While ammo may have been low, not engaging the enemy at far range had another affect – helping keep muskets clean. If you dirty up your musket, firing times can be reduced from between two and three shots a minute to one. So waiting until a person has a reasonable chance of incurring a casualty-producing injury might be worth it.
I don’t think you can get any deeper into the popular unconsious than Schoolhouse Rocks! and they clearly state, in The Shot Heard Round The World, that the reason for the order was to conserve ammo. If I may quote:
Now at famous Bunker Hill/
Although we lost, it was quite a thrill/
The rebel Colonel Prescott proved he was wise/
Outnumbered and low on ammunition/
as the British stormed their positon/
He said “Hold your fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”
I don’t know anyone who thinks the order was given for “chivalrous” reasons. What an odd claim.
Just wanted to add that any soldier, whether he sees whites of eyes or not, will fire when his lieutenant shouts, “Fire!” That was probably to prevent the soldiers from firing before the order was given. BTW Trevelyan backs up the myth, for what that’s worth.
Another person joining in who’s never heard the idea that chivalry was a supposed factor until now. If this is supposed to be part of the myth it’s pretty poorly publicized.
This theory of Ray Raphael’s is so ignorant that it calls into question his qualifications to write the book in the first place. What other obvious stuff has he misunderstood? “Founding Myths” indeed!
Um, er, I know next to nothing about this myself. Could only point a musket to the right hemisphere. Maybe.
But if we’re talking myths, I thought that one of the myths was that several of the doughty Minutemen were woodsmen hunters, eagle-eyed, trained by friendly indians, able to dust the britches of 'coon at incredible distances. Sure, this is hype, but is there any truth to the idea that the colonists would have had just a little more experience with hunting than would the Brits / Hessians?
Almost certainly not.
It’s an imperfect resource, but it’s the one I have in hand at the moment. Garry Wills’ A Necessary Evil, in the course of talking about the history of the Second Amendment, devotes several pages to militias and guns.
Possibly a few frontier marksmen were useful in a few odd situations, but the glory of the American amateur rifleman is just another patriotic myth. Soldiers trained and practiced in the use of arms were far better shots than towndwellers or farmers.
This has always been my interpretation of the meaning of the story as well. This was the first major battle of the war, and many in Britan imagined the Continentals would fire a few disorganzied shots and break as soon as they saw an organized army coming up the hill after them. That the Americans had the organization and bravery to hold their fire till the enemy was almost on them, then keep fighting till they were out of ammo, demonstrated the opposite.
I half remember a quote from the other side that hinted at the same theme. Some British officer saying that Bunker Hill showed the American’s would not break easily but fight “so long as they have ball and powder”. Anyone else remember something like this.
I have to re-iterate, as I have since the OP, that I’m not asking “Why did they say DFUYSTWOTE?” (which a lot of people seem to be suggesting answers to), and neither is Raphael. I don’t want to give the impression that he’s saying that Israel Putnam or whoever didn’t want to fire too early out of a sense of misplaced chivalry – no one is saying that. Raphael is asking why this particular piece of advice, out of all the ones given that day, is the one cast in stone as part of the legend. According to him, it hasn’t been part of the story since the very beginning, and, in fact, it doesn’t first appear until a great many years after the actual battle (although it can be documented that the order was given that day). His interpretation that it was intended to give a certain chivalric character to the Americans that day is what I question. I never got that sense at all. Several of his other suggestions seem reasonabvle and wel buttressed with facts, but occasionally he goes off on a high horse of indignation over how he thinks people are misinterpreting history that doesn’t gibe with the way I see it, or the world.
That’s unanswerable. I’d guess it was because it showed that the Yanks had cojones, and it took balls to wait until the Brits (notorious for good bayonet work) got close. Nothing to do with chivalry, just bravery.
One thing dudes also forget to consider is that loading a black-powder muscket was fiddly. There were many steps, and it was easy to screw one up, especially if you were under stress or poorly trained. Thus, the first volley, where the men could take their time- and the non-coms could check to make sure things were right- was often much more effective than later volleys. Thus, you don’t want to waste that first volley. In fact, I have heard that almost every time in later volleys, you’d see some nervous recuits ramrod go shooting off, as he forgot to remove it before firing. Some muskets were found after battles that had been loaded over & over but not fired (perhaps it was a misfire, flintlocks are prone to such), with many loads plugging up the barrel.
My wild assed guess is that the reason this line was remembered was not because of any particular metaphorical signifigance. I think it was just a colorful expression that had a certain usefulness as an idiom that could be applied in a number of situations. So it was memorable and it caught on.
Keep in mind that when you are in a musket line, you fire when:
a) the commander shouts fire
b) someone else fires.
Thus, your average musketline will fire at the rate of the most jittery soldier, not the average one. So even if 99% of the soldiers could be trusted to make a sensible judgement as to when to fire, saying DFUYSTWOTE stops the most jittery of soldiers from firing until the commander is ready.
Never, ever heard that it was a chivalous battle or war.
You might make that claim for the latter war, with the Colonial Line troops. But the training I got when I marched to Concord as part of my hometown’s militia one year made it clear that we were reenacting irregular troops, with all the nastiness that implies.
The Battle of Bunker (Breeds) Hill always seemed to me to be an American version of Metsada: A defeat, but one that cost the victors more than they gained. Not least of which being their reputation. Up til that time the attitude of both the British and their troops was that if only the rabble would stand still and fight like men, they’d be wiped out for little cost - it was just the unfair and cowardly irregular tactics being used that made for such difficulties. The Battle of Bunker Hill put paid to that myth. Certainly nothing I can recall from my years in school implied anything different. DFTYSTWOTE is dramatic, and desperate. That’s all I’d ever thought about it.
As for the first question asked: Not for me. 10 yards still seems far to be thinking I’d be able to see whites of an eye. But eyes are something I’m terrible about noticing anyways.
Well… you’re partly right I don’t know if I’d put it like that. Back then, the normal technique was to stand in something like a 12x12 formation, and each line would fire by a cadence count. However the colonials obviously did not fight in the formations of antiquity or fire by the numbers… thus they had to come up with a different guideline for when to start firing. AND they were short on ball and powder. Hence, the obvious.
Based only on Cal’s description I don’t think Raphael is necessarily that far off on why the phrase has stayed in the popular imagination – that it evokes a romantic feeling that glorifies the rebel army.
As already stated, of course the order was not made out of any concern for fair play or respect for one’s enemy. It was never chivalrous in that sense.
But for those telling and hearing the story, the phrase does paint a scene of desperate but brave men, using all their resources of intelligence and bravery, fighting against heavy odds and at great risk, just for the principals of freedom. And it doesn’t get much more capital-R Romantic than that, does it?
Then why were the losses so one-sided at Oriskany and Saratoga?
Are you also saying that a popular American tactic was not to shoot early (because their rifles had longer ranges than the British muskets), then retreat when the Redcoats got close (because the Brits were better at close range, and for that matter, most Americans didn’t have bayonets)?
Because I thought that was pretty well established.
I don’t understand what point you’re making.
Did militia troops fight at these battles? Yes, they did. But how well did they fight? And what one-sided losses in battle are you referring to?
This was not a victory for the Americans, even if St. Leger eventually gave up his siege. And the militia’s performance was problematic.
Those two battles of Saratoga were won mostly because the Americans had a superior defensive position that Burgoyne insisted upon attacking. The Americans ended up bringing in more soldiers and surrounding the British, not mentioned on that page.
The only evidence I can find for a marksmen position is the following:
Here militia fought alongside of troops under capable generals.
But these early battles were not typical of the war as a whole. Both sides learned that fighting in wilderness was not a good tactic, and the Americans placed more and more importance on their own trained troops as the war went on. I said that frontier marksmen were useful in some odd situations. These were odd, because they did not reoccur and the war went in a different direction.
Coming into this thread rather late.
Can anyone tell me when this story about DFUYSTWOTE first appears. I can find cites for it in the 1820’s, but referring to 1818.
I’ll try to offer some more info.
Back tomorrow night.