Joseph G. Bilby - A Revolution in Arms: A History of the First Repeating Rifles

IN LATE MAY 1864, LIEUTENANT COLONEL THOMAS W. HYDE, A STAFF officer in the Army of the Potomac's VI Army Corps, found himself leading a catch-all command of a few hundred cavalrymen, most of them armed with repeating carbines. While on a foraging expedition, Hyde's force was shot at by a small enemy patrol.

As the Yankees responded with a fusillade of fire, the Rebels scooted away. Hyde's attempts to stop the shooting were futile, and the Yanks didn't cease firing until they emptied their guns. The din startled Major General Horatio Wright, who, believing Hyde's men were seriously engaged, rushed an infantry brigade to their support. When it was over, Lieutenant Colonel Hyde found two dead enemy horses, and ruefully concluded that he had had quite a lesson in the improper use of rapid-firing arms.

What Hyde learned, by its absence, was the importance of discipline, fire control, and proper application of force in modern combat. He was dealing with the dawn of a new age in warfare, standing at the beginning of a long road, but at the end of an even longer one, a road that stretched backward over the ages.

At the outset there was man the scavenger, who didn't have much to work with. He had neither the strength nor the speed nor the teeth to bring down game. What he had, however, was manual dexterity and the capacity to think. So man thought. And then he moved up the food chain from scavenger to sometime predator by picking up a rock and ambushing passing herbivores and birds. Although he could obtain dinner by smacking a beast on the head, man's work exposed him to kicking and pecking and goring, and grievous wounds and broken bones leading to an early death. So he thought some more. And then it may have dawned on him: I can throw this thing!

Some say man is a thinking animal, others that he is a risible animal, and that these attributes make him human. One could just as easily posit that man is a throwing animalor at least a projectile-oriented animal. Most

Stone throwing as a method of primitive warfare has endured over the ages, as evidenced by the reported stoning skill of Swiss soldiers at the Battle of Kappel during a religious civil war in 1531. The short-range stone throwing accuracy and speed of Australian aborigines were compared to that of a magazine rifle by nineteenth-century observers. The French and British allegedly stoned each other in Egypt in 1801, and Confederate infantrymen defending an unfinished railroad cut at Second Manassas in 1862 ran out of ammunition and effectively used stones in a last-ditch defense.

An early missile weapon of note was the stone-throwing sling, which, according to some sources, dates to 30,000 B.C. in its most primitive form, a notched stag antler. This projector was soon replaced by a more efficient model, with two pieces of cord attached to either side of a woven or leather pocket. The longer the sling's cords, the longer its potential range.

We have ancient written testimony regarding the use of slingers in military action, the most famous, of course, the oft-told tale of David and Goliath. The sling, which requires constant practice from childhood in order for most people to achieve even a modicum of accuracy in its use, is most commonly associated with ancient people from rocky, mountainous areas, like the Israelites and the Greeks. The weapon was also used extensively by native Americans in the Andes, and examples have been found in Indian burials in the southwestern United States. In more recent years the classic sling, along with the more modern slingshot or catapult, saw use in the ranks of Palestinian Intifada fighters. Although slingers can achieve a high degree of short-range accuracy, it is likely that the biblical reference to seven hundred sling experts who could hit a single hair is a tad hyperbolic.

Although shepherds like David no doubt picked up rounded river stones of the right shape and heft as projectiles, Bronze Age military stone sling ammunition was tooled into spherical shape, ranging from golf to tennis ball size. The sling continued in use as a weapon into the classical Greek and Roman eras, usually with military issue cast-lead ammunition, often inscribed with unit identifications or insults to the enemy.

Slingers were traditionally recruited from certain, presumably sling-oriented, ethnic groups and/or geographical areas, including the Israelite tribe of Benjamin or the natives of the Balearic Islands, but it is not clear that suchprecision as that demonstrated by David was necessary for a military slinger. Although accuracy is often possible in the hands of an expert at short range, the sling appears to have been used as an area fire weapon at ranges up to several hundred yards. A sling stone barrage was often used either to soften an enemy mass formation up for a cavalry or heavy infantry assault or, conversely, to cover a retreat.

There were other stutter-steps along the way to perfecting muscle-powered projectile distance and accuracy. Then, as now, stone-tossing ability, whether by hand or mechanically assisted, must have varied from individual to individual. For many, no doubt, fire-hardened wooden sticks, which scholars of the subject believe came along after stone throwing but before the perfected sling, provided a somewhat safe standoff hunting capability. When eventually mated with a sharpened stone for a point, they also proved a more effective killing machineand self-defense device when man himself was on the menu. Spear-length, however, provided minimal safety range when poking at a creature the size and temperament of a wooly mammoth, and depended on close ambush of a wary animal, a task easier contemplated than performed. Thrown primitive spears often did not have the energy to penetrate thick animal skin.