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ARMS CAPTURED DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Early in any revolution the revolutionaryforces frequently obtain armsand other military stores from the government in power. The American Revolution was no exception. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities in April 1775, the British and loyalists confiscated militarystores from the possession of the colonists, and the colonial revolutionaries acquired militarystores from the British. On September 1,1774, Massachusetts^ royalgovernor, Thomas Gage, confiscated the gunpowder in the public magazine at Charleston. On December 13 of that year, American revolutionaries from New Hampshire seized British gunpower and arms from Fort William and Mary. In early 1775 Royal Governor Dunmore of Virginia requested arms and ammunition from Great Britain to help put down the growing unrest in that colony. These were to enable him to arm the loyalists, Negroes, and Indians, who were to help crush the growingrebellion. An inventory of the magazine at Williamsburg made in the spring of 1775 included the following arms: 180 new muskets 150 pistols 527 old muskets 1,500 cutlasses with scabbards 157 trading guns 35 smallswords 127 bayonets 19 halberds The British shipped an additional 3,000 muskets and 600,000 rounds of musket powder and ball to the governor. Dunmore was the first of the royal governors to abdicate, in June 1775. As the American revolutionaries took up arms, he fled with his family to the British ship Fowey in the YorkRiver, leaving both the original and the newly arrived arms to the Americans. Three weeks after the outbreak of hostilities, Fort Ticonderoga surrendered, without firing a shot, to American forces led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold. Quantities of muskets, cannon, and powder were captured and put to use by the Americans. By March 4, 1776, General Knox had transported fifty cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Washington's army on Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston. On March 17 the British Army of 8,000 men evacuated Boston, leaving 200 cannon, together with large quantities of small arms and ammunition, to the Americans. On March 14, 1776, the Continental Congress resolved: That it be recommended to the several assemblies,conventions, and councils or committees of safety of the United Colonies, immediately to cause all persons to be disarmed within their respective colonies, who are notoriously disaffected to 053. ARMS CAPTURED DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION the cause of America, or who have not associated, and shall refuse to associate, to defend, by arms, these United Colonies, against hostile attempts of the British fleets and armies; and to apply the arms taken from such persons in each respective colony, in the first place to the arming of such troops as are raised by the colony for its own defense, and the residue to be applied to arming the associations. British arms were also captured by the Americans on the high seas. On May 27, 1776, Benjamin Franklin wrote the U.S. commissioner in Canada: "I congratulate you on the great prize carried in to Boston. 75 tons of gunpowder are an excellent supply, and the 1,000 carbines with bayonets, another fine article." Military successes by the American Army resulted in the capture of more British arms as the war progressed. General Washington, after crossing the Delaware River and surprisingthe Hessian troops on the New Jersey side, turned south and captured Trenton on the day after Christmas in 1776. One thousand muskets werecaptured from the German states' forces at Trenton.Another 1,000 German states' muskets were captured by the Americans at the battle of Bennington , on August 16, 1777. On October 10, 1777, Burgoyne surrendered his army of 5,800 men at Saratoga, New York. It has been estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 British and German states' muskets were captured by the Americans. A "Return of the Ordnance and Military Stores Taken at York and Gloucester, in Virginia, by the Surrender of the British Army, on the 19th of October, 1781" prepared by Henry Knox, included 5,743 muskets with bayonets, 915 muskets without bayonets, 1,136 damaged muskets, thirty-two fusils, thirtyone carbines and brass blunderbusses, and nine iron blunderbusses. This information indicates that at least 17,000 muskets were captured by the Americans from British regular and American loyalist units and from the German states' soldiers. Because additional arms were captured in the numerous other battles of the Revolution, the actual figure may be double that. 197 ...

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