American Rifle - Alexander Rose [232]
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89. Jefferson to Fabbroni, June 8, 1778, in Boyd, Papers of Jefferson, p. 2:195.
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90. An excellent analysis of Lee’s politics may be found in J. Shy, “Charles Lee,” in Billias, Washington’s Generals, esp. pp. 24–28, 46 (on his hatred of Hamilton).
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91. Wayne to Mr. Peters (secretary of war), February 8, 1778, in C. J. Stillé, Major-General Anthony Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line in the Continental Army (Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott, 1893), p. 118. “I never wish to see one—at least without a bayonet” was his blunt opinion of the rifle’s place in modern warfare.
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92. Greene to Colonel Cox, July 17, 1779, in Commager and Morris, Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, p. 723.
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93. On Steuben, see the works by J. M. Palmer, General von Steuben (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1937), and A. H. Bill, Valley Forge: The Making of an Army (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).
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94. Wayne, for example, believed that “for want of [bayonets] the chief of the defeats we have met with ought in a great measure to be attributed.” See letter to Peters of February 8, 1778, in Stillé, Major-General Wayne, p. 118.
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95. Washington to John Banister, April 21, 1778.
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96. General Orders, September 27, 1781,Washington Papers.
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97. On Deckhard’s (or Deckard’s or Dickert’s) provision of the rifles, see J. G. M. Ramsay, The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Charleston, S.C.: John Russell, 1853), p. 228. On the weather that day, see J. P. Collins, Autobiography of a Revolutionary Soldier (1859; reprint New York: Arno Press/New York Times, 1979), p. 51.
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98. There is some confusion about whether Loyalists were also armed with rifles. The older interpretations—such as L. C. Draper, King’s Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It (Cincinnati, Ohio: Peter G. Thomson, 1881), p. 237—claim that they were, but my view is that Draper was confused as to the difference between a rifle and a musket and carelessly used the more modern word to signify what he should have called a musket. The Tories under Ferguson’s command were raised mostly in New York and New Jersey, in neither of which were rifles common. Perhaps a few of them did possess a looted or spare rifle, but they would have been used as muskets.
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99. Quoted in Commager and Morris, Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, p. 1136. A slightly bowdlerized but subtly alternative version is in C. P. Russell, “The American Rifle at the Battle of King’s Mountain” (1940), in the National Park Service, Rifles and Riflemen at the Battle of King’s Mountain, online at www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/popular/12/ps12-2.htm.
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100. Quoted in Draper, King’s Mountain, p. 252.
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101. B. R. Lewis, Small Arms and Ammunition in the United States Service (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1956), p. 91.
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102. Collins, Autobiography of a Revolutionary Soldier, p. 53.
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103. “Account of Ensign Robert Campbell,” in Draper, King’s Mountain, p. 539.
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104. Collins, Autobiography of a Revolutionary Soldier, p. 52.
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105. “Account of Ensign Robert Campbell,” in Draper, King’s Mountain, p. 539.
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106. Collins, Autobiography of a Revolutionary Soldier, p. 53. Ferguson had previously