Validating British Bullet Strike Trajectory Associated with the British Retreat to Boston, April 19, 1775 through Live Fire Experimentation

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Archaeology of Arms: New Analytical Approaches", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The British Regulars retreat from Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 is legendary in American history. One home, the Jason Russell House, has at least twenty bullet holes are still evident in the walls and around doors and windows. Other bullet-struck objects and structures from that day exist that have been studied and shooting incident reconstruction techniques were applied to the bullet holes to determine the origin of the musket fire. Live fire experiments were used to validate our interpretation of the capability of the British Brown Bess to pass through various architectural elements.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology of Arms: New Analytical Approaches   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow