Rhea Cole
Major
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2019
- Location
- Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Sergeant Charles Bennet of the 9th Michigan V.I. Left an account of a fight that occurred July 13,1862 in Murfreesboro TN... right where my house sits. The GA cavalry that Forrest ordered to attack the 9th’s camp at dawn was largely armed with shotguns. Bennet wrote that while organizing an effective response to the attack, a ball bounced off of his cross belt. That brought him to his duty & he began to fire his musket. The Old Mackerels put up such a stiff resistance that the cavalrymen were routed. They fled as hard as they could go until the exhaustion of the horses allowed them to rally at Readyville, ten miles eastward from whence they came.
Details of the horsemen’s panic is detailed in the courts marital of the officers. As The 1860 firing tests in Fuller found, buck & ball was only effective at ranges of less than 100 yards. As Sgt Bennet testified, the buckshot would not even penetrate the paper target past that range. Of course, the odds of hitting anything from the back of a moving horse at anything but point blank were extremely small.
Tactically, if the two rounds of a shotgun & the moral shock of the horse did not disrupt the opposition, the attacker became one massive target. The only thing harder than hitting a target from a moving horse was reloading a shot gun. If, as in the case of the 9th, infantry kept their wits about them, jamming home your spurs & running for it was the wisest course of action.
Details of the horsemen’s panic is detailed in the courts marital of the officers. As The 1860 firing tests in Fuller found, buck & ball was only effective at ranges of less than 100 yards. As Sgt Bennet testified, the buckshot would not even penetrate the paper target past that range. Of course, the odds of hitting anything from the back of a moving horse at anything but point blank were extremely small.
Tactically, if the two rounds of a shotgun & the moral shock of the horse did not disrupt the opposition, the attacker became one massive target. The only thing harder than hitting a target from a moving horse was reloading a shot gun. If, as in the case of the 9th, infantry kept their wits about them, jamming home your spurs & running for it was the wisest course of action.
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