Object

British Short Land Pattern Musket

Date: 1768
Dimensions: stock 16.25" barrel 42" bayonet 21"
About this artifact

The "Brown Bess" flintlock musket was the standard weapon of the British soldier for over one hundred years. Its official name was the "Short Land Pattern." Most American gunsmiths during the American Revolution patterned their flintlock muskets after this reliable weapon. The Springfield Arsenal had stores of these muskets which the men following Daniel Shays hoped to capture. Some of the men would have been carrying their own muskets, either owned before the Revolution, or issued once war broke out, or even picked up on the field of battle. John Fellows of Shelburne, serving under Captain Hugh McClellan of Colrain, picked up this musket from the field following the Battle of Saratoga.


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Courtesy Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield, MA