• Complain

Rose - American rifle: a biography

Here you can read online Rose - American rifle: a biography full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: New York, year: 2008, publisher: Random House Publishing Group;Bantam Dell, genre: History. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover
  • Book:
    American rifle: a biography
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Random House Publishing Group;Bantam Dell
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2008
  • City:
    New York
  • Rating:
    3 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 60
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

American rifle: a biography: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "American rifle: a biography" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

The mystery of Washingtons rifle -- The rifle and the Revolution -- The rise of machines -- The big bang -- The grewsome graveyard -- The army of marksmen and the soldiers faith -- The smokeless revolution -- Roosevelts rifle -- The paths not taken -- The great blunderbuss bungle -- Gun of the space age -- The rifle of the future.;This spirited and engrossing narrative vividly details the life of a seminal invention--the American rifle--and shows not only how it influenced the course of the nations history, but reflects the needs and values of America itself.

American rifle: a biography — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "American rifle: a biography" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

AMERICAN RIFLE Contents - photo 1

AMERICAN RIFLE Contents TO REBECCA I am my beloveds an - photo 2


AMERICAN
RIFLE
Picture 3

Contents

Picture 4


TO REBECCA
I am my beloveds, and my beloved is mine.


Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss.

Judges 20:16

Picture 5

Without gunpowder there can be no freedom!

German-American proverb during the War of Independence

Picture 6


Now then Ill dwell upon the GUN.
When first this weapon was invented
It had no lock; men were contented,
Or rather were obligd, tis said,
To use a lighted match instead.
At length, the very things they needed,
Hammer, and flint, and steel succeeded;
Then, probably, the shooter thought
His piece was to perfection brought;
But evry age improvd it still,
And so, perhaps, the future will.

W. Watt, Remarks on shooting, 1835


Picture 7

Each civilized nation is found to choose a rifle, and it is curious study to discover the reasons for the selection each of a different pattern.

Chief of Ordnance Stephen Vincent Bent, 1879

Picture 8

The old musket was the arm of the masses, and the rifle is that of the individual.

J. Walter, The Volunteer Force, 1882

Picture 9

You must not forget that the rifle is distinctly an American weapon. I want to see it employed.

General John Pershing, 1917

Picture 10

The weapon had to be adapted to the man; measured to fit his intelligence and his training. A rifle suited to the use of a Russian peasant soldier would not efficiently serve the American infantryman. A rifle designed for an expert marksman would not efficiently serve an army put into the field with but little training.

S. Brown, The Story of Ordnance in the World War, 1920

Picture 11

Augsburg, Germany, May 1 (AP)Pvt. Wyatt Virgil Earp, a direct descendant of the legendary sharpshooting Earp brothers, has qualified as an expert with the M14 rifle, a U.S. Army spokesman announced. Earp, 17 is serving as a tracked vehicle mechanic with the 24th infantry division. He is a grandson of Virgil Earp, who, with his brother, Wyatt, tamed Tombstone.

Washington Post, 1965


AMERICAN
RIFLE
Chapter 1 THE MYSTERY OF WASHINGTONS RIFLE G eorge Washington never - photo 12

Chapter 1 THE MYSTERY OF WASHINGTONS RIFLE G eorge Washington never - photo 13

Chapter 1

Picture 14

THE MYSTERY OF WASHINGTONS RIFLE

G eorge Washington, never exactly a cheerful or chipper soul, was today even more glum than usual.

And then, at last, Washington was allowed to see the result. There he was, looking suspiciously more youthful (Peale knew how to flatter his subjects) than his forty years might suggest, but otherwise the likeness was most accurate. There he stood, Colonel George Washington of the defunct Virginia Regiment, officer, gentleman, loyal servant of His Majesty, and veteran of the French and Indian War.

Peales portrait of Washingtonthe earliest authentic likeness of the man that is known to existis distinguished from hundreds of other pictures of eighteenth-century soldiers hanging in the worlds museums in one remarkable respect. Its easy to overlook, but, subtly protruding from behind Washingtons left shoulder, is the muzzle of an American rifle.

This particular arm had probably been commissioned two years before, in early 1770. In March of that year Washington was staying with his friend Robert Alexander, and according to his diary, they often went out a hunting foxes; but he one day rode to George Town (then a small place eight miles upstream from Alexandria, Virginia) to pick up my rifle from the gunsmith John Jost (or Yost) for 6 and 10 shillings. (An exact conversion to todays dollars is extremely difficult to determine, but $1,400 is a very rough approximation.) Gratifyingly, the cost of the firearm was partly offset by Washingtons winning of 1 and 5 shillings from his host at cards, while its fineness can be gauged by the fact that during the Revolution Jost would make rifles for American troops invoiced at 4 and 15 shillings eachand this after prices had already soared owing to inflation. Washington may well have paid more than a 100 percent premium for the privilege of owning a custom-made Jost.

Few but Washington would have instructed their portraitists to add such a weapon. Rifles, at the time, were rarities among common soldiers and were carried by officers only in the fieldthe hunting field, that is, for the noble pursuit of shooting game, not the battlefield.

All of which makes Washingtons insistence on including one of these peculiar firearms in his portrait all the more mysterious. Indeed, a man who wished to use an object as an emblem of rank might have brandished it openly, but he didnt. The rifle is instead discreetly tucked away in the background, serving, it seems, as a reassuring symbol, for those in the know, that this individual, dressed in a uniform last donned two decades before, is one of them. So what was Washington telling his fellow Americans? The answer lies hidden somewhere amid the vast, remote American wilderness, an unconquered territory densely thicketed by forests, rumpled by towering mountain ranges, and watered by unbridgeable rivers. For newcomers to this land, it was a terrifying place such as had not existed in Europe since the dark and cold days of the Neanderthals. It was the frontier.

Picture 15

The great Spanish conquests did not hinge on firearms. Columbus brought with him just one for his infantrya gun weighing about thirty pounds aptly named the hand-cannonon his voyage to the New World in 1492. This type of weapon, which consisted of an inch-or-so-wide iron tube mounted on a broomstick-sized pole, could be lethal up to a few dozen yards, but its noise, smoke, and flash were undoubtedly its scariest qualities.

Owing to the unwieldiness of guns, as well as the impossibility of obtaining extra supplies for them, the conquistadors preferred to use simple, low-tech weaponry and sheer will to carry the day.

Firearms genuinely came into their own only in the early seventeenth century: on July 30, 1609, to be exact, when Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer and fur trader, accompanied his sixty Montagnais and Huron allies on a raid near the Ticonderoga peninsula against their mutual enemies, the Mohawks. Just two volleys from a couple of muskets put to flight a numerically superior force of two hundred. Admittedly, however, Champlains shots had inflicted more damage to morale than to flesh and bone.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «American rifle: a biography»

Look at similar books to American rifle: a biography. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «American rifle: a biography»

Discussion, reviews of the book American rifle: a biography and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.