Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

The discussion below comes from Gettysburg, but it serves as a useful benchmark regarding the tendency for rifles to be loaded more than once.

http://www.hackman-adams.com/guns/58musket.htm

"The 58 musket was sturdy and reliable. The biggest cause of its being disabled in battle was being loaded a second time when the prior charge had not gone off..."

"The two most common causes of the gun not firing was either the percussion cap fell off, or the soldier forgot to put it on. The embarrassed soldier would throw such a gun on the ground and pick up another."
[The text does not offer an estimate for guns that simply did not fire - which would be more common in battles of the 1700's when percussion caps were not in use.]

"Another soldier could pick up the discarded musket, and load it again. But then on discovering three or more charges in the barrel (the ramrod wouldn't go all the way down), he would discard it again."

"Of the approximately 35,000 muskets picked up from the Gettysburg battlefield, it was discovered:

11,000 were unloaded
24,000 were loaded
6,000 held one charge
12,000 held two charges
6,000 had from three to ten charges each
One had twenty-two charges

[END OF TEXT]

Ensign Brooks