American Rifle - Alexander Rose [88]
The degree to which Indians had cast off their famed shooting ability is revealed by an 1879 Ordnance report listing 284 shoulder arms that had recently been turned in by captured Sioux and Cheyennes. Many of them were classified as unserviceable, at least by arsenal standards. A large number suffered from cracked stocks and faulty lock mechanisms, but most revealingly, a majority had broken, loose, or missing sights. Those remaining had been hacked down, the jagged ruins suitable only for short-range use. Captain O. E. Michaelis of the Ordnance Department commented that the modern Indian warrior “steals upon his quarry and fires at it.” By shooting at point-blank range, they over-came “the difficulty attending fine sighting and the accurate estimate of distances.”39
Knowing the Indian disinclination to take sight, experienced riflemen grew cocky. During the retreat from the Little Bighorn, Captain Winfield Edgerly noticed one Private Saunders with “a broad grin on his face, altho’ he was sitting in a perfect shower of bullets.” When the fighting was over, Edgerly asked Saunders what he found so funny at the time: “I was laughing to see what poor shots those Indians were; they were shooting too low and their bullets were spattering dust like drops of rain.”40
To compensate for their lack of long-distance accuracy, Indians would first collect in great numbers, then close rapidly with the enemy and destroy him with intense free fire before he could take cover. Alternatively, they would strike in small numbers out of nowhere very fast, as happened to Custer’s unit during a foray along the Yellowstone River when six mounted Sioux dashed boldly into their midst and attempted to stampede their horses.
And sometimes both methods would be used in tandem. After driving off the six horsemen into the woods, Custer’s “suspicions were ex-cited by the[ir] confident bearing,” and he ordered a cautious advance toward the “heavy growth of timber which stood along the river bank above us.” His caution was warranted. Suddenly, “with their characteristic howls and yells over three hundred well-mounted warriors dashed in perfect line from the edge of the timber and charged.” The Indians outnumbered Custer’s force by five to one, but his men held them off with furious hails of fire.41
In this instance Custer’s deploying his troops into defensive positions saved the day, but in general soldiers were finding their single-shot Springfields outmatched by Indian swarming tactics. Designed to hit individuals at a distance, the Springfields simply could not fire quickly enough to keep up. The soldiers demanded to fight rapid fire with rapid fire.
The stream of complaints flummoxed the Ordnance Department, which had spent decades perfecting the long-range, single-shot, pinpoint-accurate rifle and had striven ceaselessly to place one in every soldier’s hand. Between 1865 and 1876 the department had finally succeeded in doing so—just in time for its coming eclipse.
Single-shots would nevertheless long enjoy a fan base. Like many other dated technologies, they would continue to find favor for decades to come.42 Certainly an element of snobbery was involved. Among expert hunters, professional lawmen, and the hardier sort of frontiersman, single-shots were prized items, one reason being that carrying one marked you as a killing gent, as opposed to the amateurs and tender-foots showing off their brand-new repeaters bought at some fancy emporium back east.
Buffalo Bill Cody called his modified Springfield Model 1866 breech-loader “Lucretia Borgia” and used it to slaughter herds of buffalo for admiring spectators. The Ballard belonging to hunter Theo Davis “never failed me . . . More than one antelope has been brought down at three hundred yards. During our Indian fights it was the treasure of our party.”43 Lieutenant George Baylor of the Texas Rangers tried one of the new repeaters but got rid of it “after the first Indian fight.” He needed an arm that would ghost on the first shot, and so began using a