July 4, 2005

"...We come on the ship they call the Mayflower

    We come on the ship that sailed the moon

    We come in the age's most uncertain hours

      and sing an American tune..."

 

                  - Partial lyrics from an edit of the song

                    "American Tune" , by Paul Simon

 

 

"........It was midsummer by the time the first troops from outside

    New England began showing up, companies of riflemen from

    Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, ' hardy men, many of

    them exceeding six feet in height,' noted Dr. James Thacher,

    who was himself short and slight.

         One Virginia company, led by Captain Daniel Morgan, had

    marched on a ' bee-line ' for Boston, covering six hundred

    miles in three weeks, or an average of thirty miles a day in

    the heat of summer.

         Mostly backwoodsmen of Scotch-Irish descent, they wore

    long, fringed hunting shirts, ' rifle shirts ' of homespun linen,

    in colors ranging from undyed tan and grey to shades of brown

    and even black, these tied at the waist with belts carrying

    tomahawks. At a review they demonstrated how, with their

    long-barreled rifles, a frontier weapon made in Pennsylvania

    and largely unknown in New England, they could hit a mark

    seven inches in diameter at a distance of 250 yards, while the

    ordinary musket was accurate at only 100 yards or so. It was

    ' rifling ' -- spiraled grooves inside the long barrel-- that

    increased the accuracy, and the new men began firing at

    British sentries with deadly effect, until the British caught

    on and kept their heads down or stayed out of range.

          Welcome as they were at first, the riflemen soon proved

    even more indifferent to discipline than the New Englanders,

    and obstreperous to the point that Washington began to wish

    they had never come....

 

    .....At the center, where Hessian artillery had been bombarding

    Sullivan's lines along the ridges since early morning, General

    von Heister's brigades could be seen drawn up on the plain to

    the south, but showed no sign of moving. Three Hessian

    brigades stood waiting in a line nearly a mile long.

         Sullivan had ridden out from Brooklyn to take command at

    the Flatbush Pass. Seeing that the Hessians were not moving

    and that Stirling was in trouble on the right, he sent some of

    his regiments to help.

         Until nine o'clock the battle seemed to be unfolding about

    as the Americans had expected, with the enemy attacking, or

    poised to attack, head-on.

         But at nine came the crash of Howe's signal guns, and

    suddenly Sullivan realized that a whole British army was coming

    at him from behind and that he was surrounded.

        On the plain beyond the ridge, General von Heister gave the

    order and with drums rolling, the Hessians were in motion.

        Leaving his advance guard posted along the ridge to do what

    they could to hold off the Hessians, Sullivan pulled back his

    main force and swung around to face the oncoming British

    ranks. And though vastly outnumbered, the Americans

    returned the British fire with murderous effect. Officers on

    both sides feared their men would be cut to pieces, and

    officers and soldiers on both sides often had no idea what

    was happening. Nor was it the Americans only who, when

    faced with annihilation, ran for their lives.

          A British light infantry officer who led thirty of Clinton's

    advance guard into the ' very thick ' of several hundred

    American riflemen, saw a third of his men go down in the

    most ferocious exchange of fire he had ever known. When

    he and half a dozen redcoats broke for the woods, more

    rebels sprang up out of nowhere. The fire seemed to come

    from every direction.

 

          '  I called to my men to run to the first wall they could

            find and we all set off, some into some short bushes,

            others straight across a field [and] in running across

            the field we [were] exposed to the fire of 300 men.

            We had literally run out in the midst [ of them ] and

            they calling to me to surrender. I stopped twice to look

            behind me and saw the riflemen so thick and not one

            of my own men. I made for the wall as hard as I could

            drive and they peppering at me...at last I gained the

            wall and threw myself headlong. '

 

          In the turmoil and confusion, Sullivan struggled to hold

      control and keep his men from panicking. Their situation

      was desperate; retreat was the only alternative, and in

      stages of ' fight and flight ' , he lead them as rapidly as

      possible in the direction of the Brooklyn lines...

 

 

      ...The attack began just after eight o'clock. The Americans

      under Nathaniel Greene came out of the woods and across

      a field through driving snow about half a mile from town.

      They were moving fast, at what was called a ' long trot '.

      The Hessians on guard on the Pennington Road had

      trouble at first making out who they were and how many

      there were. ' The storm continued with great violence,' Henry

      Knox wrote, ' but was in our backs, and consequently in the

      faces of the enemy.'

     

         The Americans opened fire. The Hessians waited for them

      to get closer, then fired and began quickly, smoothly falling

      back into town, exactly as they had been trained to do when

      retreat was the only choice. Washington thought they per-

      formed particularly well keeping up a steady retreating fire.

          As Greene's and Sullivan's columns converged on the

      town, Washington moved to high ground nearby on the

      north where he tried to keep watch on what was happening.

          His 2,400 Americans, having been on their feet all night,

      wet, cold, their weapons soaked, went into the fight as if

      everything depended on them. Each man ' seemed to vie

      with the other in pressing forward, ' Washington wrote.

          In town the Hessians came rushing out of their houses

      and barracks into the streets. Drums beat, the band played,

      officers shouted orders in German, and as fast as the

      Hessians began forming up, Knox's artillery were in position

      at the head of King and Queen streets.

          The cannon opened fire with deadly effect down hundreds

      of yards on each street, and in minutes-- ' in the twinkling of

      an eye,' Knox said--cleared the streets.

          When the Hessians retreated into the side streets, they

      found Sullivan's men coming at them with fixed bayonets.

      For a brief time, a thousand or more Americans and Hessians

      were locked in a savage house-to-house fighting

          It was all happening extremely fast, in wild confusion and

      swirling snow made more blinding by clouds of gunpowder

      smoke. ' The storm of nature and the storm of the town,'

      wrote Nathaniel Greene, ' exhibited a scene that filled the

      mind during the action with passions easier conceived than

      described.'

          When the Hessians rolled out a field gun midway on King

      Street, a half dozen Virginians led by Captain William

      Washington ( a distant cousin of the commander ) and

      Lieutenant James Monroe rushed forward, seized it, and

      turned it on them.

          Colonel Rall, who had been rousted from his bed and was

      quickly on horseback and in command in the midst of the

      fray, ordered a charge. Men were being hit all around him.

      The line faltered. He ordered  a retreat into an orchard at the

      southeastern edge of town. Then Rall, too, was hit and fell

      from his horse. Mortally wounded, he was picked up and

      carried to the Potts house.

          The Hessians in the orchard, finding themselves

      surrounded, lay down their arms and surrendered...."

 

                                -Excerpts from the book "1776", by

                                 David McCullough, describing scenes

                                 related to battles around Boston,

                                 New York, and Trenton in that pivotal

                                 year.

 

To All,

    McCullough's book is a great work, eminently more "readable" than the tomes of some others that go unmentioned. But perhaps some of the black powder enthusiasts out there could do a demonstration for the author as to the accuracy of the Short Land Pattern "Brown Bess" musket out past 50 yards, for the sake of historical accuracy.

 

In other news:

 

Spread the Word:

     The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle posted a "guest essay" by Staff Sergeant Chad Stern, 10th Mountain Division, U.S. Army today, and the UK Telegraph is posting a story about "red-on-red" fire in Anbar Province in Western Iraq. In both cases, the stories highlight that things are not as dire as the Lamestream Media or Congressional Liberals would have them seem.

 

     Sergeant Stern has just returned from duty in Iraq, and is part of that tide of service personnel wondering why the media is failing to present some of the more positive aspects of the current situation in Iraq. He recounts about his daily interactions with Iraqis, and their appreciation for being liberated. His personal assistance to a destitute family, including a donation of more than $ 300.00 out of his pocket, is an example of compassion that many of us would be hard put to emulate. With soldiers like these in service, it is hard to imagine failure of the current mission.

 

     And perhaps the payoff is not so far away from coming, if the UK Telegraph's story is accurate. It seems that the "insurrectionists" in Iraq, the foreign terrorist-cum-fighters that in a more just world would be labeled "counter-revolutionaries" by an unbiased Fourth Estate, are getting shot at by native Iraqis.

 

      Apparently the locals do not have an appreciation for Taliban-style rule, which results in summary punishments and a level of technological lifestyle comparable to that of the time of the Third Crusade. Add to that an assassination of a respected tribal leader, and it may just be that Iraqis are "standing up" (to paraphrase the President) at much faster rate that previously disclosed in the New York Times.

 

     In both instances, the information being forwarded from Iraq does not seem to match the situation one would normally equate with Senator Kennedy's "quagmire" estimate. While it is perhaps understandable that the Liberal's Oldest Bull would denigrate the work of American service personnel for political reasons, it does not mean that the press should accept the Senator's representations at face value. Perhaps with time, the good Senator could hoist himself into a transport to Iraq and go and ask the newly liberated as to how they feel about the passing of Saddam's regime.

 

Links may be found at:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20050704/OPINION02/507040329/1039/OPINION

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/04/
wirq04.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/04/ixworld.html

 

 

No More Bullets Update:

     Jordan Rau of the Los Angeles Times wrote yesterday about the current Battles Royale in Sacramento over SB 357 and AB 352.

 

     With AB 352 and it's requirement of serializing of ammunition cases, a key threat is more it's classification of un-serialized pistols as unsafe than it's easily defeated serialization imprint. The whole population of pre-serialized pistols in California could become fodder for the torts community should a homeowner choose to avail themselves of the right of self-defense in his or her own living room.

 

     But in an interesting "elaboration" as to the efficacy of ammunition serialization as proposed by SB 357, Rau maintains that the DOJ's Randi Rossi has been shooting serialized test projectiles through additional media besides the previously disclosed junk car doors. The new subject media now includes drywall, wood "walls", and gelatin (No distinction is made as to whether it is industrial quality at a controlled temperature and distance, or that Rossi simply went down to the local cafeteria and absconded with a few bowls of Jello.).

 

     But the original problems of SB 357 remain unaddressed by either Rossi's DOJ or Rau of the Times. It is clear from the DOJ's own material that they have not yet presented test data on pistol calibers smaller than 9mm as to the survivability of the coding system concept under proposal (It's not so clear that the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department did any testing in support of SB 357 themselves, despite the allegations by the Times' Rau and the DOJ presentation). And since a key requirement of SB 357 is that the serial numbers survive impact after discharge, it stands to reason that non-exempt projectiles that cannot survive impact will not be permissible under the rules the DOJ will eventually promulgate.

 

    As such, .22 caliber rimfire and a host of "green" ammunition products could all be effectively banned due to SB 357. .22 rounds commonly deform to the point of not being able to match bullets to recorded rifling marks when recovered during autopsy. And "green" (frangible) ammunition fragments on impact, not leaving enough readable substrate to recover one number let alone a code sequence usable in a court of law.

 

     Normally, testing of ammunition for law enforcement approval purposes requires elaborate (read comprehensive and costly) testing where manufacturers expect to offset development costs with future sales. With significant numbers of the state's law enforcement buying their ammunition through retail outlets, they will be significantly impacted by any retreat of any individual manufacturer from the California market (If clean air gasoline is a comparable model of how it will go should SB 357 be enacted, a number of "smaller" ammunition manufacturers will drop out of the market due to cost pressures). That can only mean higher costs for all customers, law enforcement as well as the shooting public. That, in turn would be in addition to the proposed fees charged by the state to offset administrative costs (subject to cost escalation factors).

 

     Since law enforcement has to have ammunition to perform it's function, SB 357 will at the minimum drive up expenses to departments across the state. It will likely result in a ban of critical training and specialty ammunition needed by law enforcement for proficiency mandated by the public. And it will have almost no effect in helping DOJ solve crimes from the comfort of their computer terminals, given that non-serialized ammunition will become yet another illegally trafficked item on the black market.

The Attorney General and his Firearms Division staffers should know this. Whether they care about it or not is an entirely different issue.

 

Links may be found at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bullets3jul03,0,5416514.story?
coll=la-home-local

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_0351-0400/
sb_357_bill_20050622_amended_asm.html

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/asm/ab_0351-0400/
ab_352_bill_20050516_amended_asm.html

 

 

Respectfully,