Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Battle effectiveness of 18th c. smoothbore weapons Message-ID: <12103@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 8 Dec 89 04:13:53 GMT References: <11862@cbnews.ATT.COM> <11911@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12064@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 25 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Irving Chidsey Many years ago I heard a lecture by Carl Witthoft, an archaeologist with the Pennsylvania Museum Commission. He said therecis an exchange of letters between Lord Cornwallis and George Washington about a musket ball with a nail thru it that was extracted from a Brittish officers leg. Very uncivilized and ungentlemanly! When the excavated the Cloisters at Ephrata, which had been a Colonial evacuation hospital they found a fair number of such musket balls with scars from the forcepts that tried to remove them from wounds. ( Anaesthesia was a glas of whiskey and bite the bullet. ) When they excavated the camps on both sides they found lots of them, unfired. The first volley, loaded at leisure, must have had lots of spiked musket balls. They were not practical for reloading in haste. The lecture was in 1962 or earlier so check sources before you quote me. Irv -- I do not have signature authority. I am not authorized to sign anything. I am not authorized to commit the BRL, the DOA, the DOD, or the US Government to anything, not even by implication. Irving L. Chidsey