What would you do?

[8thvacav]

Zou,
Shooting a bow is like shooting a sling shot. When I was a youngster I had a slingshot in my hip pocket every where I went and later started shooting a bow. It really doesn't take that long to learn how to shoot both. Now I'm not talking about being a world class shooter. There are a lot of factors you have to learn shooting a musket...trigger pull,the right load, how tight to patch it to make it shoot good. I think all in all the musket would be harder to learn. There is a whole lot more to it than just loading it up and shooting it. JMO
Martin (8thvacav)

I would go back before the firing of Ft. Sumpter and advise the Southern states that if they fire on the fort it would cause a Civil War, it would result in more deaths than they could possibly imagine, and would result in their utter defeat "many" years from now. I would simply tell them to look at the economical status, the North has steel mills and the South has cotton. I think it would seem funny if the southern troops had thrown pillows instead of cannon balls on Ft. Sumpter.

[blue_zouave]

Martin, there is a great difference between a regular fiberglass sport bow and a longbow. I have shot the sport bow, observed the longbow. I shoot muskets. My daughter, my son, my skinny armed computer geek neighbor boys shoot muskets. They wouldn't be able to string a longbow, let alone draw it. With a premade cartridge, you dump the powder, dump the ball, ram the load home, and you're good to go. No patching, no measuring, no muss, no fuss, no worries. Just don't forget the cap.

So Martin, if using bows and arrows were such a good idea, why didn't the Confederacy do so???

Zou

[blue_zouave]

Wil, isn't that what they did at Fort Pillow????

As for telling the Confederate government about all the bloodshed, pillage, horror, etc etc etc, if they didn't listen to Rhett Butler, do you think they would listen to you??

Zou

(Message edited by blue_zouave on July 15, 2004)

[rivrrat]

The last study at the Little Bighorn battle site actually proved that the indians had more and better fire arms than Custer and his troops.

[8thvacav]

Zou,
I didn't say using the bow was a good Idea. What I said is the bow isn't that hard to learn to shoot. I started out with a long bow made of wood. The glass recurve bows wasn't around when I was a kid. At lease I didn't know about them. Yes if you have somebody make up the cartridge for you it would be easier. I wounder if the sharpshooters made up thier own loads?
Martin

[johan_steele]

Doug, it's true the Indians had more firearms than Custers troops... there were several times as many Indians as soldiers... As to the quality of firearms... Cav: Almost exclusively .45-70 Trapdoor Springfield Carbines and .45 Colt Army Pistols. First rate arms for the time.

The Lakota & Cheyenne: Longarms: Trapdoor Springfields both rifles & carbines, sharps rifles and carbines of various models military & civilian, Spencers, Henry's, Winchesters, Allin Conversions, Snider Conversions, P53 Enfields, 1861 Springfields, Smith's and a variety of civilian arms. The pistols... run the gamut. Plus bows, lances, war clubs etc.

THe study available through Rock Island Arsenal Museum, US Army, is pretty much the end all be all of the studies. While it stated that the Indians had some arms that were superior it also stated that they were not uniformly armed, maintained or trained in their proper use. It also stated that approx than 70% (I may bve off on the percentage as I'm going off memory)of all long arms captured from the Lakota & Cheyenne since were minus either the front site or had a portion of the barrell cut away to reduce length.

THe Indian wars are a fascinating subject worthy of a whole thread as there was plenty of fighting w/ the Dakota, Lakota, Commanche, Kiowa, Apache etc in the ACW. It was a whole seperate war every bit as difficult & violent as that fought in what most people consider the Civil War... I have a quote somewhere from a Texan Captain stating that figting in Virginia was a whole lot easier than fighting Commanches... and many Iowa & Minnesota troop would have agreed about the Dakota & Lakota.

(Message edited by johan steele on July 16, 2004)

[johan_steele]

Martin, the lions share of men in the cW did have someone else make up the cartridge for them, very few carried powder horns or paper patches. Paper cartridges were distributed by the millions.

[rivrrat]

OOPS put a post in the wrong place. Sorry

(Message edited by Rivrrat on July 17, 2004)

"As for telling the Confederate government about all the bloodshed, pillage, horror, etc etc etc, if they didn't listen to Rhett Butler, do you think they would listen to you??

Zou"

No! I think they would commit me to an insane asylum. LOL I'd just bring a history book showing them what could happen IF they took the wrong path.