Patriot Riflemen During the Ammunition Crisis at the Siege of Boston in 1775

[Unbridled Liberty]

Didn't know quite where to post this but found it most interesting:
Patriot Riflemen During the Ammunition Crisis at the Siege of Boston in 1775
http://www.americanrevolution.org/riflemen.html

Selected excerpts-
 
   On June 14, 1775, Congress authorized the raising of rifle companies in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. Immediately, hundreds of young men from the western counties came forward to volunteer. These hardy men from the frontier used their rifles to bring in food and provide defense against Indians. As soon as they were organized, rifle companies marched to the aid of Boston. At that time, rifles were seen in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland as well as the southern colonies, but in New England they were a novelty...

  Washington, having been a Colonel in the Virginia militia and having served actively in the French & Indian War was well acquainted with the rifle and the men who used them. He looked forward to the arrival of the rifle companies. ...The riflemen went out of their way to cover ground quickly... on their march to Massachusetts. Daniel Morgan marched his men 600 miles in 21 days while Michael Cresap's company covered 550 miles in 22 days.

   The rifle was an unknown quantity to most of the population. Striking a mark at distances two or three times as far as a smoothbore musket provoked awe in the onlookers. ...

   The riflemen themselves also took on a mystical quality. Richard Henry Lee claimed that six counties in western Virginia could provide 6000 riflemen with "their amazing hardihood, their method of living so long in the woods without carrying provisions with them, the exceeding quickness with which they can march to distant parts, and above all, their dexterity...in the use of the Rifle Gun...every shot is fatal." Lee went so far as to assert that these riflemen could hit an orange at 200 yards.

..."These men are remarkable for the accuracy of their aim, striking a mark with great certainty at two hundred yards distance."

"Captain Cresap's Company of Riflemen, consisting of 130 active, brave young fellows...With their rifles in their hands they assume a kind of omnipotence over their enemies...Two brothers in the company took a piece of board, five inches broad, and seven inches long, with a bit of white paper, about the size of a dollar, nailed to the center, and while one of them supported this board perpendicularly between his knees, the other at the distance of upwards of sixty yards, and without any kind of rest, shot eight bullets successively through the board, and spared a brother's thighs! ...

   The Virginia Gazette of July 25, 1775 carried an article claiming that so many riflemen had volunteered for the rifle companies that a shooting test was required to weed down the numbers. It was claimed that the judges chalked a drawing of a human nose on a board and sixty men were said to have riddled the mark from 150 yards away.  Such stories only added to the prestige and stature of the men in the hunting shirts.

   Two Philadelphia printers, wrote a London publisher a letter which was printed in the London Chronicle of August 17-19, 1775, "This province has raised 1000 riflemen, the worst of whom will put a ball into a man's head at the distance of 150 or 200 yards, therefore advise your officers who shall hereafter come out to America to settle their affairs in England before their departure."

   To Washington, who desperately needed to keep the British from attacking during the ammunition crisis, the arrival of the riflemen was an answer to a prayer. They brought with them not only their rifles but a fierce reputation as fighting men. This public fascination with the riflemen was far out of proportion to their actual usefulness but for the short term they were just what was needed. As soon as they arrived they began to pick off British sentries and officers at great distance. The numbers of men killed by the riflemen was of little significance, but the terror factor and effect on morale was enormous. The British quickly learned the effective range of the rifle and gave the marksmen few targets. But the threat from the riflemen was always present....

   Such marksmanship demonstrations and the loss of British soldiers exposed to their fire created discontent among the British in Boston and in England. General Howe wrote to England about "the terrible guns of the rebels." ...Without the intimidation of the riflemen the British might have poured out of Boston and put an end to the fledgling Revolution.