Spencer 2015
Williamsburg Magazine
Interpreter
What are the battle tactics of the Europeans? The battle tactics used in battle were mostly linear in the main battle field you had soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder all firing together, they’re told by there officers when to do so, but by doing this they were much more effective. The most important thing to do in linear tactics is to try to flank your enemy. People with rifles would fight in gorilla warfare. You would have an infantry, people you send in to the woods and trees to a scout to basically harass the enemy. Gorilla tactics I’m the revolutionary war was used for small scale conflicts. The Americans won the war because they got better at linear tactics then the British
Cole
2015
Williamsburg Magazine
Interpreter
Daily life for a soldier was very monotonous “you would never get enough food, you were always hungry you get a very brief bite from the one meal a day they you do get and you were always uncomfortable.” You were always very bored with monotonous tasks like chopping firewood or digging trenches. You were always tired out from marching from place to place. Marching as fast as you can to a area to only wait a long time to do something once you get there. It is not fun but you do get to become great friends with your fellow soldiers. “You cry for them and they cry for you.” Yorktown fought in 1781. It was arguable that at the time the British were winning. Private’s would be on the front line fighting. Privates would carry a axe and a musket which is flintlock. At this point in the war there are no epaulets which shows what rank you are. With no epaulets you have no rank which would be a private. The only shrapnel mechanism comes out of a mortar. They would not call it shrapnel yet. Shrapnel would be designed to break a certain way but with bombs you had no idea how it would break. It might break Ito two or into a thousand. A 10 pound mortar fires a quarter pound of powder. The musket fires 90 grams of powder per shot. Soldiers would have pre weighted things to know the amount of gunpowder to put in. Soldiers don’t normally make their ammunition. Kids would make ammunition for the soldiers in competitions they would make as many cartridges as they could and whoever made the most in the least amount of time won a prize. The soldiers would eat whatever they could get their hands on. Soldiers would need pastime but since they were not allowed to gamble they would get upset. Soldiers would sleep in a tent with 5 other guys you would get a wool blanket and sleep on straw. The commander would also sleep in a tent the commander could buy fancy tents or cheap tents. If he is going to be set up for a while in a war he might sleep in a house if the owners would allow it. The ranks are insent corporal sergeant lieutenant captain major colonel general and commander.
Oliver Eig
December 15th, 2016
The master would beat the slaves with leather whips or canes. Other times they would be punished by being locked up. A lot of the punishment of the slaves had to do with the severity of the deed. One of the things they would do to the slaves if they ran away would be to cut off their big toe. So if you saw a slave with two missing big toes than they had a tendency to run away. But that was in extreme cases cause you don’t wanna harm a slave in the sense that they can’t work.
“They cost you money and they’ll make you money.”
As far of weapons they considered them tools because they are not gonna shoot someone in that sense that you can use a knife to cut someone, in the sense that they cannot work.
The militia is an armed institution that every person that is free, landowning, able bodied, and above the age of 16 and under the age of 60. If you are all those things you have to be part of the militia by law. The militia is essentially a bunch of civilians with guns.
The government requires you to have a weapon if you are in the militia. The most common job in Virginia is farming so a lot of people would get a gun that they could use to kill animals on their land. This gun would most likely be a rifle. There is no way to use this as a close quarters weapon.
That is why there were military muskets, which you could spear people with the bayonet. It is standardized so everybody can switch out parts without having to worry about compatibility. This also made switching ammo a lot easier. That is what differentiates the militia from the military equipment wise.
The bad part of having a short barrel is because of the inaccuracy and that it would not be as effective to spear people with.
Almost all of the weapons in the European armies are pretty much the same and work the same way. This makes it so there was never really a weapons advantage between militaries.
The flintlocks in Jamestown were very unreliable, so the matchlock mechanism was a lot more popular The flintlocks in the end of the 17th century was when they started to become reliable and more popular. The flintlock was a lot easier to load and was more safe than the matchlock which had a burning piece of rope that could blow them up.
“Take that idea of standardization and throw it out the window.”
Everybody was using different weapons.
Some were using English muskets some were using French muskets some were using shotguns.
From home and some people were using Dutch guns.
“You have a huge hodgepodge of weapons going on here.”
The next big leap in firearm technology will be the percussion cap which is a tiny little copper cap that is put over a tube that gets hit by a hammer. It is filled with mercury so when the mercury gets crushed it is always gonna spark.
Milei
2016
In the army they used a certain type of gun. They used a musket which was faster to load then a rifle and that is the reason why the musket was mostly used. Another reason why soldiers wouldn’t use rifle’s a lot is because the rifle’s were small and you couldn’t really use it as a hand to hand combat weapon. The musket had a spear in the front of it called a bayonet. They would use the bayonet to usually scare of their enemy. Also by the 18th century soldiers stopped using armor because of it’s weight. Some officers from the navy would wear a breastplate and a back plate but most of the time the other soldiers would wear a uniform. In the army they never had just one uniform because they would switch every year.