This lecture was presented at the Spring 2025 meeting of the American Society of Arms Collectors. It was given by Joel Bohy, coauthor of a new book of the same name, published by Mowbray. You can find his book here:
https://gunandswordcollector.com/product/bullet-strikes-american-revolution/
or
https://amzn.to/43PoaF6
Joel Bohy and Douglas Scott have written three research reports as part of this project, and they are available for free from the ASAC library here:
https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/research-reports-by-asac-members/
00:00 – Introduction
00:53 – How the project started
02:55 – Ballistics of Revolutionary War muskets
07:55 – Understanding the different arms involved
18:59 – The research project grows…
20:30 – The Elisha Jones House
23:28 – James Hayward’s powder horn
28:40 – The Market Munroe House
31:41 – Buckman Tavern
33:10 – Monroe Tavern
35:30 – The Jason Russell House
45:19 – Relics of Captain William Adams’ House
48:48 – Recreating John Robbin’s terrible wound from Lexington Green
55:15 – Question: Petitions for compensation
56:39 – Question: Muzzle energy of these muskets
Fascinating presentation.
This is exactly the sort of work that should be done for modern engagements, and which we badly need in order to work out what sort of things are actually going on with regards to small arms in today’s engagements.
Which is what should have fed into the decision-making process for the NGSW program. And, which weren’t… Which sort of throws the whole thing into question.
It is interesting to note that the various 18th Century theorists were doing rather more work on things like this than the contemporary idiot decision-makers that came up with the background ideas to the NGSW fiasco.
Fantastic. One of the best videos I’ve seen on the channel. More of this sort of content would be more than welcome.
if you want to understand the human effect, go to Little Big Horn.
CG