Skirmishing With Light Arms 3 - The long Shot

To complete our example of the Native Americans we will again use (some of ) the examples from Alexander Rose’s “ American Rifle "'

Starting in the German Mountains:

…The plain muskets could be produced without anywhere near as much  care, they were simply much cheaper than rifles.

Hunters, however found rifling a boon, for in the rugged and echoey Alps they could use rifles to stalk bears, stags, and chamois from as far as two-hundred yards away-a range at which a musket was virtually ineffective.  While amid the chasms and atop the peaks, swirling wind eddies wreaked havoc with regular bullet’s trajectory and velocity, with a rifle an experienced hunter could achieve a one-shot kill by compensating for the wind.  As early as 1487 shooters were competing in target competitions (p15).

Then after lengthy explanation of the German rifle makers coming to Pennsylvania and the eventual dispersion of the rifle to the Indians; by the British to get their help against the French.

Finally:

Indians admired the rifles as ideal hunting weapons and objects of status, but they also quickly recognized that rifles represented their best shot at freedom. In his report of 1764 discussing British Indian policy Colonel John Bradstreet astutely divined the native Americans’ desire for rifles: “ All the Shawanese and Delawar Indians are furnished with rifled barrel guns, of an excellent king, and that the upper Nations are getting into them fast, by which, they will be less dependent upon us, as account of the great saving of powder, this gun taking much less, and the shot much more certain, than any other gun, and in their way of carrying on war, by far more prejudicial to us, than any other sort”…

Frontiersmen popularized the term “skulking” to describe the Indian reliance on “ambushments, sudden surprises, or overmatching some of our small companies with greater numbers, having had many times six or seven to one”….the Indians subjected them to nighttime and dawn raids, as well as surprise attacks during thunderstorms and fog.

Wilderness fighting favored the fleety, camouflaged, loosely organized bands of men traveling light and adeptly using trees, ravines, and rocks to pick their targets and snipe at the enemy before scuttling to another hiding place.   The Indians’ favored strategy was to dispatch scouts to detect approaching enemies, then ambush them in a vulnerable position, such as alongside a river or along a path  passing  through a ravine. Upon deducing the enemies weaknesses, Indian bands executed a complicated series of tactical maneuvers to deploy into a “half-moon” formation that would flank the unfortunates and pick them off.

Such attacks nearly always occurred from a distance, using rifles or bows, for it was a rash chief who engaged trained soldiers in hand-to-hand fighting (p27).

Native American warfare avoided pitched battles in favor of low-level insurgencies that inflicted relatively few casualties but dragged on for years, tiring out nervous settlers, wearying militiamen with constant call-outs, and exhausting government treasuries unable to afford the cost of maintaining a permanent professional force for protection (p26).

As an aside, the Indians were adept at close in fighting, but were wise to avoid bayonet-armed infantry when they met them. 

I think the author also is missing the fact that the typical fighting between settlers and Indians only involved a few thousand people on each side.  Thus the Indians consistently fought in a manner that would cause them the least amount of causalities.  It is probably the type of warfare they wagged between themselves, and so any wearing affect on their enemy’s treasury was incidental.

They are using effective long knives, and tomahawks at close range, and rifles to keep a distance when they have no advantage.

Skirmishing with Light Arms 2

I have yet to see discussion of this type of situation in your typical list of "Best Weapons for Survival" that one see posted frequently.

from: Indian Warfare, Household Competency, and the Settlement of the Western Virginia Frontier, 1749 to 1794 by John M. Boback link

The settlers in the Greenbrier Valley [now in West Virginia] suffered a particularly devastating blow in the summer of 1763 when a war party of sixty Shawnees infiltrated the settlements. Under the leadership of Chief Cornstalk, the warriors used a tactic whereby they approached a cabin, feigned friendship, and then attacked by surprise. First turning their attention to the settlers living along Muddy Creek, the Shawnees killed Frederick See and Felty Yocum along with their families. In addition, they took “many others” captive. According to Withers in his Chronicles of Border Warfare, the Shawnees had divided into smaller bands and “visited” the various cabins simultaneously. Doing so would have limited the chances of word getting out that an attack was underway.

Cornstalk’s warriors then turned their attention toward the settlements at the “Big Levels” located at present Lewisburg. Upon discovering that most if not all of the one hundred or so settlers in the area had assembled for a feast at the home of Archibald Clendenin, the Shawnees apparently approached the cabin as a single large body. Again feigning friendship, the warriors joined in the festivities that included feasting on three elk that Clendenin had just recently killed. Quite possibly, these Shawnees had chanced upon some sort of communal work activity such as a cabin raising. Regardless, the Shawnees eventually ended their charade by killing or capturing all but one of the settlers. The sole escapee, Conrad Yocum, apparently suspecting treachery had left the gathering under the pretense of needing to hobble his horse. Once out of sight, he preserved his life by fleeing eastward across the mountains.

In your typical TEOTWAWKI book, the good guys sit in some carefully laid out fortification and get to blast the bad in one big penultimate battle.  The reality is a little different.  The series of "wars" gets confusing, but it is to be remembered that the settlers were driven out of their settlements back over the Alleganies a number of time (3 total I believe) and some of these wars went on for twenty years.  In most of these situation, people would pack up and head back over the mountains in panic.  But not everyone:

Those settlers who remained in the back country defended themselves through a combination of county militias and constructing refuge forts to be used as places of respite during times of danger. Naturally, it was to the settlers’ advantage if they could discover ahead of time when a war party was about to enter their vicinity. To provide this advanced warning, militia scouts, also known as “Indian spies,” constantly patrolled the forest looking for signs of enemy activity. Upon discovering footprints or other evidence, the scouts tried to ascertain the size of the party, their tribal affiliation, their most probable route, and whether they had hostile intentions.

If the situation warranted it, the scouts sent news of the incursion to the nearest militia commander. In hopes of averting disaster, scouts “would fly from Fort to Fort and give the alarm” warning nearby settlers of impending danger. One man who grew up on the western frontier recalled how his family was “sometimes waked up in the dead of night” by runners telling everyone to fort up. His father would immediately grab his gun and powder horn while the rest of the family got dressed. Everyone tried to be as quiet as possible and took the “greatest care . . . not to awaken the youngest child.” Without lighting a candle, the family grabbed what “articles of clothing and provision” they could. Oftentimes, they had no choice but to walk to the fort “for there was no possibility of getting a horse in the night.” By sunrise, all of his neighbors had also arrived at the fort. Then over the course of the day, armed parties of men visited each homestead to pick up additional food, clothing, valuables, and other supplies that might be needed at the fort.

How long a family remained at a refuge fort could vary. While some families stayed for only short periods before returning home, others remained there for months. Noise, crowded living conditions, disease, and concerns over unguarded homesteads could make forting an unpleasant experience.

The Indian Wars of the East and Alleghenies are not as well known today as the Western Wars because, with the exception of a brief "Daniel Boone" period, they were not as heavily represented in Hollywood or television depictions.  However,  they were often relatively successful

The recent massacres in Rwanda utilizing swords made of sheet metal (reportedly from car fenders) actually share some similar characteristics.  The killing is fast, and with the assailant so close at hand escape is difficult.

Skirmishing with Light Arms 1

The Eastern Native Americans had been known for their marksmanship.  They had preferred the slow loading rifles to the musket.  But hen the U.S. Cavalry faced the Plains Indians after the American Civil War they found a foe that fought in a very different foe.

From American Rifle by  Alexander Rose p 166.

In this instance the quickly organized defensive position held of the attack.  But the cavalrymen were having a hard time fending off the Indians swarming attacks with their single shot breach loading (similar in action to a break open shotgun) rifles.  The Indians preferred to use their lever action repeating rifles at point blank range:  much in the fashion of submachine gun.

Although not as relevant to skirmish fighting, cavalry during the civil war, particularly Confederate cavalry, adopted the heavy use of repeating pistols and short double barrel shotguns to replace the sabre in inter-cavalry skirmishes.

The acceptance of the pistol by American cavalry resulted in a tactic known as the "pistol Charge" in which cavalry attacked with drawn pistols.   Louis A DeMarco "War Horse"

The point is that, as they became available, multi-fire weapons were adopted by troops who were regularly involved in close range skirmish fighting.  As range increases, the value of accuracy over volume increase;  But in close "quantity has a quality all of its own"'.

Doris Lessing and The Memoirs of a Survivor

I enjoyed the following passage from Dorris Lessing's  Memoirs of a Survivor :

All over the city were these groups of people, moving from one place to another , pub to tea house to bar to outside the shops that still sold televisions.  These groups were like an additional organ burgeoning on the official organs of news; all the time, new groups or couples or individuals added themselves to a scene, stood listening, mingling, offering what they themselves had heard-news having become a sort of currency-giving, in exchange for rumour and gossip, gossip, and rumour. … Of course it was often inaccurate. But then all news is inaccurate. What people were trying to do, in their continual moving about and around, nosing out news, taking in information, was to isolate residues of truth in rumour, for there was nearly always that….

She is writing as an older British lady (thus some of the spelling) in a slow collapse scenario in what appears to be some sort of slow collapse scenario following some sort of EOTWAWKI collapse.

One item addressed well in her book is that there is a very general confusion as to what exactly is happening and what the correct action is.  In fact it is fair to say that she does not believe there is much in the way of correct actions.  There is some odd surrealistic 1970s hallucinatory-psychological moments within the text that left me a bit puzzled.  If I had been a bit more patient, I am sure they would have made more sense:  but I wanted to find out what happened.

I found the following interesting interview of Ms. Lessing by Bill Moyers transcript of interview

BILL MOYERS: Well, you remind me of something you said in volume one of your autobiography. Quote, nothing in history suggest that we may expect anything but wars, tyrants, sickness, bad times, calamities. While good times are always temporary. Why are we so bitterly surprised, you write, when our country, the world, lurches into yet another muddle or catastrophe. Why is it that so many people in our time, you write, have felt all the emotions of betrayed children? 
 
DORIS LESSING: Well, now that fascinates me. Where did it come from? Particularly the-- 1960s kids onwards. Everyone seemed to think that they were promised paradise? Well, who promised it to them? And you meet people-- I meet people, who are genuinely aggrieved that things are not perfect. That they haven't had-- paradise.