Evil Brown R...

New toy happy dance - I got a Brown Bess musket!

From poking around the Lexington and Concord area museums, this one looks a little early for what the British brought that day - most of those I've seen on display have much simpler lines to the wood and more businesslike furniture. Still, it strikes me as entirely plausible that some colonial might have been carrying something much like this old lady to the Concord fight - they were apparently quite the motley crew-

Via David Hackett Fischer's Paul Revere's Ride and the wonders of Google book search, here's a description of the colonials on that day -

"To a man they wore small clothes, coming down and fastening just below the knee, and long stockings, with cowhide shoes ornamented with large buckles, while not a pair of boots graced the whole company.

'The coats and waistcoats were loose and of large dimensions, with colors as various as the barks of oaks, sumach and other trees of our hills and swamps could make them, and their shirts were all made of flax, and like every other part of the dress were home made.

"On their heads was worn a large round-topped and broadbrimmed hat.

"Their arms were as various as their costumes. Here an old soldier carried a heavy Queens' arm with which he had done service at the Conquest of Canada twenty years before, while by his side walked a stripling boy, with a Spanish-fusee not half its weight or calibre, which his grandfather may have taken at Havana, while a few had old French pieces, that dated back to the reduction of Louisburg.

"Instead of the cartridge box, a large powder horn was slung under the arm, and occasionally a bayonet might be seen bristling in the rank.

"Some of the swords of the officers had been made by our own blacksmiths, perhaps from some farming utensils; they looked serviceable but heavy and uncouth."

Such was the appearance and equipment of the Continentals, to whom so often and finally, so completely, the well armed, disciplined and uniformed soldiers of "His Majesty" were compelled to surrender.

Colonial Amherst:
the early history, customs and homes; geography and geology, of Amherst...
by Warren Upham

At some point this coming year I intend to sew up an Appeal to Heaven flag to wrap it all up in for a wall decoration. Maybe frame that broadside to hang up with it to and make a nice Colonial Menotomy themed history corner. 

And oh yes, it's an Eeeevil Brown weapon - it even has a bayonet lug!

Now I just need me some redcoats. ;)