American Gun

Source Notes

Key sources for this book include the resources of the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia; the publications American Rifleman, Guns and Ammo, Gun Digest, and American Handgunner; and the research and historical collections of the New York Public Library. Interviews with Doug Wicklund, senior curator of the National Firearms Museum, also provided valuable historical detail, as did American Rifle, A Biography by Alexander Rose, 2008. In addition, The Sinews of War, Army Logistic, 1775–1953, by James A. Huston, 1997, provided information on problems with U.S. Army Ordnance and weapon selection through the years.

“I never in my life saw better rifles”: Henry J. Kauffman, The Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle (1960), p. 24.

Timothy Murphy and Battle of Saratoga detail: Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War (1997); Richard Worth, Saratoga (2002); Timothy Murphy: Frontier Rifleman, New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center website; William Conant Church, “General Burgoyne’s Original Order Book,” The Galaxy Magazine, June 1876/January 1877. Note: there is some historical dispute over whether the sniper’s actual name was Timothy Murphy.

In his autobiography, Sam Houston described his father as having served with Daniel Morgan’s riflemen. I have not yet located additional records to pinpoint exactly when and where this service took place, as unit rosters from the Revolutionary War are often incomplete or lost to history, and units were periodically attached to various different units and commands. Also, American “after-action reports” in that war were very spotty, and do not often contain precise inventories of weapons used.

“when they understood they were opposed”: Roger D. McGrath, The American Rifleman in the Revolutionary War, The New American, September 13, 2010.

Detail of the Battle of Cowpens is mainly from Lawrence E. Babits, Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens (1998); and Kenneth Lewis Roberts, The Battle of Cowpens (1958). I’m most grateful to Cowpens historians Lawrence Babits and John Robertson for additional details and perspective they shared with me.

“The enemy front is not the goal”: Roman Johann Jarymowycz, Cavalry from Hoof to Track (2008), p. 18.

“seldom has a battle”: John Marshall, The Life of George Washington (1843), p. 404.

“an unbroken chain of consequences”: George Otto Trevelyan, George the Third and Charles Fox, Volume 2 (1915), p. 141.

“a tall man with flowing hair”: Wallace O. Chariton, Exploring Alamo Legends (1992), p. 470.

“Now hold your fire, men”: Louis Wiltz Kemp, Edward W. Kilman; The Battle of San Jacinto and the San Jacinto Campaign (1947), p. 13.

“Take prisoners like the Meskins do!”: T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans (2000), p. 232.

“Parade! Parade!”: James W. Pohl, The Battle of San Jacinto (1989), p. 43.

“San Jacinto! San Jacinto!” “The scene that followed”: Ferenbach, Lone Star, p. 234.

“be generous to the vanquished”, “You should have remembered”: Charles Edwards Lester, The Life of Sam Houston (1860), p. 147.

“What kind of Hell-fired guns have your men got?” Alexander Rose, American Rifle: A Biography (2009), p. 147.

Details and dialogue of Lincoln’s shooting guns in spring of 1861: ibid., page 143; and William Osborn Stoddard, Inside the White House in War Times (1890), p. 41–44.

“I believe I can make this gun shoot better.” Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War (1956), p. 115.

“handled the rifle like a veteran marksman”, “Boys, this reminds me”: Charles Augustus Stevens, Berdan’s United States Sharpshooters in the Army of the Potomac (1892), p. 10.

“newfangled gimcracks”: Phil Leigh, The Union’s ‘Newfangled Gimcracks,’ ” NYT Blogs, January 23, 2012.

“Hoover’s Gap was the first battle where the Spencer”: Larry M. Strayer, Richard A. Baumgartner, Echoes of Battle (1996), p. 18.

“Those Yankees have got rifles”, “What kind of Hell-fired guns have your men got?”: Alexander Rose, American Rifle: A Biography (2009), p. 147.

“a circus rider gone mad”: James Welch, Paul Stekler, Killing Custer (1997), p. 57.

“come on, you Wolverines!”: Edward G. Longacre, Custer And His Wolverines (2004), p. 143.

“the most dramatic, largest man-to-man”: Paul D. Walker, The Cavalry Battle That Saved the Union (2002), p. 15.

“the inwardness of the thing”: ibid. p. 147.

“you are younger than I am”: Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War, p. 263.

“This evening and yesterday evening”: John Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts From Diary (1908), p. 93.

“There is no doubt that the Spencer carbine”: Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War, p. 290.

“If a large part of the Union Army”: ibid., p. 102.

Valuable information on the Ordnance Department and other facets of Army supply were provided by The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953, by James A. Huston, Center of Military History, 1997.

“The good people of this world”: Herbert G. Houze, Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention (2006), p. 1.

“yonder comes a thousand Indians!”: Andrew Sowell, Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest Texas (1900), p. 319.

“They are fixin’ to charge us”: Frederic Remington, “How the Law Got Into the Chaparral,” Harper’s magazine, December 1896, p. 60.

“Crowd them!”: Sowell, Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest Texas, p. 320.

“Any man who has a load” Mary A. Maverick, Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick (1921), p. 83.

“Sometimes a bad horse would blow up”: “Glocks vs. Peacemakers,” American Handgunner, May 1, 2005.

Davis incident: Massad Ayoob, “The Jonathan Davis Incident,” published online in American Handgunner, The Ayoob Files, February 21, 2013.

Butch and Sundance dialogue: Massad Ayoob, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: How did They Really Die?”, American Handgunner, January/February 2011, p. 74–5.

“strange character,”: Joseph G. Rosa, They Called Him Wild Bill (2011), p. 111.

“He was a broad-shouldered”: Joseph G. Rosa, “Wild Bill Hickok: Pistoleer, Peace Officer and Folk Hero,” originally published by Wild West magazine, published online by historynet.com: June 12, 2006.

“Bill beat them to it”: Helen Cody Wetmore, Zane Grey, Last of the Great Scouts (1918), p. 329.

“The secret of Bill’s success”: Joseph G. Rosa, Wild Bill Hickok, Gunfighter (2001), p. 48.

“Whenever you get into a row”: George Ward Nichols, Wild Bill (1867), p. 285.

“Charlie, I hope you never have to shoot”: Eugene Cunningham, Triggernometry: A Gallery of Gunfighters (1941), Introduction, p. xx.

Hickok-Tutt gunfight details: William Connelley, Wild Bill and His Era (1933), pp. 84–5; Rosa, Wild Bill Hickok (1996), pp. 116–23.

“I never allowed a man to get the drop on me”: Joseph Rosa, Wild Bill Hickok, p. 109.

“Seven men shoot at each other”: Massad Ayoob, “The OK Corral Shootout,” American Handgunner, May 1, 2007.

“The gunfight came in bursts”: Casey Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp (1997), p. 122

Additional detail for this chapter is from John Taffin, John Taffin’s Book of the .44, published online at sixguns.com.

“The Winchester stocked and sighted”: Theodore Roosevelt, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt—Volume 3 (1902), p. 38.

Dalton Gang’s raid on Coffeyville banks: Robert Barr Smith, Daltons! The Raid on Coffeyville, Kansas (1999), pp. 83–150.

Like many others, newspaper editor David Elliott spelled Bill Power’s name as “Powers.” Powers may in fact have been the actual spelling, as many relatives before and after styled it that way. But it’s Power on the official tombstone, and that’s what I used here.

“The Sharps was a different kind”: Keith McCafferty, “Guns of the Frontier,” Field & Stream, February 1997, p. 35.

Little Bighorn details: Thomas Powers, “How the Battle of Little Bighorn Was Won,” Smithsonian magazine, November 2010; Hamlin Garland, “General Custer’s Last Fight as Seen by Two Moon,” McClure’s magazine, September 1898, p. 446; Richard G. Hardorff, Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight (1991), p. 44; Doug Scott, email to the authors.

“is by all odds the best weapon”: Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1904), p. 39.

“carries far and straight”: Theodore Roosevelt, “Ranch-life and Game-shooting in the West,” Outing magazine, March 1886, p. 616.

“No one but he who has partaken”: Lamar Underwood, Theodore Roosevelt on Hunting (2006).

“The French told us”: Alan Axelrod, Miracle at Belleau Wood (2007), p. 2.

Details of the Battle at San Juan Heights, Cuba are from: Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (1899); Richard Harding Davis, Notes of a War Correspondent (1911); Herschel V. Cashin, Under Fire With the 10th U.S. Cavalry (1902); and Peggy Samuels, Harold Samuels, Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan (1997).

“The armory also spawned a culture”: John Lehman, “Bookshelf: Save Ammunition, Lose Wars,” Wall Street Journal, March 9, 1995.

“I think that ramrod bayonet”: United States Army Ordnance Department, Report of the Chief of Ordnance, 1905, p. 129.

One British general: See John S. D. Eisenhower, Yanks, the Epic Story of the American Army in World War I (2002), page 17.

Details of the Battle at Belleau Wood are from Axelrod, Miracle at Belleau Wood; Albertus Wright Catlin, Walter Alden Dyer, With the Help of God and a Few Marines (1919); and David Bonk, Chateau Thierry & Belleau Wood, 1918 (2012).

For more information on the Springfield’s use as a sniper rifle, see “No Drill” 1903A4 Sniper Rifle—1903 Springfield at the GunsAmerica.com website: http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/no-drill-1903a4-sniper-rifle-1903-springfield/.

One of the first companies to use the bullet: www.lapua.com/en/story-of--338-lapua-magnum.html.

“Beyond a doubt”: NRA Staff, AR’s Top 10 Handguns, http://www.americanrifleman.org.

Details of Alvin York episode are from Alvin York, Sergeant York, His Own Life Story and War Diary (1928); David D. Lee, Sergeant York: An American Hero (1985); Sam Cowan, Sergeant York and His People (1922); and John Perry, Sergeant York, His Life, Legend & Legacy (1997).

“It fits the hand like a trusted tool”: Brian Sheetz’s Top 10 Handguns, http://www.americanrifleman.org.

“The cavalry doctrine of those days”: Eduardo Lachica, “The Cavalry is Gone,” Wall Street Journal, June 20, 1984.

“the Colt is superior”: “The .45 Automatic,” American Rifleman, March 20, 1911, cited in Charles Bennett, “The 1911,” Law Enforcement Technology, August 1, 2012.

“To say he was the Edison”: Scott S. Smith, “John Browning’s Guns Hit The Bull’s-Eye,” Investor’s Business Daily, December 13, 2010.

“Make it strong enough—then double it”: Anthony Smith, Machine Gun (2003), p. 260.

John M. Browning, American Gunmaker by John Browning & Curt Gentry, 1964, gave insight into Browning and his inventions.

Attack on Al Capone in Cicero: Laurence Bergreen, Capone: The Man and the Era (1996), pp. 205–6.

“I am just a businessman”: Selwyn Raab, Five Families (2007), p. 42.

“I saw this gun myself”: Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War (1956), p. 120.

“Give them grape”: C. J. Chivers, The Gun (2010), p. 32.

“Hang your chemistry”: John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun, (1975), p. 34.

John Dillinger detail: Mark Holtz, Public Enemy #1, (2013).

“He liked to amuse bank customers”: Allen Barra, “A Gangster With Star Appeal,” Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2009.

“He had a baby face”: Bryan Burrough, Public Enemies (2004), pp. 102–3.

“Stupid son of a bitch”: Steven Nickel, William J. Helmer, Baby Face Nelson (2002), p. 173.

“I got one of them!”: Jay Robert Nash, Bloodletters and Badmen (1995), p. 212.

“I know who you are!”, “Nelson calmly aimed a machine gun”: Massad Ayoob, “Learning from a Cop-killer,” American Handgunner, July 2007.

“It was just like Jimmy Cagney”: Nickel and Helmer, Baby Face Nelson, p. 337.

“finally reaching the point”: J. Edgar Hoover, Persons in Hiding (1938), p. 149.

Willie Sutton quotes: Willie Sutton, Edward Linn, Where the Money Was (2004).

“It was the perfect weapon”: Mark Keefe, The Echo of the Thompson Gun, September 21, 2012, www.americanrifleman.org

Details of Thompson’s company and the gun’s development: Martin Pegler, The Thompson Submachine Gun, (2010). Additional information on the background of machine gun development was drawn from John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun.

“Summers is a legend”: Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944 (1994), p. 299.

Franklin Koons at Dieppe: The account of Franklin Koons and the other action at Dieppe, France is based on Rangers at Dieppe, Jim DeFelice (2008), especially pp 116, 146, 153–8, 224.

Garand was not the first person to think of the idea: See some of the discussion, and how Garand’s machine gun worked, in Julian S. Hatcher, Book of the Garand (2012).

The U.S. Army produced an excellent film detailing the inner workings of an M1 Garand: M1 Garand—Principles of Operation, which is available on YouTube. Additional information on the Garand was drawn from the Army field manual for the weapon, “FM 23–5.”

“In my opinion the M1 rifle”: Jim Supica, Guns (2005), p. 186.

“one weapon that outgunned”: William H. Hallahan, Misfire (1994), p. 390.

Fetched ammo: See “Battle for Henderson Field,” article posted at Raritan-online.com: http://www.raritan-online.com/jb-henderson-field.htm. Basilone came from Raritan, N.J., which continues to honor his memory.

“You’ll probably get yours”: Leroy Thompson, The M1 Garand (2012), p. 55.

“Guadalcanal is no longer”: Robert Leckie, Challenge for the Pacific (1965). P. viii.

“The most amazing thing about that M1”: Mark G. Goodwin, U.S. Infantry Weapons in Combat, http://www.scott-duff.com.

Battle of the Bulge detail: Martin K.A. Morgan, “The Men & Guns of the Battle of the Bulge,” http://www.americanrifleman.org; Gregory Orfalea, Messengers of the Lost Battalion (2010). Joe Cicchinelli’s memories of his war service are collected in an oral history collection online at http://www.joecicchinelli.com/home.htm.

M1 in Korea: Bruce Canfield, Arms of the Chosin Few, http://www.americanrifleman.org.

“bunk”: Springfield (Mass.) Daily News, March 19, 1963.

Attack on Blair House: Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge Jr., American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman—and the Shoot-out That Stopped It (2005).

Valuable background for this chapter was provided by Massad Ayoob, Massad Ayoob’s Greatest Handguns of the World (2010).

“As a personal defense weapon”: ibid., p. 68.

“at a time when full power”: Jim Supica, Guns (2005), p. 31.

“This was smart”: “How the Glock Became America’s Weapon of Choice,” Fresh Air, National Public Radio, January 24, 2012.

Some information regarding the different pistols and their offerings is drawn from the catalogs of Smith & Wesson and Colt. Both companies also offer brief accounts of their history on the websites. General information on Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolvers was drawn from The History of Smith and Wesson Firearms by Dean Boorman. In addition, Patrick Sweeney’s Gunsmithing Pistols & Revolvers, 3rd Edition (1986), was very useful for understanding the evolution of some of the weapons. Some information on the Glock 17 is from the “Glock Instruction for Use” manual, and the Glock catalog.

“Brave soldiers and the M16”: Russell W. Glenn, Reading Athena’s Dance Card (2000), p. 172.

Ia Drang battle details are drawn extensively from Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once… and Young (1992); and also from The Battle of Ia Drang Valley, 1965, a documentary by CBS News that is available on YouTube.

“What we fear most”: Popular Science, August 1967, p. 70.

Information on the early political struggles and development of the AR-15/ M16 is drawn from American Rifle: a Biography by Alexander Rose.

Details of events of March 20, 2005 involving Leigh Ann Hester and her colleagues are from contemporaneous press accounts, especially: Steve Fainaru, “The Everyday Heroics of a Woman in Combat,” New York Sun, June 27, 2005; Multinational Corps Iraq Public Affairs videotape of Hester interview with CBS reporter posted on YouTube titled “Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester—First female soldier to win Silver Star since WW2”; and Recon Intelligence Report, “Conspicuous Courage Under Fire, Part 4,” posted on YouTube.

Technical data on the StG44 varies depending on source. These numbers here are from Ian V. Hogg and John Weeks, Military Small Arms of the 20th Century. There were a number of variations in the rifle family, which is one reason for the discrepancies.

Additional information on ArmaLite and the improvements in the various M16/M4 models is drawn from “A Historical Review of ArmaLite: Edition of 4 January 2010,” available online at: http://www.armalite.com/images/Library/History.pdf; and Ian V. Hogg and John Weeks, Military Small Arms of the 20th Century (2000).