Damascus Longknife

[T.C.Albert]

Maybe it was more of an awareness of how to effect some natural carburising rather than an intentional case hardening?
tc

[Artificer]

Would Damascus steel have been period correct during the revolution ?
Probably not readily available to most militias ?
I want to do a longknife that my grandfather may have carried.
Also where may a blade be purchased ?
Thank You , DD

DD,

What colony/state was your ancestor from?  The reason for this question is the knife he carried probably would have been “in the tradition” of what was used in that colony and what European Trade sources were available there prior to the Revolution. 

“Trade” knives came into this country in droves through the years.  It is very likely your ancestor may have carried something like one of them.  They would have been the handiest for skinning and butchering game. You might find this thread interesting:  http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=13261.0

However, are you asking about what would have been considered a good fighting knife of the period?  Now ANY knife is better than no knife in a knife fight or close combat fight, but the above knives don’t make really good fighting knives because of the weak half tangs pinned to the handle material.  I have a long knife that was made “period correct” back in the 70’s with a flat grind V shape blade and it had a short tang mounted in a piece of antler with “period correct” small pins.  Now this thing is more of a short sword than a knife and is not very useful for anything but fighting, or so I thought.  Well, that was until I began testing it by chopping small brushes and branches.  The handle shattered when I chopped a branch this size knife should have easily cut through or chopped without damage. THEN there was not enough left to hold onto before the grip was repaired.  I’m glad I found that out BEFORE I took that knife with me into a combat zone (I was an active duty Marine for 26 years and studied tomahawk and knife fighting.  That may be my “problem” as I was taught to parry blows with the knife as one uses a Scottish dirk.)   After that, I never used another fighting blade that did not have a least a tang that went through the grip and some kind of washer or cap on the end as was used on dirks or swords, or better still a full tanged knife that COULD be “repaired in the field” if the grip broke during a fight.

I also realize there are knife fighting styles where the knife is primarily used to cut and slash and not block another weapon.  However in the 18th century, a Militia Man would expect to fight someone with a clubbed rifle/musket, tomahawk, tomahawk and knife, or bayonet.  I may be totally mistaken, but I would think they needed a knife that could parry such weapons without coming apart in the hand. 
Gus

[T.C.Albert]

Not sure of the exact numbers here, and my whole premise is hypothetical,but in knife fighting classes way back in basic training, our instructors taught that statistically, a man armed with a knife has a 10 or 20 second life expectancy against his similarly armed opponent in battle...if you messed around and exceeded that time limit, you were pretty much gonna get it ....to me that implied the knife was an offensive weapon...sure, parry and defend, but only as you attack...this may not apply since I suppose basic rev war militia recruits didn't have the advantage of any serious hand to hand type basic instructions before they were in the field...and if they were reduced to knives against professional Hessian mercenaries and British regulars, they were gone geese.   

[Artificer]

T.C.

You are probably correct the “average” Militiaman, coming from a farm or town, did not stand a chance against either a Hessian or British Regular (at least until after Von Stueben trained them).  No doubt that is why so many ran away when confronted by a disciplined bayonet charge, as they were not used to or trained in close combat and most did not have bayonets had they known how to use them.  A very obvious exception to that was the Battle of Breed’s Hill until they ran out of ball and powder…..

However, Hessian and British Regulars were trained to fight similarly armed men and  not trained to fight “Indian or Frontier” style.   Continental trained regulars did not do well against NA’s here in hand to hand fighting until they got more experience and survived such fights.  Heck, 100 years later at the Battle of Isandlwana, British regulars with bayonets got slaughtered after they ran out of ammo and they had been well trained to fight with bayonets.  I realize they faced different weapons in that battle, but once again they faced warriors who “did not fight the way they fought.”

“Over Mountain Men,” Riflemen and other Frontiersmen (and of course that includes Long Hunters) were much more experienced in war fare by a much greater degree because they had to be and many had been in such combat with NA’s.  Heck, they got into bad fights and knife fights where eyes were gouged out, limbs were broken and some slashed up bad or dead, just when they drank in frontier taverns and pubs.   Those on the frontier came to learn how to fight with tomahawks and knives, besides “clubbed” muskets or rifles.

So it all depends on who DD’s ancestor was and what his background was.  Perhaps I incorrectly assumed his ancestor was a Long Hunter/Frontiersman because he asked what kind of “long knife” his ancestor carried.
Gus

[Elnathan]

However, Hessian and British Regulars were trained to fight similarly armed men and  not trained to fight “Indian or Frontier” style.   Continental trained regulars did not do well against NA’s here in hand to hand fighting until they got more experience and survived such fights.  Heck, 100 years later at the Battle of Isandlwana, British regulars with bayonets got slaughtered after they ran out of ammo and they had been well trained to fight with bayonets.  I realize they faced different weapons in that battle, but once again they faced warriors who “did not fight the way they fought.”

Specifically, the Zulus fought with spears and shields, which would have been a huge advantage over a redcoat armed with a bayonet. I doubt that a man armed with a tomahawk and/or knife would have much of a chance against a musket-mounted bayonet or a spontoon - the bayonet-armed guy has a longer reach, a very swift attack that is difficult to parry or even see coming (spears are pretty much impossible to see head-on, something that I can personally attest to), and can do a lot of damage with even a minor thrust. They are also very easy to use, so even a comparative neophyte can be a serious threat so long as he keeps his nerve.  They tend to be ignored in modern film and literature, but spears have pretty much been the standard infantry weapon for millennia (Even the Romans used spears a lot more than most folks think.)

I am not really aware of any evidence that there was a distinct frontier martial art, though I know that on occasion that people did train with the tomahawk.

[Rkymtn57]

Artificer , Thanks !
He enlisted at Fort Pitt. Aug. 9 1776 was 19 or 20 years old.
He had come with his family from Maryland and settled near Fort Redstone ...Brownsville , Pa.)
or Catfish Camp....Washington , Pa. maybe both.
After Saratoga and Valley Forge , I think he spent most of his time near Ft. Henry (Wheeling)
serving in local militias as a scout and spy with his brothers for Capt. Samuel Brady.
Ive read where a tomahawk was required for a rifleman which he was , because of not having a bayonet.
So maybe not so much for fighting as for general use.
All opinions are welcome , Thank you , Dennis
 

[Artificer]

TC,
Yes, I know Zulu’s had two main weapons, the Assegai and the shield.  The shield could not stop a bayonet from piercing it and sticking/killing the warrior bearing it, only parry the bayonet or it was smashed against an opponent. 

When NA’s and Frontiersmen used a Tomahawk and Knife for hand to hand fighting, the tomahawk was both an offensive weapon and was capable of hooking or deflecting a bayonet while the knife delivers the killing cut/stab/slash/blow.  A flint knife could slash and cut, though not parry as it would break.  A steel knife can slash/cut and stab, but also could parry a bayonet (if strong enough) while the tomahawk delivers the killing blow.  The techniques used by NA’s goes back to stone or ball clubs and flint knives and young boys began learning them using sticks.  We forget that wooden practice swords and other weapons in European Cultures go back to before Roman Times right up through not only the medieval period but right up to and after the American Civil War with Naval Wooden practice cutlasses. 

The main differences are European Cultures wrote down their fighting styles/training manuals as early as the Renaissance and probably earlier to the Roman Empire, Spartans and other Greek City States and Egyptians (to name a few), though manuals may not survive, but evidence of such training exist.  Tribes or nations trained their young men as warriors all over the world even if they had no writing or only rudimental writing.  Survival demanded it on this continent, as it did most of the rest of the world, due to Inter Tribal warfare.  We do have evidence that at least some NA tribes began training their boys around ages 10 to 12 by assigning them to a “Helper” who was part older brother figure and part Drill Instructor.  However, there are no written records of it, just oral traditions. 

People have a tendency to forget there were many centuries of Inter Tribal Warfare on this continent prior to European Colonization and NA’s trained their boys much younger for it on this continent than later European Settlers normally did.  The NA’s did not consider it a “Martial Art” as we have only RECENTLY come to think of it generally in the decades since WWII, but rather part of what a boy/young man had to learn for personal and tribal survival.  On this continent, we have accounts of European Settlers and later Militia’s and even the US Army fighting NA’s from Jamestown to the Plains Indian Wars and getting beaten many times even though technology and population finally overcame them.  That would not have happened had most NA’s not had a warrior culture and instilled warrior training in their young men.  Europeans/Americans always ran into that as they pushed the frontier from the Atlantic Sea board to the Pacific.

We also forget that European Settlers in this country expected boys at the age of 16 to be IN the Militia and carrying whatever was the Militia required weapons and FIGHT as soldiers.  They may not have received “Martial Training” until they joined the militia in the settled areas, though many had been taught how to shoot and hunt.  However, unlike NA lads, they were not generally raised in a warrior culture and especially not in the older settled areas and certainly not generally in Europe. Most recruits who became “the dreaded Hessian or British Regulars,” knew little or nothing of combat/warfare when they were recruited, unlike NA’s or Frontier folk. 

Now, Frontier Folk often fought NA’s and their children experienced warfare and death from it as they settled the frontiers.  Even if they had not actually seen close combat very young, their elders did and the ones who survived often taught survival and fighting skills to their children.  Had they not, they would not have survived on the Frontiers, even though we have little written accounts of it.  We also forget the majority of those on the furthest frontiers could not read and write to leave such accounts.

Gus

[Artificer]

Artificer , Thanks !
He enlisted at Fort Pitt. Aug. 9 1776 was 19 or 20 years old.
He had come with his family from Maryland and settled near Fort Redstone ...Brownsville , Pa.)
or Catfish Camp....Washington , Pa. maybe both.
After Saratoga and Valley Forge , I think he spent most of his time near Ft. Henry (Wheeling)
serving in local militias as a scout and spy with his brothers for Capt. Samuel Brady.
Ive read where a tomahawk was required for a rifleman which he was , because of not having a bayonet.
So maybe not so much for fighting as for general use.
All opinions are welcome , Thank you , Dennis
 

Dennis,

It is wonderful you know that much about your ancestor.  OK, that gives us some clues about what he MAY have carried and used.  I say “MAY” because we can only go off of what was available to him at the time and what he likely carried in the capacity of a “scout and spy.” 

Here is a great reference source for you. “Notes on the settlement and Indian wars of the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, from 1763 to 1783, inclusive: together with a view of the state of society, and manners of the first settlers of the western country:  http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/text-idx?c=pitttext;view=toc;idno=00age8892m

Some of those men whilst serving as soldiers carried either a belt axe or tomahawk OR a belt knife, while some carried both.  We don’t have documented percentages of how many carried which ones and at which times.  However and in my personal opinion, the closer he was to actual combat and especially on scouting duty, it is likely he carried both a belt knife and tomahawk/belt axe.  Better to have an extra weapon in those cases than not having one you may need.

Your ancestor probably carried a folding knife or “Penny Knife,”  as they had been imported in great numbers by that time and were both cheap and very useful.  Many soldiers carried them, even if they were not scouts or frontiersmen.  Here are some examples of originals and repro’s:  http://goldenhawks.org/rumpingproductions/Revolutionary_War_Folding_Knife__Penny_Knives.jpg

The fact your ancestor was a “scout/spy” strongly suggests at least some frontier knowledge and experience, though I don’t think you wrote enough information to suggest how much.  It is likely he carried an English Trade Knife or Scalper, as shown in the earlier link I gave, if he carried a belt knife.  Now I may get all kinds of flak for this and that’s OK, but it is NOT likely such a knife had a deer antler handle in the 18th century.  English Trade Knives and Scalpers were imported into this country with wood handles.  When/if the handle broke, some may have been replaced with deer antler, but there is not much evidence of it happening much in the surviving examples from the period, or in the written or archeological record.  It was much easier to replace a broken wood handle with another piece of wood and that’s what they normally did.  Yes, some deer antler handled knives are known from the period, but they are extremely rare. 

OK, so what other styles of knife handle may your ancestor have used?   The answer to that lies in period cutlery and swords and in your ancestor’s age and financial status, as well as his knowledge and experience of other folk he would have run across.  A knife made from a broken sword would normally have the handle of the original sword, though the guard may or probably would have been cut down.   However if one goes for that style, one has to be careful to use a sword that was actually available in this country at that time and not some later sword or hilt. 

“Through Tang Knives” go well back into the 17th century and earlier, so the handle on a hand made knife could have been made that way.  The problem is this is a more expensive way to make a knife handle, though it is much stronger than 1/3 or ½ tang knives.  (That’s also why sword handles were made that way dating back much further.)

Pistol grip cutlery knives had been in fashion for some time, so it is possible a hand made knife could/did have a grip similar to that.  Some originals are known like that.  Such a product may or even likely came from a cutler and thus would not be found as often on the frontier with a young man.   However, such knives HAVE been found dug from NA sites of the period as well, though I suspect they were gifts to more import NA’s.

I WISH I could tell you that full tang knives were common because they are very strong and can easily be repaired by wrapping when a scale breaks.  However, there is not a lot of reference on full tang knives.  Some trade knives came with only 1/3 tangs, but I personally believe they were meant to be used for butchering or in kitchens or for those kinds of chores and as cheaper trade knives to NA’s.  I personally believe that a half tang or better still a 2/3 tang would have been the choice for a fighting knife with what was available at the time. 

You could not go wrong with an English Scalping Knife with ½ or better still 2/3 tang knife with a wood handle and two or three 3/32” pins to hold it to recreate what your ancestor carried, in my opinion. 
Gus

[Elnathan]

TC,
Yes, I know Zulu’s had two main weapons, the Assegai and the shield.  The shield could not stop a bayonet from piercing it and sticking/killing the warrior bearing it, only parry the bayonet or it was smashed against an opponent.

Yeah, I am pretty sure it could, particularly if it was held out away from the user, at an angle with the edge of the shield pointed at the opponents shoulder and used in a dynamic manner to cover and block from one side at a time. That is how shields seem to have been used historically. A couple of Aussies by the name of Steven Hand and Paul Wagner have a couple articles in SPADA I and II that use the dueling shield sequences in Talhoffer's fechbuch and later Rennaissance manuals, plus about 2000 years of European art to make a very convincing argument that shields were used this way from the Greeks onward - I imagine that the Zulus did the same thing, particularly since Shaka is supposed to have taught his warriors to catch the edge of the enemies shield with their own, something that fits well with Wagner and Hand's thesis.

When NA’s and Frontiersmen used a Tomahawk and Knife for hand to hand fighting, the tomahawk was both an offensive weapon and was capable of hooking or deflecting a bayonet while the knife delivers the killing cut/stab/slash/blow.  A flint knife could slash and cut, though not parry as it would break.  A steel knife can slash/cut and stab, but also could parry a bayonet (if strong enough) while the tomahawk delivers the killing blow.  The techniques used by NA’s goes back to stone or ball clubs and flint knives and young boys began learning them using sticks.  We forget that wooden practice swords and other weapons in European Cultures go back to before Roman Times right up through not only the medieval period but right up to and after the American Civil War with Naval Wooden practice cutlasses. 

I am not aware of any period references to fighting with both knife and tomahawk. As far as I can tell this is a technique adopted from the Filipino martial art Escrima and popularized by Hollywood.* Do you have any period references?

I believe that a single sword against a spear is considered one of the most difficult fights for the swordsman by both European and Asian martial artists -  a tomahawk wielder would be in an even worse situation due to the shorter reach of a tomahawk.

If you don't believe me, find someone who will sincerely try to poke you with a 6 1/2' pole while you try to defend yourself with a spare tomahawk handle. 

*I don't know if Dwight McLemore was behind the paired knife and tomahawk style used in the films Last of the Mohicans and The Patriot or if he was inspired by them when he wrote his books (which postdate both films), but he is pretty upfront about the fact that he was drawing from Escrima, not any historical accounts from the frontier.

 

The main differences are European Cultures wrote down their fighting styles/training manuals as early as the Renaissance and probably earlier to the Roman Empire, Spartans and other Greek City States and Egyptians (to name a few), though manuals may not survive, but evidence of such training exist.  Tribes or nations trained their young men as warriors all over the world even if they had no writing or only rudimental writing.  Survival demanded it on this continent, as it did most of the rest of the world, due to Inter Tribal warfare.  We do have evidence that at least some NA tribes began training their boys around ages 10 to 12 by assigning them to a “Helper” who was part older brother figure and part Drill Instructor.  However, there are no written records of it, just oral traditions. 

People have a tendency to forget there were many centuries of Inter Tribal Warfare on this continent prior to European Colonization and NA’s trained their boys much younger for it on this continent than later European Settlers normally did.  The NA’s did not consider it a “Martial Art” as we have only RECENTLY come to think of it generally in the decades since WWII, but rather part of what a boy/young man had to learn for personal and tribal survival.  On this continent, we have accounts of European Settlers and later Militia’s and even the US Army fighting NA’s from Jamestown to the Plains Indian Wars and getting beaten many times even though technology and population finally overcame them.  That would not have happened had most NA’s not had a warrior culture and instilled warrior training in their young men.  Europeans/Americans always ran into that as they pushed the frontier from the Atlantic Sea board to the Pacific.

We also forget that European Settlers in this country expected boys at the age of 16 to be IN the Militia and carrying whatever was the Militia required weapons and FIGHT as soldiers.  They may not have received “Martial Training” until they joined the militia in the settled areas, though many had been taught how to shoot and hunt.  However, unlike NA lads, they were not generally raised in a warrior culture and especially not in the older settled areas and certainly not generally in Europe. Most recruits who became “the dreaded Hessian or British Regulars,” knew little or nothing of combat/warfare when they were recruited, unlike NA’s or Frontier folk. 

Now, Frontier Folk often fought NA’s and their children experienced warfare and death from it as they settled the frontiers.  Even if they had not actually seen close combat very young, their elders did and the ones who survived often taught survival and fighting skills to their children.  Had they not, they would not have survived on the Frontiers, even though we have little written accounts of it.  We also forget the majority of those on the furthest frontiers could not read and write to leave such accounts.

Gus

For what it is worth, the earliest European fighting manual, a sword and buckler treatise known as Tower manuscript I-33. dates to the end of the 1200s. I own a facsimile of it, as it happens.

I don't doubt that Indians and whites alike  taught their children how to fight, including how to use their tomahawks  - as I mentioned earlier, there are a few references to people practicing with tomahawks - but I think most of their attention was paid to shooting, using cover effectively, ambushing and getting out of ambushes, etc., rather than hand to hand combat. Real hand-to-hand fights tend to be pretty quick and brutal affairs, I believe, with victory depending on swift reflexes, aggressiveness, and a bit of luck, not fancy techniques, so I suspect that a few basic blows and parries, possibly combined with a bit of footwork taken from swordplay, wrestling, or boxing would have been as much as anyone got - the rest of the time would have been spent on more training more likely to be used.

I might also point out that neither frontiersmen nor Indians seem to have done particularly well when the regulars got into bayonet range - Bushy Run was won for the British when they were able to lure the Indians in close and charge with bayonets, and Morgan’s riflemen were scattered and forced to run before a bayonet charge more than once. If they couldn’t match their tomahawks to bayonets, who could?

[Rkymtn57]

Artificer , Yes , I'm sure they were not wealthy and he was illiterate
As noted by the X he signed on his pension application and will.

Thank you all for your input , I have a million ?s but better stay on topic of accoutrements. D

[Artificer]

Elnathan,

The zulu shield did not have a double loop system to hold the shield near the elbow and another to grip it with the hand as Greek and many later large shields did to more effectively hold them and strike/parry with them.  Also, it was heavy and the center stick was meant for the shield to be rested on the ground as well as the place the warrior gripped it.  As such, it was not possible for the shield to be used solidly and with a lot of motion when it was held out at arms length in a waiving motion.  It was used to smash at arms length and parry closer to the body.  It was nothing like an earlier period buckler that was much smaller and lighter and was used to waive deceptively and parry swords one handed, all at arms length.  Finally, the British bayonet of the period was a pointed socket bayonet that indeed not only could but did pierce the cowhide zulu shield when held close to the body of the warrior to fend off spears and blows.  The problem with doing that, though, is if you plunge the bayonet into the shield and DON’T kill or seriously disable the warrior, he would get you with his assegai.  

Further, your suggestion that a spear is similar to a bayonet on a musket only goes so far.  A spear is much more fluid and not nearly as awkward/ungainly as an offset pointed bayonet on the end of the musket where the weight of the musket makes it clumsier than the spear.  

The classic case of NA’s vs British regulars in close combat was after the British surrender of Fort William Henry.  Forget Cooper and the recent movies.  The numbers of British who surrendered was around/slightly over 2,300.  They left the fort with their muskets and bayonets, but no ammunition.  The NA forces numbered around 1,800.   Now it is no doubt true that NA forces initially started the attack with guns and arrows, but closed with the British Regulars with their bayonets.  British forces did not drive them off or win with their bayonets in the close in action, but lost 200 men all told (though we don’t know how many came from bullets and arrows).  What we do know is the British Regulars with their bayonets did not strike fear into the hearts of NA’s nor drove them off, but rather the British got their butts handed to them by the NA’s.

We don’t know if the British Regulars with their bayonets MIGHT have struck fear into the hearts of the NA’s during Braddock’s defeat.  British accounts suggest their Regulars began the retreat when they ran out of the 24 rounds of ammunition in their cartridge boxes and could not get resupplied.  (It was later reported that a good number of the British and American troops had larger Brown Bess balls in them rather than all lighter French and Indian caliber bullets and that suggests a good bit of casualties from friendly fire.)  We do know the British Regulars and Americans were suffering from near starvation and fevers from lack of food and water when the fighting began.  There were many break downs in discipline and a host of command and administration problems and poor leadership from Braddock on down, though it did not help when Braddock had refused to take advice from his experienced senior commanders.  I don’t intend to leave the impression that close combat was THE or even a main reason Braddock’s forces got their butts handed to them.  In many ways they had already lost the battle to FAR INFERIOR numbers of NA’s before the battle was joined.

The most effective use of the British Bayonet at Bushy Run was when Bouquet deliberately weakened a part of his line so the NA’s would rush in and attack there.  However, it was a ruse and once in the killing zone the British fired volleys into them and when the NA’s were thus surprised and in shock, the Regulars used the bayonet most effectively and drove the NA’s off.  We also have to remember that many of the British Regulars were Scots who had come from a Warrior Culture and training from the times they were lads.  Scots were used more heavily in the French and Indian Wars both because the British did not totally trust them for use on the European Continent, but ALSO because they believed they should use “Their Barbarians” (the Scots) against the “Native Barbarians” (the NA’s) and that turned out well for them in many cases.  

You suggest that there were only so many moves and footwork of NA’s using stone or ball clubs or tomahawks and or knives and not much time was taken to teach hand to hand fighting by NA’s.  I will counter that by saying period drill manuals only show a very few moves and footwork for British Regulars with their bayonets.  British soldiers of the period had a lot more chores and other duties than NA’s and most likely got less training in hand to hand combat than NA’s and certainly not as young.  Bayonet fighting did not really become an Art or Martial Art until the 19th century and France took the lead there.  McClellan copied the excellent French Manual on bayonet fighting and one can still learn a lot of great stuff from it for bayonet fighting today.  I used much of the information in McClellan’s manual in modern Marine bayonet practice and almost always won because I knew moves others had not been taught.  When I finally admitted where I learned it, they accused me of “cheating.”  Grin.  However, it was appreciated when I taught those techniques.

My experience with tomahawk and knife fighting does not come from movies or actual close combat, but from both training I received from NA’s prior to me joining the Marine Corps and much practice with wooden weapons simulating the real thing against bayonet mounted M16’s in the early to mid 1980’s.  I had never been taught Escrima and honestly did not know of it until after the movies you mentioned came out.  Teaching Karate to young people was before my time, but I was a student of Judo starting around 11 years old.  Judo is considered a sport and not a true martial art, but it can be used as such in especially the higher belts.  (I used it to save myself from getting beat up by bullies after school all the time at that age and is the reason I began studying it.)

I did not have many months to study close combat after I made the decision and joined the Corps on the delayed entry program at age 17 until I went on active duty 6 days after my 18th birthday.  But I found a NA who agreed and explained to me what a “Helper” was and did give me somc training.    He had been a Marine who fought in Nam and when I told him of some of my NA bloodline, he agreed to teach me “from the Old Ways” that had never been written down.  

As a barely 19 year old Corporal, I was involved in what proved to be my only real hand to hand combat in Cambodia out of my entire 26 year career in the Corps.  I did not have a rifle and bayonet as I was the Armorer and assigned a pistol, though I armed myself with a spare M870 shotgun we brought with us and the brass 12 ga shotgun shells loaded with OO buck.  It had a bayonet lug, but we had not bayonets to fit it.  After that fight, I determined to get more close combat training even though I was not seriously wounded and let’s just say I more than held my own.  We were only in Cambodia to destroy a U.S. base, so when I returned to Okinawa, I was excited to get an invitation to study Okinawan Karate at a very ancient Dojo outside Naha, Okinawa.  The only reason I got in there was the SSgt and Captain I worked for both spoke almost fluent Japanese and were allowed to study there and I was only the third “round eye” who was allowed to train there.  However, that was only for a few months before I was transferred stateside.

In the early/mid 1980’s was when I really studied the use of a Tomahawk and Knife against a bayonet armed opponent and used wooden weapons to simulate them, though in some of that practice, I went up against other Marines armed with M16’s with bayonets affixed, but with scabbards on them.  During the 70’s I had studied bayonet drill for both Rev War and War of 1812 reenacting from Von Steuben’s manual.  When doing Un-Civil War Reenacting from 1980 to 1988, I studied McClellan’s Manual and early 20th century manuals and books on bayonet fighting.  So even though an M16 with bayonet is shorter than a musket with bayonet, it was good training and I had training with flint and percussion muskets with bayonets.  So my views are from actual practice with such weapons and from real world hand to hand combat, though limited and not with a tomahawk and knife or bayonet.  In my experience, modern bayonet armed regulars are ineffective against someone knowledgeable with a tomahawk and knife and of course part of that is because we are not trained for it just as British Regulars were not trained for it, until they got experience in this country and survived.  I learned British Bayonet drill from two 18th century Mauals for the French and Indian War and Rev War in the 90's and early this century.

You ask for evidence/documentation of NA fighting techniques with tomahawk and knives and training of young warriors.  It is remarkable you have any written evidence of Tomahawk training because most Tribes never had a way to write it down and would not have thought to have done so.  They passed on such techniques to younger warriors.  (Maybe you mean Tomahawk Training of European Settlers? )   Let’s face it, the ball war clubs and stone war clubs used by Eastern Tribes would not have been very effective in hand to hand fighting had they not had training in their use.  Iron/steel Tomahawks were seized upon because they were stronger and deadlier, but you have to train with them to be good at hand to hand fighting with them.  The only positive evidence the historic record has of hand to hand training is by the results of hand to hand fighting and that is rare to see detailed reports of it even from Military Reports and even when talking about bayonet fighting.  Most fronstiersmen were illiterate, so they could not have written it down even if they had thought it was necessary, which is extremely to totally doubtful they would have.  So, No, I don’t know of written evidence of training in tomahawk and knife fighting techniques by NA’s or Frontiersmen, but I doubt there was ever much, if anything, written down about it.  However, in illiterate societies, one should never expect to find such “evidence.”

Further, there is very little to no evidence of much of what NA’s did in the period and especially if one discounts the oral tradtions, because they normally did not tell white people.  We get some information from those who were captured and adopted by NA’s, but even that evidence is scarce and quite often spotty at best unless the captives were held for some time,  they did not know much.

Gus

[cmac]

Those Chinese files probably work fine on plastic, fiberglass, and white metal

[Elnathan]

Artificer,

Concerning Shields:
Zulu shields are almost identical to the dueling shields used in Talhoffer, and the center grip allows for a more dynamic method of use, not less. Unfortunately, the one online source that I could point you towards that shows you what I talking about has been taken down, so if you want further details you will need to consult the books I mentioned up-thread. I believe you that bayonets could pierce Zulu cowhide shields, I don’t think that ability makes a difference in a melee: most shields throughout history could be pierced by the weapons that opposed them (Greek and Roman shields being an exception), but because they weren’t used to block opponents’ weapons but to selectively close off lines of attack and bind up an opponent it wasn’t much of a problem. Since sword and shield, while near and dear to my heart,  is really pretty far from the 18th century frontier, I'll leave it at that.

Concerning the William Henry Massacre:
I don't think that really supports your case. For one thing, the current best estimate of English dead seems to be about 185 out of over 2000 British, a lot of whom were sick or wounded at the time. In addition, it doesn't appear that the English made much attempt to defend themselves - it wasn't a single, big attack, but a series of small assaults and harassments that gradually broke down order among the British and seem to have been directed at least as much toward the camp followers as the troops themselves, and the British were expecting the French to protect them.

Concerning Bushy Run:
I really doubt that the "warrior culture" of the Scots had much to do with their success, save perhaps to make them steadier under pressure. For one thing, most of that warrior tradition was limited to the upper classes, and in any case musket and bayonet was not a traditional Scottish weapon, so they would not have had previous experience to fall back on (and most of the troops were raw recruits, IIRC).

Tomahawk versus Bayonets in General
I  repeat my observation that observers both contemporary and modern are in agreement that the lack of a bayonet was a serious disadvantage to American riflemen - For example, if I recall correctly there is a British account from the Revolutionary war that describes  "hunting" riflemen with bayonets at dusk when poor visibility made it easier for the redcoats to get close without being shot. IF tomahawks could be effectively wielded against bayonets, that would not be the case - As you have noted, the average line infantryman received very little actual training in hand to hand combat, so if they were able to route frontiersmen of the caliber of Morgan’s men, who I imagine would be at least representative of frontier fighting skills if not better than average, that would seem to be a pretty clear indication that a bayonet was very difficult to go up against armed with only a tomahawk. Honestly, I think that the tomahawk’s popularity was because it was light and easy to carry - very desirable characteristics in a backup weapon -and its similarity to hatchets and the ball-headed war club., not because it was necessarily the most effective melee weapon available. 

You make a good point about a musket and bayonet not being the same as a spear, and I’ll bear it in mind. They are better hand-to-hand weapons than an M-16 and a modern bayonet, though, so I think your military experience may be misleading in that respect.

Concerning martial arts along the frontier:
Let me rephrase my argument somewhat: I do not believe that post-contact Indian warfare gave enough emphasis on hand-to-hand combat to that they would develop a system of martial arts, comparable to that of European and Asian cultures, that gave someone wielding a short cutting or striking weapon superiority over a man with a bayonet or spontoon, nor do I believe that white frontiersmen developed their own system. Now, prior to the white contact, Indian warfare was much closer to European medieval warfare, with fortified villages, assaults on same, large shields, and wooden armor being prominent features, and because of this I think that it is very probable that they did develop something that might be called a martial art. (I am defining “martial art” as a at-least-somewhat organized system of fighting incorporating basic principles that can be extrapolated into different weapons or none at all, as opposed to a bunch of “tricks” or isolated techniques - obviously there is going to be some difficulty differentiating the two in a tribal society). As I am sure you know, the introduction of gunpowder altered Indian warfare enormously, however, and by around 1700 woodland warfare was mostly what we would term guerilla today - raids and ambushes designed to wear the enemy down by attrition and reduce enemy morale, as well as gain booty, captives, and enhance the warriors’ status within the tribe.  On top of that, the Indians did not have a warrior aristocracy with the large amounts of free time necessary to become truly expert in hand-to-hand combat and to keep a keen edge on their skills once learned, as did pre-modern Western and Asian societies. With neither the necessary social structure nor a type of warfare that demanded a large amount of hand-to-hand combat, I suspect that Indians of the 18th century probably received training roughly comparable to that of a modern soldier - enough to keep them alive in a melee, but not truly expert in the way a medieval man-at-arms would have been. This also goes for white frontiersmen for the same reasons - while brave, tough, and with a lot of combat experience, they were primarily farmers and hunters, not professional warriors, and their mode of combat was very similar to the Indians (although not identical, since they used fortifications to good effect and tended to restrict offensive operations to horse-raids and full-scale attacks on Indians villages without the mid-level raids intended to kill or capture small numbers of enemies that were so common among the Indians. The differences may have been due to different settlement patterns or the influence of Western-style warfare as practice in Europe, or, I suspect, both).

As for the lack of writing, while it is true that Indians did not write things down, they were in contact with a lot of whites who were literate. This is where a good historian pays attention to what is NOT said as well as what is said. If they was a unique systematized method of using a tomahawk distinct to the frontier, I’d expect at least a few mentions from observers drawing a parallel between Indian fighting/training techniques and fencing, or at least noting a particular method of using a tomahawk. The absence of such comments makes me suspect that such weapons were mostly used with a couple basic, intuitive downward strokes that were not a whole lot different from the methods used to chop wood and thus not interesting enough to observers to make note of.

Knives:

I have specified tomahawks in this and preceding posts because I am increasingly of the opinion that 18th century woodsmen didn’t really consider knives important weapons, at least not in the way that people in the centuries before and after did. Some of this may have been cultural - by the 19th century, Britons preferred to use their fists to settle disputes and considered knife-fighting an unmanly habit suitable only for  hot-headed Latins, and I suspect that this trended started in the 18th century. (Note that Jim Bowie spent a lot of time in French and Spanish territory…) That is why folks were mostly happy to use weak-tanged butcher knives and folders. If they wanted a specialized fighting blade, they bought themselves a sword.

BTW, swords do show up on the frontier among both whites and Indians. I don’t think that they were all that common, but they were an option and folks used them on occasion. Squire Boone carried a silver-mounted small sword and killed at least one Indian with it.


And a personal note:
I think that I have been contradicting you a whole lot on recent threads, Artificer. I am not trying to be deliberately contrary or make your life harder!


And thus concludes my long, rambling post.

Elnathan
 

[Artificer]

Concerning Shields:
“Zulu shields are almost identical to the dueling shields used in Talhoffer”  You really aren’t serious about that are you?  Tolhoffer DUELING shields are much larger, heavier, have special hooks and angles, have a huge long central boss that even the engravings show were to be used with both hands to be most effective, and are very specialized shields QUITE different from Zulu shields. However, the reason I simply mentioned the Zulu’s originally was the “dreaded British soldier with his bayonet” came up against a fighting style he (collectively) did not know how to fight and got slaughtered.  I’ll say no more about Zulu shields as we could go on and on and it isn’t germane to our time period.

An excellent example of British Regulars using bayonets extremely effectively in our time period was at the battle of Culloden 1745 and that battle teaches many things.  Even though many of the Jacobite Scots were better armed, trained and experienced in close combat than the British: they lost because the British held their formations with great discipline and countered the Scots by angling their bayonets to attack a Scot to their side rather than the one in front of them.  This got their bayonets in between the Scot’s Targes (shields) from the side where the Scots were not used to defending.  For the British to have successfully used that tactic demonstrates extreme discipline and confidence/faith that the British soldier beside you is GOING to stab the enemy (Jacobite in this case) in front of YOU and thus not leave you exposed.  It also requires an unwavering commitment to holding your formation and that is KEY to using bayonets effectively. 

Concerning Bushy Run:
You dismiss the Scottish Warrior culture as being mostly of the upper class and while that would true of ENGLISH society of the time, it wasn’t as true of the Highland Scots.  Yes, their upper class of the Scots had better and more weapons and had more financial resources to take more time to train.  However; they also retained larger numbers of men whose only profession was the use of arms.  Also, because of the Uprisings, Inter Clan warfare, raids, skirmishes and yes even cattle stealing; the Highland warrior culture ran further down Scottish society than the English.  Even the lowest Highland peasants had more familiarity with the Lochaber axe than their English counterparts had with military weapons.  (Lowland Scots were more like their English counterparts and that distinction should be made AND even they often considered the Highlanders as barbarians.) 

PLUS we can not forget that at the Battle of Culloden, there were many Highlanders who fought FOR the British.  It has been said that there were close to or as many Highlanders who fought there for the British as the Jacobites against them.  (To this day, the Lairds of my Clan, Clan Campbell have made a HUGE distinction they were on the British side at Culloden.) 

Now, many clansmen (from both sides) and especially after the 1746 Act of Proscription,  whose only profession had been the profession of arms (besides the upper class sons who would not inherit the family fortune) joined the Highland Regiments that fought here in the Seven Years war.  So, yes, those Highland Regiments drew on much more experienced men at arms of a warrior culture than was common in other English Regiments’ recruits.  Finally, this depth of martial expertise had faded in the next generation, who had been raised under the Act of Proscription, so while the Highland Regiments who fought here in the Revolutionary War retained their Regiment’s Traditions, the recruits in those years had far less warrior experience to draw on than the Highland Regiments of the Seven Years War.
 
Concerning the William Henry Massacre:
The fact the French had promised protection to the British only goes so far as they only assigned what around 200 French Soldiers to protect them?  You miss the fact the English BROKE their disciplined bayonet formations and RAN after the NA attacks..  This is somewhat remarkable as British Regulars were TRAINED to receive fire from the enemy while waiting orders to fire or charge with bayonets.   Some accounts state that when Colonel Munro arrived at Fort Edward, he only had about 500 with him and that included women, children and sutlers – though many more filtered in over the following days/weeks.  Probably the only thing that saved more of the British from being hunted down and slaughtered or enslaved was the fact Oswego had taught the NA’s that prisoners were far more valuable than scalps.

I mentioned a lot about 18th and 19th century drill manuals and my experience with them and with muskets and bayonets of the time periods and all you commented on was the M16 was not a good weapon with a bayonet?  Well, very well.  The point I was making was I had in fact trained with muskets and bayonets and wooden weapons in more combative training with them and used that knowledge to better train myself and modern Marines using the best points of the earlier styles.  So yes I do have a lot of practical experience from which to base my points.

As to tomhawks vs bayonets in general:
“For example, if I recall correctly there is a British account from the Revolutionary war that describes  "hunting" riflemen with bayonets at dusk when poor visibility made it easier for the redcoats to get close without being shot.”

One has to REALLY be careful not to make too much of this quote because it was most likely made by a blowhard braggart or buffoon, who I most seriously doubt EVER went “hunting riflemen” at such times.  While it’s true in an age before electric lights that British Regulars would have been able to operate more effectively at night than in modern times, British Regulars had nothing of the experience Riflemen did in operating at night or in poor light conditions.  Such conditions would have made if very difficult AT BEST to maintain tight/disciplined formations that was the STRENGTH of bayonet armed Regulars.  In fact it would have disrupted formations and made them more vulnerable to individual attack, taking away much of their advantage.  Once the formations broke up, the advantage would have gone to Riflemen who were used to operating at night in hostile areas before the War and could easily close with them where the length of reach of the bayonet no longer mattered or indeed would have been a disadvantage.  This information does not come from just book knowledge, but practical knowledge in my case.  I did a lot of raccoon hunting at night growing up and we never used lights to move around, only to actually shoot the raccoon.  When I was in Infantry Training Regiment after boot camp, I was stunned at how many of my much senior Instructors who had all done at least one or two tours in Nam in the Infantry, had far less knowledge of operating at night than I.  British Regulars who were used to Sentry Duty at night and did not have much experience at night operationally, would have had a gross disadvantage in such a situation compared to American Riflemen.

Now it is absolutely true Riflemen ran before confronting large disciplined formations of Bayonet wielding Regulars, especially early in the Rev War.   Of course so did our Musket wielding soldiers and even our Provincial Regulars who had bayonets, all too often.  It was suicide for Riflemen to close in attack bayonet wielding British Regulars IN DISCIPLINED FORMATION (in daylight) and I never wrote nor intended anything different.  There an attacker can not get past the British Regulars NEXT to the Regular one is attacking, as the formation is mutually supportive.  However, individual fights are a different matter.

Often Riflemen used their rifles in “clubbed musket” fashion at the beginning of close in fighting with individual Regulars.  The intention was to knock the musket away and if they hit the musket hard enough, it would have stunned the hands of the Regular holding it.  That was enough to close with the Tomahawk.  OR, they would use the front of the rifle to parry the bayonet and get in close to use the tomahawk in their other hand.  Now, if they dropped or broke their rifle, then they would have pulled the knife to use in one hand while the tomahawk in the other.  I realize I did not make that clear, because it is a “no brainer” to me, but I failed to mention it nonetheless. 

Perhaps the most demonstrative example of the value of the tomahawk for the military for this discussion is the fact that in 1759, British Light Infantry began carrying belt axes and did so throughout the Rev War.  These were the soldiers the British used most often against Riflemen in the Rev War and they would often leave their bayonets behind when going out on scout or to confront Riflemen outside pitched battles.  Now of course they retained their bayonets to use in pitched “regular” battles as protection especially against cavalry.  Had they not appreciated the use of a hand held belt axe/tomahawk as a fighting weapon, they would not have issued them in the numbers they did to Light Infantry who already had bayonets, RATHER they would have just carried a far lesser number of axes to use for chores.

OK, you keep implying that no written accounts mean so much.  Very well, where are the accounts explaining how NA’s used stone war clubs, or the ball head clubs?  Where such accounts ARE mentioned and they are darn few, they never mention how the weapons were used other than to occasionally mention hitting someone in the head.  If one goes by those accounts, alone, one gets the impression that NA’s were not much more than cavemen or stupid barbarians.  We know they were far more intelligent and sophisticated than that.  Indeed our very system of the 13 Colonies joining to become one nation was directly copied from the Iroquois Confederation by no less an authority than Benjamin Franklin.  How did they have time to do and administer that if they were on the type of barely subsistance culture you seem to be maintaining they were? 

We surely know NA’s had far more than subsistence level cultures if nothing less than by the number of warriors they fielded in these wars and often allied with European Settlers against other NA tribes.  Kieft's War (1643–1645) , French and Iroquois Wars (mid-17th century),  King Philip's War (1675–1676) , Tuscarora War (1711–1715, Yamasee War (1715–1717), Chickasaw Wars (1720–1760), Natchez War(1729–1731), Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–64).

Stone war clubs were not used “just to bash in the other caveman’s head” by NA’s.  If one thinks about it for only a few moments, it is easy to visualize they fully realized there would be opportunities to use it to take out an elbow or knee cap or crush ribs, or trip an opponent or a number of different ways to use it in the attack or defense.  If they did not realize it, they DIED from those who spent more than a few moments in figuring out different ways of using them offensively and defensively.  IOW, when that is your main hand to hand weapon, human beings figure out how to use them even if they wind up being “taught” by others who know how to use them well and you are on the losing side, but are lucky enough to survive.  In a culture where warfare is common, even limited guerilla type or raids, you either pass on those techniques by training your youth or the tribe dies out.  This did not happen just in NA cultures on this continent, but all over the world in different ages.  Further, NA oral traditions tell of training their young men for war.  I honestly can not understand anyone who must have written evidence to back up what is so obviously an anthropological fact repeated many times all over the world in different ages.

OK, so now comes iron tomahawks from the Europeans.  How long did it take NA’s to figure out you could use them to even better hook an arm or leg in close combat than a stone club?  Hey, they didn’t crack like a stone club would do more easily (though Iron tomahawks/belt axes could and did crack at times, especially when the welding was poor.)  Is it so hard to conceive they would use their older techniques and see what new techniques they could now employ?  Do you really need written documentation and if so, you must explain how NA’s suddenly went stupid everywhere they got the iron tomahawks against anthropological fact. 

As to the use of knives in combat, it all depends on what kind of knife you have.  If all you have is a stone knife, then you would use it, but not as a preferred weapon of choice like a stone war club.  We have to remember that even the best knives available in the 17th and 18th centuries (and later) from Europeans were no where near as sharp as flint knives.  The reason NA’s took to iron/steel knives was they didn’t break as easily as flint knives.  Does that mean they totally discarded flint knives/tools when iron ones came along?  No, they continued to use them for skinning, butchering, scraping hides for tanning and other uses where the sharper edge was useful.  However, now with an iron knife, they had a knife strong enough it would not break easily and could be used as a weapon. 

Now I imagine the some NA enemy who was used to using only a stone war club or tomahawk was extremely surprised the first time another NA used both his war club or tomahawk AND a knife to fight against him.  If the surprised NA managed to survive that hand to hand account, I’m sure he would have thought about or used an iron knife the same way, if and when he got his hands on an iron knife.   The guy with the iron knife now had a survival advantage, though of course the NA might and probably would not have thought about it that way. 

I am at a loss to understand your extrapolation of British Culture on American Frontier culture to come to a conclusion that knives were never or rarely used in fighting.  While it’s true that knife fights would have been extremely rare in the well settled areas of the tidewater regions of the colonies, it probably has more to do with the fact that if they carried a knife at all, it was more likely a folding knife or penny knife.  Now, society in the tidewater regions was more “civilized” or likened to British society than on the frontier.  (As LATE as the Rev War, many people did not want to move the Virginia Capital to Richmond because Richmond was known as “a den of filthy Scots.”  This because Williamsburg folk thought of themselves as British and still thought of Scots as barbarians, but also because society was “rougher” around Richmond than in the more settled Williamsburg. )

Now I’m sure if you walked around Williamsburg (or other good sized colonial towns/cities) with a trade knife or English Scalper on your belt as an everyday item, that might have gotten some tongues wagging, as common wearing of a knife on a belt had stopped in English society during the Tudor period.  This even though small swords and or military swords would have not gotten a second glance. 

The further one went from the settled/civilized areas, the more likely one would have seen trade knives or scalpers on the belts of at least some of the men.  It was mainly a tool to them, though they might not have worn them every day.  Of course carrying something as valuable as a knife on your person to prevent loss or theft was not unreasonable.  The closer one got to the frontier in hostile territories, the more common it was to see a tomahawk/belt axe or knife or both on men, especially in times of hostile actions.
“Notes on the settlement and Indian wars of the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, from 1763 to 1783, inclusive: together with a view of the state of society, and manners of the first settlers of the western country:  http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/text-idx?c=pitttext;view=toc;idno=00age8892m   

As to swords, I never wrote or implied that some swords were not on the frontier.  Matter of fact what I wrote in regard to using a cut down sword for a knife was “one has to be careful to use a sword that was actually available in this country at that time and not some later sword or hilt.”   

Gus

[heinz]

Gus, very well said.

[Artificer]

Heinz,
Thank you for the kind words.

Dennis,
I realize the following information is a bit too early for your ancestor AND it is about New England frontiersmen who joined Rogers’ Rangers in the Seven Years War.  

However, it is even more elegant proof that when frontiersmen went to war, they valued both the tomahawk/belt axe and knife as vital equipment.  I’m not sure if the scalping knives mentioned here were “English Scalpers,” though it seems at least likely if not probable they were.

An original/period description of Rogers' Rangers at Halifax in the summer of 1757.
 
These light troops have, at present, no particular uniform, only they wear their cloaths short, and are armed with a firelock, tomahock, or small hatchet, and a scalping knife; a bullock’ horn full of powder hangs under their right arm, by a belt from the left shoulder; and a leathern, or seal’s skin bag, buckled round their waist, which hangs down before, contains bullets, and a smaller shot, of the size of full-grown peas: six or seven of which with a ball, they generally load; and their Officers usually carry a small compass fixed in the bottoms of their powderhorns, by which they direct them, when they happen to lose themselves in the woods.

From: An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America for the Years 1757, 1758, 1759 and 1760 in three volumes. By Captain John Knox

Gus

[Elnathan]

Artificer,

I didn't say much about your experiences with muskets because I didn't see it - All I saw was your military-related stuff. If you really have sparred tomahawk against musket and discovered that a tomahawk works well against a musket, then I may have to rethink my position. I wish you would explain, though, how to parry a bayonet thrust with a tomahawk in such a way that doesn't require a great deal of skill or luck. As far as I can tell, as long as the bayonet guy doesn’t allow the tomahawk guy to slip past his point, he has all the advantage - he can strike while remaining out of range, and his thrusts are going to be fast and difficult to parry, while the poor tomahawk guy has to move into his opponent’s ideal distance and evade or parry a thrust with a short, top-heavy weapon not made for such things before he can even think of moving in close enough to strike back.

Re Shields:
Talhoffer's shields use the same basic shape, proportions, grip type, and are close in size to earlier Zulu ones - in other words, virtually identical in the aspects that we were debating. The points and hooks are just a bit of flash and don't change the essential characteristic of the weapons. No, they don't have to be used with both hands -most of Talhoffer's plates show them being used in conjunction with a sword.

As for your basic point, that is exactly what I was contesting: Isandlwana was not a case of being unfamiliar with the Zulu way of war (although British ignorance and arrogance was a contributing factor) - it was a demonstration of what happen when an army that specializes in firepower is forced to fight hand-to-hand with foes that specialize in hand-to-hand fighting and had better weapons for fighting hand-to-hand. Hence my point that shields gave Zulus a big advantage. It was also intended to remind folks that Zulus were armed quite differently than an American Indian, and can't be used as evidence for Indian superiority in hand-to-hand combat.


Re Bushy Run, Culloden, and Scots in general:
Interestingly enough, we still aren’t sure what happened at Culloden - the bayonet to the side business may have been countered by the simple expedient of  moving the targe around to the opposite side of the body (using the exact same principle from Talhoffer that I have been talking about, BTW, and illustrated in an eye-witness drawing from the battle), most of the Scots may not have had a sword or even a dirk, some of them were using bayonets, and they may have actually broken the English line anyway.

As for the Scottish warrior culture in general, I can only observe that about 95% of everything published in the popular press for the last 200 years about Highland Scotland seems to be unmitigated BS. I am not even sure that historians even really consider the Highland Scots to have had a single unified culture these days (Something I read in the Oxford Companion to Scottish History when doing some research into the medieval Scottish economy recently) . So I tend to be really cautious about assuming that just because someone came from a “warrior culture” necessarily means that he himself bad@ss personal skills.

Still, even if the Scots were all they are cracked up to be, it doesn’t disprove my point that line infantry with bayonets could and did clobber Indians armed with ‘hawks and clubs.

William Henry:
I am trying to find some better sources than those I have found online (My library doesn’t have Steele or Starbuck’s books, alas - It does have Fred Anderson’s Crucible of War, though, and he is an excellent historian. It is on the way.) However, what I have found suggests that the massacre was quite different from what you seem to be describing - There was no single, big attack on the British column, but a bunch of killing when the Indians started to run riot in the hospitals and baggage train. This was before the British even left. When they did attack the column it was at the very tail end, the front wasn’t even aware of what happened, continuing on and leaving the rearguard in disarray.  The British were not able to defend themselves, not because their bayonets were inadequate, but because it wasn’t an overt attack per se and they did not know how to respond because they had surrendered (or even that it was happening in some cases). It looks suspiciously like the Indians did, in fact, avoid the regulars with fixed bayonets in favor of attacking the camp followers, sick, and wounded.

Tomahawks and bayonets:

There is abundant evidence, from both sides, that the riflemen were not able to stand up to a bayonet charge. Are you contesting this? If you are , I'll give you points for originality - most folks who don't want to accept that just try to tell me that the riflemen would shoot  all the redcoats from 200 yards away.

Often Riflemen used their rifles in “clubbed musket” fashion at the beginning of close in fighting with individual Regulars. The intention was to knock the musket away and if they hit the musket hard enough, it would have stunned the hands of the Regular holding it. That was enough to close with the Tomahawk. OR, they would use the front of the rifle to parry the bayonet and get in close to use the tomahawk in their other hand. Now, if they dropped or broke their rifle, then they would have pulled the knife to use in one hand while the tomahawk in the other. I realize I did not make that clear, because it is a “no brainer” to me, but I failed to mention it nonetheless.

That is a very detailed description of how they fought. How do you know this?
Also, I always understood that the Light Infantry dropped the sword in favor of the hatchet, not the bayonet. Can you give me a citation for your assertion that the Light Infantry dropped the bayonet when fighting riflemen?


Indians
In the Beaver Wars of the late 17th century, the Iroquois became very good at assaulting fortified villages. Assaulting fortifications villages seems to have been a normal part of pre-Colombian warfare in North America, as a matter of fact. Yet, by the second half of the 18th century, Indians seem to have lost their ability to take walls - as a matter of fact, not a single white fort along the frontier was ever taken by direct assault with the aid of other whites. Consider also archery: By the 18th century, the Iroquois had largely forgotten how to even make bows and arrows, much less use them proficiently. So yes, it is entirely possible that some skills were allowed to atrophy when their importance waned - we have actual examples of it happening.

Does that apply to martial arts? I don’t know. What I do know is that  1) no one has yet to produce a citation mentioning a particular form of fighting unique to the frontier, white or Indian (part from gouging eyes out in wrestling!) 2) The exact same thing happened in European culture, you have mentioned a couple times - Armies stopped drilling troops in hand-to-hand fighting! 3) Most of the descriptions of frontier fights I have read that involve the use of the tomahawk aren’t duels - they are for finishing off  wounded or fleeing men (and for killing women and children. Of course.) If that was really the most common use for a blade, perhaps the need for learning sophisticated hand-to-hand techniques simply wasn’t there and training time could be spent teaching youngsters how to avoid being in a position where they had to fight hand-to-hand with an equal opponent.

Did they teach kids how to fight? Of course! I even pointed out that we have period accounts of people drilling with the tomahawk. The issue is how much emphasis they put on it as a general thing, compared with  other aspects of warfare and thus how sophisticated their training was.

Of course, what I really want to know is where the using the knife and ‘hawk together thing came from. You keep writing as if this is a proven fact, but I have yet to see a cite for it, and, if it was common technique, that is REALLY something that would have been noticed by observers - it is completely alien to contemporary European martial arts (rapier and dagger fighting having disappeared generations earlier).

Knives

I was just pointing out that, given that the most common knife along the frontier was a type that you yourself say is inadequate for fighting and the second most popular variety was various types of folding knife, also not very useful for fighting, then perhaps folks might want to consider the possibility that people who were happy to use knives in adequate for fighting may not have been terribly concerned with fighting with knives.  Occam’s Razor and all that.
I mentioned changing British attitudes towards knife-fighting because the white frontiersmen were, in fact, culturally British, and culture does have a pretty big influence on how people approach warfare. Thus, attitudes in Britain might help explain why they didn't act the way we think they ought to have acted. The Indians, of course, probably didn’t see knives as important weapons prior to the introduction of steel tools, clubs and bows being so much more useful than a flint knife,  and may not have seen any reason to change their minds when tomahawks were available. Possibly…

Of course, we could just assume that both Indians and white frontiersmen were too stupid and primitive to find something better.

Oh, and the sword comment was not actually addressed to you, but to the other folks reading this. I have to point out that you mentioned of swords in the context of cut-down knives, not as weapons in their own right, though.



Well, our posts just get longer and longer without any end in sight, and I have already spent a lot more time than I wanted to spend writing out my end of things. I may not write any more here for a bit.

Elnathan

[Artificer]

There are two main things one has to do against a period pointed bayonet armed opponent when using a tomahawk or tomahawk and knife.  You are correct the first is getting past the point because there is no cutting edge on those bayonets that would be used to slash.  When you get past the point, then you must guard against a butt stroke from the opponent’s musket, though that technique was not taught in the period drill manuals at that time and would have been a natural, though untrained movement.  (Actually, the same things are true when both opponents have muskets and period bayonets.)

Eighteenth century drill manuals showed a few ways to make stabbing attacks with the bayonet, but emphasis on footwork and balance was cursory at best or non existent. Some of the stabbing techniques are VERY difficult to hold balance even when one practices them a lot AND if used and the bayonet point did not find its proper target, would have left one dangerously overextended/ very off balance.  I swear that some of the stabbing techniques shown were all for show on the drill field, but very impractical for actual combat use.

In the 18th century, the emphasis was placed on holding tight formations so it was extremely difficult to get past the point of one soldier opposing you without getting stabbed by the soldier next to him.  What those period manuals expected, and what often actually happened, was a well disciplined bayonet charge with a tight formation was so terrifying and so difficult to break through, that less disciplined opponents usually ran and did not stand and fight.  (Sticking a bayonet in the back of a retreating soldier did not require as much finesse as fighting one facing you with the musket and bayonet.)

The Highlander’s method of going up against ranks of bayonets was when he charged and got close, he would drop his left knee slightly and use the targe to deflect the  bayonet, then stab upwards with his sword into the groin or belly of the musket/bayonet armed soldier. This from “Scottish Swords from the Battlefield of Culloden.”  By Lord Archibald Campbell.  The Commander of the British force, the Duke of Cumberland, took special time to train his army after he took over Edinburgh and that’s where he trained his infantry to stab to the oblique to offset the Highlander’s tactic mentioned above.  Some of this information is in “ The Swords and the Sorrows” and some in many of the other books I have or have read on the subject over the last 35 years.  Now Cumberland’s superior artillery tore holes through the Highlanders and when the Highlanders could not break the British Infantry, British Cavalry tore into them from the flank and broke them.

I do not plan on continually rewriting things I have written in earlier posts, but it seems another thing you missed was my point that Riflemen attacking disciplined ranks of bayonet wielding soldiers in formation and in the daylight was suicide.  I won’t retype that all again other than to say either you go back and read it, or there is no point in more discussion.  I further wrote that to be effective, the Rifleman fought individual bayonet armed soldiers, IOW not those in formation.  This is where one CAN move around and get the opponent off balance and especially since the bayonet armed soldier was not taught by the manuals and may not or did not have the experience of fighting individually. 

Both the tomahawk and good sized knife can be used to block the bayonet point whilst attacking with the weapon in the other hand, especially when the bayonet armed soldier is not trained to move effectively.  The key is NOT to attack him directly from the front, but work in against him on the side.  Same sort of thing or very similar to what one has to do when fighting with a tomahawk against an opponent armed with a tomahawk or stone axe/ball club against a similar weapon and when both opponents have somewhat equal skills.  (We proved this when using wooden weapons simulating a tomahawk and knife.)  However, it is more difficult when the musket armed soldier is trained by 19th century manuals on HOW to move, block, parry and thrust with the bayonet as outlined in McClellan’s Bayonet manual that was directly taken from the French manual of I think the 1830’s or 40’s.  I do not recall the quote exactly, but McMillan’s Manual talks about how one French Sergeant killed I think 11 opponents with the musket and bayonet in one battle because he was trained in these techniques.   I know I learned QUITE a few things from McClellan’s Bayonet Manual I was never taught in bayonet training or pugil stick fighting. 

Yes, skills atrophy and are lost when they are little no longer used as in losing the skills of bow and arrows when the NA’s went to guns.  However, they never lost the skill of using the stone axe or ball club as they continued to use that in hand to hand fighting after they got guns and then used the older skills and added new ways of using the sharp blade and hook of the iron tomahawk (when the tomahawk or belt axe had that shape under the blade as not all of them did) or use the blade on the backs of some tomahawks that had them.

That’s enough for tonight.
Gus

[Artificer]

Cuthbertson's System for the Complete Interior Management and Oeconomy of a Battalion of Infantry, by Captain Bennett Cuthbertson.. (The work first appeared in 1768 and was reprinted for use in the American Revolutionary War.) Had this to say about the use of Infantry Swords/Hangers by enlisted men in the Seven Years War. (Note:  I could not copy paste it and had to type this all out going back and forth from the online manual.  I took the liberty of changing the lettering to modern style to make it easier to read.  I may have made some mistakes, though I did not intend such.)  If one wishes to read a copy of the original, here’s the link:  http://books.google.com/books?id=1SxEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true

QUOTE:  “The great incumbrance of swords upon a March, in point of weight their well known inconvenience in Action, or at Exercise, and in general, their answering no real end in Quarters, that a bayonet could not supply, undoubtedly pointed out to all Regiments in the late war, the necessity of taking them from the Battalion Companies, and as they have not since been restored, it is probable, that they will forever be laid aside, as an useless weapon; why they were continued to the Grenadiers of the Army, more than to the Hat-Men, and why they are still expected to be kept up to them alone, is something strange, and it is clear, the very same inconvenience, which arises to one in wearing of a sword, must of course,  in every respect to the other; the difficulty of being able to fix a solid argument, in favour of this distinction, leaves room for supposing, that whim (as in many other things) supports the custom; therefore, that has been gratified for a few years, the Grenadiers may, perhaps,  be disemcumbered from these unmeaning implements, as well as from the match-safes and cords, which are deemed by many so essential a part of their appointments, although the use of Hand-Grenades has long since been discontinued in the use of the British Army, nor would it be an easy task to find a Grenadier existing, who was ever acquainted or instructed, in the exercise of what first gave rise to the wearing of the match-safe.” 

Note:  Cuthbertson DOES go on to say that drummers and fifers needed a sword as that was their ONLY protection as well as mentioning some use by Non Commissioned Officers. 

Further, and here’s a real stickler, swords require more specialized training to become proficient with than did bayonet mounted muskets for recruits and troops who had not been trained in the use of the sword prior to enlistment.  No doubt the reason Cuthbertson mentioned as the “great incumbrance” of swords by most foot soldiers. 

So, swords were not just taken from those assigned as Light Infantry, but RATHER most of the foot soldiers in the Regiments who were armed with the King’s Arm and bayonet.  Though some original accounts MAY say the belt axe was issued to replace the swords taken from the Light Infantry (though most of this is later reasoning/speculation), this clearly points out the use of the sword was not even regarded as necessary or useful for MOST foot soldiers in the Seven Years War – including the Light Infantry, who were armed with the bayonet.  (Yet another example of how one should not take too much from some original quotes.)

So THEN the question becomes WHY did they really go to the expense of supplying the Light Infantry with belt axes as a weapon that was not needed IF one believes so strongly in the use of the bayonet? 

My speculation is that in different types of terrain, it would have been very difficult to USE the bayonet in brush, areas with many small trees or tall grass/weeds/plant growth, possibly also on ground where sure footing was not as possible as in rocky areas, swamps, hills, etc.  So carrying a tomahawk as a weapon of choice in areas that would have made it difficult to use a bayonet seems to me a “no brainer.” 
Gus

[AtlLaw]

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I find this discussion is absolutely fascinating!  

Thanks Artificer, Elnathan and all the rest of you knowledgeable folk!  

[Artificer]

Elnathan,
 
Your casual dismissal of what was a brilliant tactic on the part of the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden is very telling. 

Cumberland had The Black Watch under his command at the battle of Fontenoy slightly more than a year before Culloden and though that battle was lost to the French, Cumberland was so impressed with the bravery of those Scots that he looked to increase the numbers of them in the British Army.  This of course means he had first hand knowledge of Highlanders and at least some of their tactics and would use some of that knowledge against the Jacobite Scots at Culloden.  Though history does not record HOW he came up with the tactic, and it well may have been at least in part with from having watched them fight at Fontenoy, he devised or adopted a new tactic that had theretofore not been used against the Highlanders.  Heck, he may have not come up with it himself, but may have taken advice from Scots in his forces while he was on campaign in Scotland.  Cumberland had three companies of Lord Loudon’s Highlanders and one company of the Black Watch in his Army at Culloden from which to draw advice.   

What we DO know is Cumberland took the time to TRAIN his men at Edinburgh in the new tactic before Culloden, so it was not something done “off the cuff” or “on the spot” at Culloden.  Thus his Army was PREPARED to use a new tactic against tactics Scots normally or regularly used.  This “new tactic” was just one part of his strategy of much more effectively using his artillery and cavalry, though.

The Jacobite Scots that attacked the British Infantry at Culloden, had much more experience in fighting with swords in real combat, than any of us today have.  Had there have been “a simple” way to counter the new tactic, I’m sure they would have done it and perhaps and probably some few did come up with some ways “on the spot,”  However, the Jacobite Scots were surprised the British did NOT break and run AND the British had come up with a way to counter their usual method of attack.  That broke the impetus of their charge and stalled them left them open to attack by Cavalry on their flank.  MAYBE and even probably, had the Jacobites not suffered such a defeat and only lost a skirmish; THEY would have been more ready for and better prepared to fight “the new tactic” in the “next battle.”  However, there was no second chance for the Jacobite Scots so we will never know. 

The tactics I described used by riflemen in hand to hand fighting can not be found in any single source.  Rather, we get a glimpse here and there from accounts of frontier fighting and in some fights during the Seven Years War and Rev War.  But that is how history was written and NOT with detailed accounts of minutae, that we would appreciate today.  IF detailed accounts WERE to be found, we would expect them from British Military Reports on bayonet fighting because they did reports and were literate.  However, such reports didn’t include detailed accounts and usually used terms like “gave them the bayonet,” or “drove them off with the bayonet,” or dispersed them with the bayonet.”  Hence, we don’t have even have detailed accounts even about that. 

As to the vaunted abilities of the British Regular using the bayonet and the fact they were regulars and had received training in it, their “aura of invincibility” was crushed at the Battle of Monmouth.  The British/Hessians had about 10,000 troops while the Americans had about 11,000.  Prior to the instruction of the American Army at Valley Forge, those odds would have favored the British and almost certainly meant their victory.  Though the battle was a draw, with good training for only a few months, the Americans could now fight effectively against them.

Your quote: “I was just pointing out that, given that the most common knife along the frontier was a type that you yourself say is inadequate for fighting and the second most popular variety was various types of folding knife, also not very useful for fighting, then perhaps folks might want to consider the possibility that people who were happy to use knives in adequate for fighting may not have been terribly concerned with fighting with knives.”

Wait a minute, that is incorrectly paraphrasing what I wrote.  I pointed out that some cheaper trade knives with very short tangs that we would consider “for kitchen use,” would not have made   very good fighting knives.  I stand by that, though any knife is better than no knife.  Then I wrote of the various style tangs and how strong they would have been for a fighting knife.   However, I also pointed out the “type” of trade knife that had a half or better still 2/3 tangs and were known as “Scalpers” would have been effective and so suggested to Dennis to emulate his ancestor.  Scalping Knives were imported in great numbers as well.

We are fortunate to have the SLIGHTLY detailed original account I mentioned earlier of the equipment carried by Roger’s Rangers.  That account mentioned that every Ranger was armed with a Scalping Knife.  Such uniformity in mainly non-uniformly or slightly uniform equipped troops, exquisitely demonstrates the regard for how important they were to the Rangers for war.  Now it may be argued that the primary use of those scalping knives were as frontier survival tools.  I won’t argue against that, but THEN it also demonstrates just how important knives were to those used to frontier life and that means they would have been common on at least the furthest frontiers, as I already pointed out. 
Gus

[Elnathan]

Elnathan,
 
Your casual dismissal of what was a brilliant tactic on the part of the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden is very telling.

Laurie and Whittle's print "The Battle of Culloden," first issued a year after the battle in 1747, shows the highlanders assaulting the British line. The highlander closest to the viewer is getting stabbed, the one right behind him is deflecting a bayonet through the simple expedient of moving his shield around to his right side, using the Inside Ward. Unfortunately, the only large online print I can find is this one, which isn't really big enough:   
http://c0728562.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/CH081045_HR.jpg

The highlander in question is down towards the bottom right, (And before you ask how I know what he is doing, that detail is reproduced in SPADA I, page 84, which is right next to me as I type this. Otherwise I couldn't tell either)

So, my "casual dismissal," as you put it, is merely the observation that we have a contemporary print - one OK'd by Cumberland himself IIRC - that shows the highlanders defeating the tactic under discussion using a very basic move that seems to have been a couple thousand years old at the time. I have even seen it suggested that Cumberland's training in tactic of thrusting to the side was intended to bolster his own men’s confidence in each other rather than something he expected to be particularly effective in battle. I also observed that we actually aren’t sure how many highlanders were actually carrying swords (possibly very few), that at least a couple hundred were using bayonets, and they may even have penetrated the British line despite all this. Ergo, since it is still unclear what actually happened at Culloden, perhaps neither of us should be trying to use it as evidence.

This is particularly true, since the British did not use tight formations in the Americas, at least not after the Battle of Concord (and for much of the Seven Years War, I believe), and thus whatever the British did while in tight formation at Culloden can’t be used as evidence for what happened over here.

The tactics I described used by riflemen in hand to hand fighting can not be found in any single source.  Rather, we get a glimpse here and there from accounts of frontier fighting and in some fights during the Seven Years War and Rev War.  But that is how history was written and NOT with detailed accounts of minutae, that we would appreciate today.  IF detailed accounts WERE to be found, we would expect them from British Military Reports on bayonet fighting because they did reports and were literate.  However, such reports didn’t include detailed accounts and usually used terms like “gave them the bayonet,” or “drove them off with the bayonet,” or dispersed them with the bayonet.”  Hence, we don’t have even have detailed accounts even about that. 

You keep writing that things were done a certain way, and when asked to produce some evidence, plead that they didn’t write things down.  That isn’t terribly encouraging. Yes, I know they didn’t write  a lot of stuff down. My M.A. is in Medieval European history - I wrote my thesis on some socio-cultural aspects of Anglo-Saxon Warfare AD 600-800 - so I am quite used to working with very limited evidence. My problem is that you keep advancing what looks remarkably like speculation as demonstrable fact. If you are making a guess, say so and explain why you think that your guess is a good one.

As to the vaunted abilities of the British Regular using the bayonet and the fact they were regulars and had received training in it, their “aura of invincibility” was crushed at the Battle of Monmouth.  The British/Hessians had about 10,000 troops while the Americans had about 11,000.  Prior to the instruction of the American Army at Valley Forge, those odds would have favored the British and almost certainly meant their victory.  Though the battle was a draw, with good training for only a few months, the Americans could now fight effectively against them.

Okay. I tend to think that the ability of the Americans to maneuver effectively under fire and their much better unit cohesion had a lot more to do with American success than bayonet training, but even if it wasn't, the fact that bayonets are easy to use is one reason why I think that they were a very effective (and underrated) weapon.

As for the abilities if the British regulars, they won 85% of the battles they were engaged in. Kind of hard to argue with that kind of success.

Wait a minute, that is incorrectly paraphrasing what I wrote.  I pointed out that some cheaper trade knives with very short tangs that we would consider “for kitchen use,” would not have made   very good fighting knives.  I stand by that, though any knife is better than no knife.  Then I wrote of the various style tangs and how strong they would have been for a fighting knife.   However, I also pointed out the “type” of trade knife that had a half or better still 2/3 tangs and were known as “Scalpers” would have been effective and so suggested to Dennis to emulate his ancestor.  Scalping Knives were imported in great numbers as well.

We are fortunate to have the SLIGHTLY detailed original account I mentioned earlier of the equipment carried by Roger’s Rangers.  That account mentioned that every Ranger was armed with a Scalping Knife.  Such uniformity in mainly non-uniformly or slightly uniform equipped troops, exquisitely demonstrates the regard for how important they were to the Rangers for war.  Now it may be argued that the primary use of those scalping knives were as frontier survival tools.  I won’t argue against that, but THEN it also demonstrates just how important knives were to those used to frontier life and that means they would have been common on at least the furthest frontiers, as I already pointed out. 
Gus

Point 1:  I wasn’t paraphrasing you. I was pointing out that you yourself agree that knives of that design are inadequate as fighting knives.

Point 2: Knives of that design (1/3 tang - not going into difference between British and French tangs here) ARE what were known as “scalping knives,” as far as anyone can tell.  They were by far the most common type of knives imported in the 18th century (17th century knives were different).  There were some rat-tailed tanged types made too, but they have relatively short tangs (I just made a drawing of one that has a 2 ¾” tang and a 6 5/16” blade).  I have seen maybe one scalper-type with a tang larger than 1/3 or so apart from post-Revolutionary era cartouche knives. I don’t know where you are getting the idea that “scalper” represents anything but a generic trade knife.

On more general note, while fighting knives come in a zillion different sizes and shapes, cultures that use knives for serious fighting tend to develop designs that are unmistakably weapons - well-balanced, often very large, strong enough to take abuse, and often with some attempt to protect the hand. Apart from knives styled after hunting swords and a few daggers,  you really don’t see that kind of knife in 18th century contexts - the only candidate I know of is the Fort Ti knife, and I am not positive that it originated along the frontier. Given that neither Frontiersmen nor Indians were stupid and were quite capable getting merchants to provide what they wanted, the fact that they were happy with thin, weak-tanged knives strongly suggests that they did not see the need for anything better.

The most logical conclusion is that, while frontiersmen of all races valued their knives, occasionally fought with their knives, and probably thought of them as weapons of sorts, they didn’t place nearly as much importance in knives as weapons modern opinion would have it. The 19th century saw a huge interest in big knives, and I think that today the popular conception of the 18th century frontier has been colored by attitudes from a century later (a lot of 19th century authors writing about the 18th century include anachronistic details from their own time - Cooper is a big offender here - and I suspect that I am not the only person in this hobby that got started from reading old books!) As I pointed out earlier, the Bowie knife craze is named after a 19th century character - if big fighting knives were common before him, how come he and his knife got so much attention?

Now for things mentioned earlier.

Light infantry:

I know that the British stopped issuing swords to most of their infantry around the same time - my point was that just because Light Infantry carried hatchets doesn’t mean that they stopped carrying bayonets.

As a matter of fact, the Light Infantry corps formed for the 1758 Louisburg campaign were issued artillery carbines, as the regular muskets were too heavy for forest work, so they might not have had bayonets for that reason (Bill Ahearn, from whose book Muskets of the Revolution I got that last little fact, illustrates a carbine that looks like it takes a bayonet, but I am not 100% sure).

I know that they carried bayonets during the Revolution, and used them well.


That is enough for tonight, anyhow.

[Artificer]

I am not trying to denigrate the British Soldier and he was highly effective here due to good leadership, discipline, the use of combined arms (Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry) and in some cases experience from Continental Wars.  However, the bayonet drill taught in the manuals of the time are no where near a martial art and not much more than cursory – especially when compared to 19th century manuals.  Just because the British won most battles, does not mean they were martial artists with the bayonet in the 18th century.

As to carbines, in 1757 Montgomery’s and Frazier’s  Highlanders received 37” barreled carbines with wood rammers and bayonets instead of muskets.  The totals were slightly over 1,000 per Regiment.  By or during 1760, The Black Watch also had been armed with the same carbines, though by this time they had been made with steel rammers.  These officially were known as “Artillery” Carbines, though later came to be called “Artillery and Highlander’s Carbines” and did have bayonets with them.   The Light Infantry Carbine came out in 1760 with a 42” barrel with wooden rammers and bayonets.
This from “Small Arms of the British Forces in America, 1664-1815” by Dr. DeWitt Bailey. 

I have already explained I was taught some tomahawk and knife techniques before I jointed the Marine Corps by a NA “Helper” (as it is transcribed into English) from the oral tradition that was never written down.  My largest interest and reading from earlier documents was done in the early to mid 1980’s while I was working to better train Marines in bayonet fighting and close combat.  Since I went to many sources both in the 18th and 19th century, I can’t remember where I read the glimpses of tomahawk fighting and knife fighting from original sources.  The reason I probably don’t remember them is because it was 25 to 30 years ago and it wasn’t important to remember where I read them.  What was important was how well information from ALL earlier accounts worked in trials. 

For anyone interested in Highland Sword combat, information on Highland Regiments of the Seven years war and Revolutionary War, etc. – please see the link below.  Unfortunately the author speaks mostly to swordsmanship and skips all over the place chronologically, so it is bit hard to follow.   I would like to take two quotes from it.

“At Culloden, however, the British army did not panic. They held firm, weakened the Highland force with artillery fire and grapeshot, then met the charge with new bayonet tactics which were designed specifically to combat Highlanders. The order to charge was not given until it was too late, and most of the Highland warriors were killed by artillery or volley fire before they even reached the front line.”

And:

“The Highland broadsword system became popular in the New World. In North Carolina, Loyalist Highlanders used broadswords against the American rebels. In 1778,”

(The second quote is confirmed and fleshed out in more detail in the book, “From Savannah to Yorktown, The American Revolution in the South” by Henry Lumpkin, 1981, where I first read of it.)
  http://www.cateransociety.com/A%20Brief%20History%20of%20Scottish%20Swordplay.htm

To better illustrate my point about my preference for a longer tang,
 here is a drawing of an English Scalper along side two excavated knife blades.  My choice would be the blade on the right with the longer tang.  http://imageshack.us/f/855/4b994598b8bc13a2c04861e.jpg/

In this photo of original excavated scalpers, the second from the top MAY be French as it has a drop point, though maybe not.  My first choice of tangs would be the second, third and fourth.  My second choice would be the top length tang, though I like that blade shape better.  However, the length of the tangs from the second down to the fourth MAY be a bit shorter than manufactured, due to corrosion from having been buried in the ground.  The tang of the fifth or bottom knife is a bit short for my taste, though the width of the tang may make up for that.  However, I would certainly take the fifth knife to use in fighting if I did not have a choice of a longer tang.
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e201/nytrekker/originals/ScalpingKnives.jpg

You seem to be suggesting that all English trade knives or most English trade knives were what we usually think of today as “scalpers.”  Original accounts often say “butcher” knives as well as “Scalpers” toward the end of the 18th century.  Some trade inventories list more “scalpers” to be sure.  I suggest that is because they wanted that type of knife and it was a certain type of trade knife.  So the question becomes, where are the original accounts of what such knives actually were? 

“According to Carl P. Russell Jr. scalpers may not be what you think, as the term
"Scalping Knife" was used by fur traders of the period to designate a certain style
of knife for trade to Indians, and Russell described them as "any cheap butcher
knife." On the other hand, Charles E. Hanson, Jr. has confirmed the existence of a
specific pattern for the trade good known as "the scalping knife." In the Quarterly
Journal of the Museum of the Fur Trade, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring 1987), Hanson
illustrates and describes the knife from notes and letters of Alexander Mackenzie
& Co., a partner of the North West Company.

"These scalpers are of the simplest pattern possible-a generally straight or
very slightly curved blade 6 or 7 inches long, fairly straight and
unsharpened on the top, ending in a point from which the sharpened
bottom edge begins and runs along the bottom back to the grip, making a
curved edge suitable for skinning and slicing. The grip is a single piece of
wood split with a saw for two-thirds of its length. The short tang of the
knife blade was shoved into this split and fastened by two or three rivets
inserted into holes drilled from side to side. With a minimum of machine
polishing, the knife was completed and ready for sale."

Hanson goes on the say that "hundreds of blades of this general style have been found at fur trade sites of the 1780-1840 period."

http://www.manuellisaparty.com/articles/pfd's/Some%20Thoughts%20on%20Butchers.pdf

Now, of course the Northwest Company was not set up until 1779, but this suggests this style of “Scalper” was already well known and WAS a definite type of trade knife at that time. 

The link also quotes a Sheffield Company:

“The same company I contacted in Sheffield shows their scalper of the 1700 & 1800s as what we would recognize today as a French kitchen knife, which historically was also known as a Frenchmen’s knife.”

So, where is the original earlier documentation of an accurate description of what an “ English Scalper” was for the French and Indian War?

Enough for tonight,
Gus

[Artificer]

Oh, as to 18th century formations being tight or not, all depends on one’s perspective of what is a tight formation.  Generally in the Seven Years war it was elbows touching, but really about 6” between them.  Generally in the Rev War the distance between soldiers was 18” and not “shoulder to shoulder.”  Though in each case, the formations could be opened up when necessary.  ALSO, “Loose Order” meant two rank formations instead of the older three rank formations.

General Clinton wrote disparingly of the “loose” formations and often used Germans following them up in the earlier tight formations and three ranks.  The Germans eventually adopted the two rank formations, but still often held their formations about 6 inches between soldiers.  Seems that was a great compromise to them. Grin.

Actually, 18 inches between troops in a bayonet charge is BETTER when they went as fast as the Brits did in the charge, sort of a trot.  Not so much of a chance of troops banging into each other and/or tripping those around you.  (The Germans charged at a slower pace and kept the tighter formation.)  18 inches also gives one a little room to move the bayonet, but NOT much room for opposing forces to get between them and be effective.  Of course that also means they had less room for fancy bayonet fencing, BUT that was no problem as they didn’t teach it in the 18th century anyway. 

To me, a tight formation when charging with bayonets IS 18” between the soldiers.  I have a lot more experience with charging bayonets with 19th century drill than 18th century.  Even though distance between soldiers in that time had gone back to around 6”, the troops naturally open up to around 18 inches during the charge, which speaks to the fluidity the British achieved with that order. 

Further in modern warfare, “tight” formations of 18 inches between soldiers means one will loose a lot more soldiers to grenades and opposing fire.

Gus