Shooting at a Mark: An American Tradition

by Hap Rocketto

The study of United States history is one of my great pleasures and the more obscure and mysteriously obscure the greater my enjoyment. I revel in the trivial minutiae of our nation’s rich past.

For example do you know that the USS Merrimack and the CSS Virginia were the same ship?

How about that fact the first battle of the Civil War, Bull Run, took place on William McLean’s farm, the Yorkshire Plantation, in Manassas, Virginia. McLean then moved his family westward to avoid the war and bought a farm near Appomattox Court House. When General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant he did so in the parlor of McLean’s house.

What of the curious juxtaposition of Major Robert Rogers, Colonial American hero and commander of Rogers’ Rangers of French and Indian War fame-the precursor to our modern US Rangers, capturing Revolutionary War hero Captain Nathan Hale of Connecticut’s Knowlton Rangers.

Speaking of Rogers, did you know that competitive marksmanship, shooting at a mark, is almost as old as the nation and involved some rather colorful figures in our nation’s history?

Captain-Lieutenant Henry Pringle of the 27th Foot wrote that Rogers’ Rangers “shoot amazingly well, all Ball& mostly with riffled barrels. One of their officers the other day, at four shots with four balls, killed a brace of Deer, a Pheasant, and a pair of wild ducks-the latter he killed with one Shot”

The Rangers often went out in small parties to hunt and sharpen their marksmanship skills, a habit of which their British commander, Colonel William Haviland, took a dim view. Off course he regularly looked down his long aristocratic nose at what he perceived were undisciplined provincial troops and, in his particularly parsimonious military administrative mind, their excessive use of scarce powder and ball. He forbade them from “shooting at marks” in their encampment. In response the Rangers simply went off a distance and practiced, but well within earshot of Haviland.

Dueling was a popular past time in the new republic and it was reported that politician and filibuster, not to mention third vice president of the United States, Aaron Burr,…”spent several hours a day for three months shooting at a mark until “he could cut a ball every time the size of a dollar at ten paces” in his run up to his duel on Weehawken Heights with Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, on July 11, 1804. It was a bad choice of venue by Hamilton as his son Philip had fallen in a duel on the same spot three years earlier. But, then again, who of has not returned to a range where we had a shooting disaster in hopes of bettering our performance?

Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, was a marksman of sorts. Wilford Woodruff, who would succeed Smith as a leader of the church, wrote, “I first met Joseph Smith in the streets of Kirtland. He had on an old hat, and a pistol in his hand. Said he, ‘Brother Woodruff, I’ve been out shooting at a mark, and I wanted to see if I could hit anything.’ And, said he, ‘Have you any objection to it?’ ‘Not at all,’ said I. ‘There is no law against a man shooting at a mark, that I know of.’

Then there was the ‘enfant terrible of the US Army, George Smith Patton. Known for packing a pair of ivory handle pistols, a 45 caliber Model 1873 single action revolver, serial number 332088, equipped with a lanyard loop with the right hand ivory grip bearing an interlocked vertical “GSP” while the left displayed a rampant eagle. The 4.75 inch barrel and the frame were covered with scrollwork and filigree. The other was a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, serial number 47022, with a 3.5 inch barrel, fitted with ivory handles and a lanyard loop to more-or-less match his Colt. The right hand grip carried the same style interlocking “GSP” monogram as the Colt but the metal had a simple blued finish with no engraving.

Patton was one of the earliest shooters on record to fall out of medal contention because of a tight group. Patton placed fourth in Pentathlon at the Stockholm Olympic Games of 1912. Out of five events, he placed second in swimming; third in cross-country riding; first in fencing, but a dismal 27th in pistol shooting. A better showing in shooting might well have assured him an Olympic medal.

The probable reason for his poor score was that Patton bull headedly insisted on using an issue 38 caliber military revolver; after all it was the Military Pentathlon. There were no requirements as to what pistol had to be used and the other entrants chose to shoot 22 caliber pistols for a host of good reasons, chief among them being the reduced recoil. Patton’s ten bullets had torn out one ragged hole in his target and as a result only nine of his ten shots could be identified and scored. To his credit he took the loss with good grace.

The British would come up with the idea of a backer to locate shots in a tight group in the early 1920s, too late for Patton but, perhaps that delay was the cause Patton’s antipathy toward his British counterparts during World War II.

About Hap Rocketto

Hap Rocketto is a Distinguished Rifleman with service and smallbore rifle, member of The Presidents Hundred, and the National Guard’s Chief’s 50. He is a National Smallbore Record holder, a member of the 1600 Club and the Connecticut Shooters’ Hall Of Fame. He was the 2002 Intermediate Senior Three Position National Smallbore Rifle Champion, the 2012 Senior Three Position National Smallbore Rifle Champion a member of the 2007 and 2012 National Four Position Indoor Championship team, coach and captain of the US Drew Cup Team, and adjutant of the United States 2009 Roberts and 2013 Pershing Teams. Rocketto is very active in coaching juniors. He is, along with his brother Steve, a cofounder of the Corporal Digby Hand Schützenverein. A historian of the shooting sports, his work appears in Shooting Sports USA, the late Precision Shooting Magazine, The Outdoor Message, the American Rifleman, the Civilian Marksmanship Program’s website, and most recently, the apogee of his literary career, pronematch.com.
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