Life of Daniel Boone, the Great Western Hunter and PioneerHartley, Cecil B.
History
Life of Daniel Boone, the Great Western Hunter and Pioneer
Hartley, Cecil B.
Boone, Daniel, 1734-1820; Frontier and pioneer life -- Kentucky; Pioneers -- Kentucky -- Biography
"Shooting at marks was a common diversion among the men, when their
stock of ammunition would allow it; this, however, was far from being
always the case. The present mode of shooting off-hand was not then in
practice. This mode was not considered as any trial of the value of a
gun, nor indeed, as much of a test of the skill of a marksman. Their
shooting was from a rest, and at as great a distance as the length and
weight of the barrel of the gun would throw a ball on a horizontal
level. Such was their regard to accuracy, in those sportive trials of
their rifles, and of their own skill in the use of them, that they often
put moss, or some other soft substance on the log or stump from which
they shot, for fear of having the bullet thrown from the mark, by the
spring of the barrel. When the rifle was held to the side of a tree for
a rest, it was pressed against it as lightly as possible, for the same
reason.
"Rifles of former times were different from those of modern date; few
of them carried more than forty five bullets to the pound. Bullets of
a less size were not thought sufficiently heavy for hunting or war."
Our readers will pardon the length of these extracts from Doddridge,
as they convey accurate pictures of many scenes of Western life in the
times of Daniel Boone. We add to them a single extract from "Ramsay's
Annals of Tennessee." The early settlement of that State took place
about the same time with that of Kentucky, and was made by emigrants
from the same region. The following remarks are therefore perfectly
applicable to the pioneers of Kentucky.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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