How do you interpret that as homework?
Agreed with the above. When you are writing historical fiction, you can’t focus your attention on one subject and disregard the others. You run into the problem of “Don’t know what you don’t know.” While your chosen topic might be 100% accurate, there will be some other detail that will sneak up and bite you in the rear… a question you didn’t even think to ask.
I didn’t.
I merely commented on what Mahaloth said and did.
FWIW, I like having very open-ended questions pop up in GQ and appreciate being able to tap into the vast bank of knowledge here on the boards as part of a research exercise. It didn’t look like homework to me. And if anyone really took objection to the request, they needn’t feel obligated to contribute.
This particular topic is outside my area of expertise, but it did pique my interest enough to read.
Carry on.
Rifles would have also been common. Especially consider guns that were used in the Civil War and would have been available pretty cheaply on the market, either as Army surplus or as original civilian sales. E.g. 1863 Springfield, 1853 Enfield, Spencer Repeating Rifle. Some people might have obsolete but good enough for them muskets sitting around.
True, you really can’t. You can spend lots of time researching firearms, but then miss details about clothing, political positions, roads, educational institutions, or something like that. E.g. maybe you set your story in a specific town that you know was founded in 1885, but then you write about the protagonist getting into a gunfight with a local public school teacher outside the post office, not realizing that there was no post office until 1895 and no public school until 1900. Also you wrote about the protagonist tucking a letter into his shoelaces, not realizing that laced up shoes (as opposed to shoes with buckles) were considered very much out of style and not anything a “proper gentleman” would wear.
E.g. if I were writing a historical story set in my local area, one important thing to consider is that many of the roads didn’t exist then, and many of the ones that did were not exactly the same. E.g. one major route near me was a toll road before the Civil War.
The videogame “Red Dead Redemption” takes place in that exact place and time.