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| The Battle of Lexington by William Barnes Wollen, 1910 Original in British National Army Museum (Public Domain) |
On April 19th 2025 we reviewed the events at Lexington and Concord where open armed rebellion broke out against British tyranny. Stories of those events have been passed down orally, or in various written forms over the years, but such sources are subject to errors, omissions and exaggerations.
Just like in the movies and on TV, it is amazing what evidence collected by crime scene investigators and ballistic forensic technicians can tell us. When you combine that with serious historians who are also arms collectors, a really complete picture can be revealed.
Joel Bohy’s been on Antiques Roadshow for many years appraising colonial era items, and he grew up in the Concord area. He combined forces with Doug Scott, a college professor and forensics expert (who also worked the Custer battlefield) researching the events on April 19, 1775 for several years. Together they wrote the book mentioned on the earlier post. “Bullet Strikes From the First Day of the American Revolution.”
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Okay, most people won’t bother reading the book, but Joel Bohy made a great presentation to an Arms Collector group a few days before the 250th Anniversary, immediately after their visit to the historic sites. This is interesting for a much wider audience, such as the sophisticated visitors here.
Ian McCollum at Forgotten Weapons, highlighted this video on May 23rd, and it has over 25,000 views already with some really enthusiastic comments. (Many - “Didn’t think I would like it, but wow it was great!”)
If you want to see the three related live firing studies done earlier in conjunction with this presentation, all three are available to download FREE. They range from 40 to 100 pages and are serious scientific studies.
Get these from the American Society of Arms Collectors resource page.
The video is about 1:02:30 long, but well worth the time, so grab a cold one and sit back and cheer for the good guys! It is amazing what we can still learn 250years after an event.
Editor's Note: I was saving this one for a rainy day, didn't rain yesterday, well I poured sweat cutting the grass, but I had nothing so, Praise the Lord for guest posters!
Thanks for posting this one JB, will watch this a bit later when the sleep is out of the eyes.
ReplyDeleteNow, imagine not just having your own piece flaring like that right in front of your face,. but also having that jet of propellant gases hitting you from your left when the guy in the file to your left fires.
ReplyDeleteI do take issue with his claim that the ball rides the bottom of the bore. The articles I've read about tests say that the ball kind of bounces around in the bore, so rarely exits in exactly the same orientation. That's one of the reasons the point of aim (well, point of pointing) was at about belt level.
Smarter Every Day has a nice video of muzzle loading cannon fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgqIWDPMALk that shows the ejecta before the projectile leaving the muzzle.
Re: windage for artillery. The British and Americans in the early 1800s had philosophical differe/es on the relationship of bore to shot size. The British sized the bore to the shot, the bore being 40/39th the size of the shot. The Americans specification was the shot to be 39/40th the bore diameter.
DeleteGood one, JB. Sorry it took so long to get it out!
ReplyDeleteA fascinating video rich with information. I have not yet watched its entirety, but I will. Thank you for posting this.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that alcohol may have saved the life of the first British soldier taken captive. Having been made a prisoner means he would not have been in combat where he might be mortally wounded.
Notice that each claim for restitution includes a stolen firearm. Confiscation was the goal and continued even after open hostilities erupted.
I do blame the soldiers for setting fires and destroying buildings. They were in a regiment. Apparently the officers allowed this lack of military professionalism. So much for the world's great standing army of that time.
Unanswered is who fired the first shot on Lexington green. I had hoped that there research would have provided a clue.
Early American history is especially exciting to me.
Today, MA seeks to quash or make criminal the private use of firearms. For shame.
A bullet fired from outside the Capt. Adams house, through an exterior wall, across the room, through a second wall, through a newel post, and lodges in another wall.
ReplyDeleteThat says something of the powder available at that time. Of course the large caliber, but wow the forces involved.
I'll have top watch the video tonight. On Lexington, there was an interesting article in my BBC History magazine - on "who fired the first shot?" They were not clear on who exactly did fire that first shot, but after the battle it was a race across the Atlantic to get to the London newspapers with their version. The British used a standard warship which would take about 6 weeks. The American's used a schooner that was used in trading and took 4 weeks. Guess who got there first ;-)
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting to me is that the captain of the schooner reached a colonialist, Richard (?) Lee, who had many contacts in the London press. I wondered if he was from **those** Lees, but also being a Virginian, had to have been.
Really enjoyed the video. Thanks John for sharing. The Russell House mentioned in the video was the ancestral home of Kurt Russell.
ReplyDeleteWdstk sends.
I'm looking forward to watching this! I saw the one Ian featured recently, a similar analysis of the Custer battlefield.
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd
The Little Big Horn presentation was by Doug Scott who helped with the forensics and ballistics on this one. The "First Day of the Revolution" and LBH presentations were actually made as back to back live sessions, and Ian recorded them both. The LBH one has some parts which are not family friendly, so I will not link to it from here, but it is easily found if anyone wants to dig deeper. (A little archaeological humor there...)
DeleteJohn Blackshoe
is it possible to decide who fired the first shot?
ReplyDelete