Americans celebrate something truly astonishing every year. The Fourth of July marks one of the most amazing events not just in our history but in the history of the world. Today marks a public declaration in which some of the greatest men of the age pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the idea of a nation where liberty reigned. The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, signed it, issued it and fought for it backed up their stance through force of arms against one of the greatest military powers of the age. Without the guns they issued, the guns they themselves carried and the guns brought to bear by their allies, their dreams would never have been realized. These are the arms with which we earned our independence.
This Dutch/English flintlock fowler is typical of the kind of firearms militiamen used at the start of the American Revolution. Image courtesy of the NRA National Firearms Museum.
A Colonial Fowler At Lexington
On the brisk, clear morning of April 19, 1775, a group of Lexington militiamen under the command of Capt. John Parker left Buckman Tavern and gathered on their village green to face an advance guard of British regulars under the command of Maj. John Pitcairn. Despite being styled as “minutemen,” the group of men under Parker’s command was more of a town militia than a quick-reaction force. As six companies of British light infantry marched into the square, neither the officers nor the men on either side fathomed how the encounter would end. There’s no clear answer as to who fired the first shot, but it was fired, followed by snapping shots of musketry from the militia and ragged volleys fired from the King’s undisciplined troops.
Unlike the British infantry, who had a standardized small arm, the Americans who stood on the Lexington village green had a smattering of irregular guns. Common among them was the archetypal flintlock fowler. These long, smoothbore guns were the workhorse arms of the colonial settler. Loaded with shot, it could readily take game birds and waterfowl. Loaded with buckshot or a round ball, it could be called upon to take game at short distances. Despite the bloodshed, the Revolution would still take months to gain steam. The Declaration of Independence was still more than 14 months away, and as the war developed, standardized arms would start to show up in the ranks of American troops. However, the simple colonial fowler is the gun we used at the start of our fight for independence. Today, the smoothbore flintlock that Capt. Parker carried with him on the green that fateful morning now hangs in the Massachusetts State House.
By Evan Brune
