy Internationals of their day..

Sure, but we also have to keep in mind that ALL of the Over Mountain Men and their families before the AWI, were considered criminals by the British Government for having illegally settled there.

Deer hides were big business and very profitable. Yes, a lot of risk, but also a chance to own land and build something for many folks who didn't have many options back then.

Gus

 

[Cattywompuss]

Sure, but we also have to keep in mind that ALL of the Over Mountain Men and their families before the AWI, were considered criminals by the British Government for having illegally settled there.

Deer hides were big business and very profitable. Yes, a lot of risk, but also a chance to own land and build something for many folks who didn't have many options back then.

Gus

Good points, though in reality they actually were criminals. Especially by modern standards vis a vis the current political view of borders and such.

 

[Artificer]

Good points, though in reality they actually were criminals. Especially by modern standards vis a vis the current political view of borders and such.

I believe that is what I wrote.

Not going to get into a discussion of modern standards, as it has no bearing on the period we are discussing.

Gus

 

[Cattywompuss]

I believe that is what I wrote.

Not going to get into a discussion of modern standards, as it has no bearing on the period we are discussing.

Gus

Fair enough, just noting that they were not merely "considered" criminals.

Some of them were also the subject of clearances in Scotland and Ireland, having been criminally dispossessed of their previous homes. Desperate folks can also carry a lot of lead.

 

[Cattywompuss]

Seems we always go straight to a source of fire, a gun, shot, etc. We can gain some knowledge from another of quoted source: Roger's Rangers. They weren't who we are talking about exactly but the needs were similar: patching for garments, sewing implements, tobacco for use and trade, lots of odds and ends for life on the move. One can survive on very little, but I know I personally forget a lot of the "very little" that we may not even think of because they are so foreign to daily life now.

 

[Md80runway23]

Great discussion here guys thanks. I reslly like the early looming english fowlers no butt plate etc. Would that be somewhat acceptable to AWI period and this location?

 

[Flintlock]

Great discussion here guys thanks. I reslly like the early looming english fowlers no butt plate etc. Would that be somewhat acceptable to AWI period and this location?

When people are poor almost any early flintlock might be found, a doglock fowler wouldn't be out of the relm of possibilities. Pick a gun YOU like best and create a storry around it. Many times men might have even lost the gun they started out with and were loaned or gifted a hand me down.

 

[M. De Land]

I know thats a broad question. I want to portray an average man living on what was then the frontier of NC now modern day TN. These would have been the same men at the battle of kings mountain, living west of the appalachians. What styles would be appropriate, rifle or smooth bore more common? What styles are typically post revolution etc. Thanks

I think perhaps a double barrel smooth rifle in about 72 cal. with 28 inch barrels. good for shot or patched ball and a tomahawk. Might have a good heat treated Hickory long bow and quiver of arrows wrapped in and oil cloth with trade steel points on the pack mule packed in line with body of the animal. There are times when a bow and arrow will beat a fire arm all to pieces in rate of fire and stealth.

 

[stephenprops1]

As was stated, that is a very broad question. ---- Think of it in today's world. What gun does the average man use? There are MANY variables. That is true for today and for the time period questioned. I believe the best answer would be to research what guns were available at that time period and then make a determination based upon your character's persona. If they had money they might have the best gun(s) available. If they were poor they might be using an old, nearly work-out gun. If they had an ancestor that fought in the F&I War they might have inherited a nice weapon. Bottom line , go with what was available and your characters persona and situation.

 

[tenngun]

The start of the thread referred to post revolution.

I didn’t see post, infact he mentioned the same men who fought at Kings Mountain.

 

[tenngun]

As was stated, that is a very broad question. ---- Think of it in today's world. What gun does the average man use? There are MANY variables. That is true for today and for the time period questioned. I believe the best answer would be to research what guns were available at that time period and then make a determination based upon your character's persona. If they had money they might have the best gun(s) available. If they were poor they might be using an old, nearly work-out gun. If they had an ancestor that fought in the F&I War they might have inherited a nice weapon. Bottom line , go with what was available and your characters persona and situation.

My grandfather was a hunter and logger in Montana, Idaho and Washington from 1908-15. In 1911 he bought a used 1888 Winchester.
And used it until his last hunt two years before he died in ‘56
So he was shooting a seventy year old gun at the end.
I would venture that up and down the frontier you could find men with shiny new guns right off the bench, and more then one hundred year old club/oar butt gun.
Several of the known FDC had in collections today were being actively used up until cr 1900 when they were near a century and a half old
Waste nought want nought.

 

[Brokennock]

When people are poor almost any early flintlock might be found, a doglock fowler wouldn't be out of the relm of possibilities. Pick a gun YOU like best and create a storry around it. Many times men might have even lost the gun they started out with and were loaned or gifted a hand me down.

From the o.p. of this topic,

frontier of NC now modern day TN. These would have been the same men at the battle of kings mountain

So, what if the gun he likes best after looking through a bunch of pictures is of a style that didn't develop until the 1790s to 1810s, and maybe developed further northeast?
Example. A nice Lehigh. I really, really love this style, but, it would have been unheard of/unseen/unknown here in New England between 1755 and 1780, and I think the same can be said for the time and place that the o.p. has asked about.

 

[Mr. Flintlock]

I know thats a broad question. I want to portray an average man living on what was then the frontier of NC now modern day TN. These would have been the same men at the battle of kings mountain, living west of the appalachians. What styles would be appropriate, rifle or smooth bore more common? What styles are typically post revolution etc. Thanks

I believe in 1807 Manuel Lisa was carrying a Brown Bess while trading with the Indians. John Colter the same year is documented as carrying an Indian trade gun or Barnett gun. There were many Brow Bess muskets captured during the revolution. What happened to them?.....Who knows.

 

[Flintlock]

From the o.p. of this topic,

So, what if the gun he likes best after looking through a bunch of pictures is of a style that didn't develop until the 1790s to 1810s, and maybe developed further northeast?
Example. A nice Lehigh. I really, really love this style, but, it would have been unheard of/unseen/unknown here in New England between 1755 and 1780, and I think the same can be said for the time and place that the o.p. has asked about.

He knows what time period he is looking at, he can pick a rifle or smoothbore from that period of his choosing.

 

[Red Owl]

My take on the over the mountain boys/men was that they all were long hunters and carried rifles. I read a good book about the life of Isaac Shelby. I think rifles and tomahawks.

 

[rdavidson]

Rifles get the romance, and smoothbores get the bulk of the work done.
Kind of the difference between Special Forces and regular infantry. S.F. gets some crazy, story worthy, gutsy, stuff done, but, as was said or written I forget where, "it is the regular troops that take the ground and hold the ground they take."
Rifles in that area at that time seem to have been more common than in other places. "Dikert" guns in various spellings get mentioned a few times in period writing. Almost any rifle style of that time period from places in Pennsylvania, Virginia, maybe Maryland and maybe N. Carolina,,,, that settlers would have come from would be possible.
Maybe someone better versed than I can list styles available to us now that would not be appropriate. Process of elimination might narrow the field, and thus the discussion.
A smooth bored, rear sighted, Type-G/Carolina trade gun would also be possible. As would many other fowling piece and musket options.

I've often wondered about the period accounts of Kings Mountain and other events in the area at that time regarding their mentions of rifles. We're rifles mentioned specifically because rifle ownership and use was still mentionable, news worthy if you will?

Ounce told an Air Force young woman who was proclaiming quite loudly how those infantry troops next door were such brutes and should not be allowed out in public that there is only two jobs in the US military. You are infantry or you support the infantry and that's it. Hard for me to say as I was in SF but true none the less.

 

[Cvkotvkse]

There is little recorded evidence of how many combatants from the back woods carried smooth rifles ,vs. rifled guns.. One would have to think , that many used rifles due to the distances , and the precision , with which shots were executed. A rifleman turned the tide of battle at the battle of Saratoga , N.Y. by targeting officers. Battle of New Orleans , most of the British Officers were killed at substantial distance , before the first British volley was fired. An offhand comment by a backwoods participant at the Battle of King's Mtn. was , that some in the militia , described the action similar to a squirrel hunt.
Accurate shooting with little chance for a bayonet charge by the uniformed British................oldwood

Much agreed... 2 of my direct gggg-grandfather were riflemen at Cowpens; one of them, from Augusta Co., VA, had joined Morgan's Rifles 4 years earlier, and even though the unit as such no longer existed, he completed his service once more fighting under Gen. Morgan there. The other one, along with his brother, was an Overmountain Man, and our family was living in the region of Ft. Nashborough (modern Nashville) by 1780... The brother fought at King"s Mountain. I also have ancestors who had settled in the Kain-tuck-ee by 1770. With all this, I have been pondering ( and posting) on this question a lot...
After spending much of the last few months living up on the NC/TN border, in what was then Cherokee country on "the Western Waters," I can definitely say that, IMHO, any advantage a smoothbore might have had in the farm country of the Piedmont, or even in the mountains before the leaves drop, vanishes with the tree cover. I think my Scots-Irish ancestors would have been looking for the first journeyman gunsmith they could find to cut down and re-barrel their fowling pieces, if they couldn't afford to buy a new rifle outright. The VA. ancestor more likely bought a rifle; my question would be whether it was a SW Virginia-style gun ( I am very drawn to these...) or what the British officers called a "Lancaster gun," made in PA or the Moravian settlement in NC... While the brother's powder horn has been passed down to my distant cousins, I don't have any info re: the guns carried, other than that all of my frontier ancestors fought as RIFLEMEN, carrying their own weapons.

 

[rich pierce]

The way a man makes a living impacts what sorts of guns he would own as much as geography in many cases. Is he a farmer? A miller? Is he in a militia unit? Does he hunt or is he interested in protection? Seems a smoothbore is desired. That would not work for a hunter. If a smoothbore is desired, I’d go with a higher end English trade gun/lower end fowling gun. If serving in a militia, a generic musket. Folks like to suppose there were many Brown Bess muskets floating around post Revolutionary War but that seems mostly based on one instance - Manuel Lisa. He was stationed in a fort, so having a military musket could make sense. I’d not tote a heavy musket out and about when lighter options would serve well.