Kentucky Rifles at the Battle of Saratoga

Painting of British General John Burgoyne circa 1766 showing "dress" of a British General

General Morgan called on Timothy Murphy at the Battle of Saratoga (October 7) and said, "That gallant officer is General Fraser. I admire him, but it is necessary that he should die, do your duty." Murphy scaled a nearby tree, (sometime after 2:30 in the afternoon) took careful aim with his Kentucky Rifle at the extreme distance of 300 yards, and fired three times. The first shot was a close miss, the second grazed the general's horse, and with the third, Fraser tumbled from his horse, shot through the stomach. General Fraser died that night.

...according to Luzader a frequently told story claiming it to be the work of Timothy Murphy, one of Morgan's men, could be a 19th-century fabrication.

It seems odd that this story includes no details about the rifle (when it was made, who the rifle-maker was, the caliber or amount of powder the shooter used) that made this near-miraculous shot because the rifle was as much of a hero as the shooter.

"Kentucky Rifles" (the vast majority of which were made in Pennsylvania) were a quantum leap in evolution from the rifles that were used on the European Continent where there were wild boars, distances were short, and labor (to carry heavy gear) was abundant.

Given the expense and difficulty in obtaining lead and quality gun-powder, the rifle-makers kept decreasing the diameter of the bore to conserve those supplies. To maintain effectiveness against deer-sized animals (which included humans, wolves and most black bears) the length of the barrel was increased to squeeze every last foot-per-second out of the powder charge.

Given the corrosive residue left by black powder, the (sometimes) casual cleaning and the primitive chemistry of the "grease" used to protect against corrosion, the corroded barrel of the rifle was "saved" by boring out to a larger diameter and re-rifling it. So a rifle might start out its life as a 0.32 inches in diameter (8mm) which was marginal for deer but optimum for treed raccoons and possum and turkeys. Then it might be bored out to 0.36". And then 0.40" and so on.

As a frame-of-reference, 0.32" rifle might "eat" 45 grain lead balls and 30 grains of black powder vs a 0.50" rifle which would use 180 grain lead balls and 80 grains of black powder. It is worth noting that there were far more raccoons and squirrels in the "wild" than there were white-tail deer. There were also fewer regulations that prohibited the us of dogs to find your dead deer afterwards.

One problem with lighter weight, round-balls is that they lose velocity quickly and have rainbow-like trajectories at longer ranges.

For example, in the story at the start of this post, a 64 grain 0.35" round-ball with a muzzle velocity of 1900fps (which is scooting right along for a black powder load) would have dropped to 470fps at 300 yards. Additionally, the bullet is dropping 10" with every 15 feet of forward travel which has implications for moving targets AND range estimation. Every change of 1 mile-per-hour in the speed of the cross-wind (think gusts in mid-afternoon, here) results in 13" change in the point-of-impact.

A 128 grain 0.44 round-ball fares slightly better with a velocity at 300 yards of 565 fps and with 10" of drop every 20 feet change in range. Even more worrisome is that even a 1 mile-per-hour change in the speed of the crosswind would change the point-of-impact by 10".

It is possible that the incident happened exactly the way it was written, but many factors would have to be exactly right for a 0.35" round-ball at 470 fps to penetrate through a wool blouse (and possibly belt or overcoat), skin and thence deeply enough to cause death in 12 hours. The chances of a 0.44" ball at 565 fps seems more likely (although still far from a sure-thing).

All things considered, this would still be a challenging shot at 200 yards but it would be significantly easier to accept the terminal effects and the chances of a "hit" at that kind of range.

And very few stories become less impressive with each telling.