The old method of firing off
the musket by means of slow matches kept alight during action was
now obsolete; the latest device was the flintlock. But there was
always a measure of doubt whether the weapon would go off. Partly
on this account Benjamin Franklin, the wisest man of his time,
declared for the use of the pike of an earlier age rather than
the bayonet and for bows and arrows instead of firearms. A
soldier, he said, could shoot four arrows to one bullet. An arrow
wound was more disabling than a bullet wound; and arrows did not
becloud the vision with smoke. The bullet remained, however, the
chief means of destruction, and the fire of Washington's soldiers
usually excelled that of the British. These, in their turn, were
superior in the use of the bayonet.
Powder and lead were hard to get. The inventive spirit of America
was busy with plans to procure saltpeter and other ingredients
for making powder, but it remained scarce. Since there was no
standard firearm, each soldier required bullets specially suited
to his weapon. The men melted lead and cast it in their own
bullet-molds. It is an instance of the minor ironies of war that
the great equestrian statue of George III, which had been erected
in New York in days more peaceful, was melted into bullets for
killing that monarch's soldiers.
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