Portrait of an American Rifleman:Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child, plagued by asthma and poor eyesight. However, with the encouragement of his father, the future 26^th and youngest president embarked on a vigorous lifestyle to improve his health. Born to an affluent New York family with a mother of Savannah, Georgia aristocracy, Roosevelt used his advantages to pursue fully what he coined the “strenuous life.” Taking up boxing to increase his strength and health as a boy was the beginning of a lifelong adventurous and sporting lifestyle. He engaged in athletics of all sorts, went west to become a rancher (when the west was still somewhat wild), went on Safari in Africa, and a South American expedition. While president, Roosevelt completely lost vision in his left eye boxing a young artillery captain at the White House.¹ Perhaps Roosevelt’s most famous adventure was leading the Rough Riders during the Spanish American War. In Cuba, with the Rough Riders, he attained the nickname, “The Colonel,” a moniker he retained the rest of his life. Close friends never referred to him as “Teddy.”
As Assistant Secretary of the Navy and an ardent supporter of war with Spain, Roosevelt used his connections to form the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, which became known as the Rough Riders. The regiment was formed in Texas and was composed of cowboys, Indians, Indian fighters, Ivy League College boys, lawmen, and outlaws. The conflict in Cuba inspired ten American men to fight for every one position available and brought northerners and southerners together again for a common cause.² Lt. Colonel Roosevelt deferred the actual top command of the regiment to a more experienced officer, but gained the respect of his men and national notoriety from his exploits with the Rough Riders. Roosevelt’s experience with the Rough Riders also strengthened his belief in the importance of rifle marksmanship. In his second annual message as Governor of New York he remarked “…it should be remembered that target practice proper is the alphabet of the soldier's marksmanship. In a battle the only bullets that count are those that hit.” As president, he remarked in his annual message to Congress of 1906, “if a soldier has the fighting edge, and ability to care for himself in the open, his efficiency on the line of battle is almost directly proportionate to excellence in marksmanship.”

We cannot know for sure how good a shot Roosevelt was himself but he was often called a fine shot in spite of his poor vision. When asked if he was a good marksman, according to his grandson, Tweed, Theodore Roosevelt would reply, “I don’t shoot well, but I shoot often.”³ Roosevelt is still known today for favoring Winchester repeating rifles. He is reported to have owned at least 20 of them and given more as gifts.⁴ The naturalist Alden Loring, who accompanied Roosevelt on safari in Africa reported, “…the Colonel is a good marksman…In hunting dangerous game, such as buffaloes, elephants, rhinoceroses, and lions he exhibited the courage of a veteran big-game hunter, and the quickness with which he mastered the situation when in dangerous places, and the accuracy of his shooting, showed that he never got excited.” Loring surmised that ten times the amount of game taken could have been killed if the expedition had not been fully scientific in nature.⁵

As president, Roosevelt was concerned about the marksmanship abilities of both American troops and the civilian population: “. . . it is unfortunately true that the great body of our citizens shoot less and less as time goes on. To meet this we should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services, by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving the peace of the world. Fit to hold our own against the strong nations of the earth, our voice for peace will carry to the ends of the earth. Unprepared, and therefore unfit, we must sit dumb and helpless to defend ourselves, protect others, or preserve peace. The first step in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come is to teach our men to shoot.”⁶

As president, “The Colonel” took steps to make sure Americans had the ability to remain free through practice with the rifle and the development of marksmanship skills. In his first term as president, Roosevelt established the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice. An annual national marksmanship competition was created and Roosevelt instituted the long standing presidential tradition of writing a congratulatory letter to the winner. Roosevelt also said the Congress should “encourage the formation of rifle clubs throughout all parts of the land.”⁷ The national board evolved into the federally chartered, non-profit Civilian Marksmanship Program. Today, American civilians can purchase surplus military rifles and ammunition from the Civilian Marksmanship Program through participation in marksmanship training with a rifle club. As Roosevelt once wrote, “The rifle is the free man’s weapon.”⁸ Once upon a time, free men like Theodore Roosevelt took steps to preserve liberty for future generations. Those generations must continue to defend that hard-earned liberty through rifle and marksmanship practice.

1. The Life of Theodore Roosevelt, WM Draper Lewis, 1919.

2. The Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt, 1899.

3. Roosevelt Hunt Honors Military and Helps Fight Cancer, 119^th Wing North Dakota Air National Guard News, Senior Master Sgt. David H. Lipp, 2008.

4. Theodore Roosevelt Outdoorsman, R.L. Wilson, 1994.

5. Tells of Roosevelt’s Hunt, The New York Times, August 25, 1910.

6. State of the Union Message, 1908.

7. Theodore Roosevelt, American Rifleman, May, 1958.

8. Ibid.

Portrait of an American Rifleman:Robert Rogers and his Rangers

In the early days of America's history, before independence, wily frontiersmen formed community militias to provide protection from the native Indians and French-Canadian settlers. By the 1760s, peace resulted in militia training reaching a low point. For example, during militia training, a common salute to an officer consisted of a militiaman's firing a blank shot at an officer’s feet. A general sense of humor and neglect existed among the colonists toward formal military discipline. However, marksmanship and weapon handling remained important as a part of daily life and thus was regularly practiced. Many of the other practices of the colonial militia can be traced back to Robert Rogers and the early American frontiersmen that were his “Rangers.”

Robert Rogers was born in Massachusetts, pioneering to New Hampshire as a boy. There he served with both scouting parties and the New Hampshire militia. While still a young man, Rogers became involved with a counterfeiting scheme for which he was indicted the year before the beginning of the French and Indian War. Character not withstanding, the British Army recognized the need for experienced frontiersmen in a wilderness war, so the counterfeiting charges were dropped and Rogers was appointed to recruit men for a company of his own. This company came to be popularly known as Rogers’ Rangers. Though possibly disliking the whole idea, the stiff British command was practical enough to give the able, but unorthodox Rogers the independent command and training of his Rangers. The Rangers were guerilla fighters who consisted of frontier settlers, Indians and freed slaves. Rogers selected his men based on merit and drilled rigidly, though in an unconventional manner for the times. Training consisted of mock skirmishes, target practice (the British regular command considered target practice a waste of ammunition), and strict adherence to Rogers’ Rules for Ranging. The Rules for Ranging, extracted from the journals that Rogers kept of his exploits (published in 1765), are still a part of training for United States Army Rangers.

Rogers’ Rangers were sent on long-distance missions to places regular regiments could not go. They were active from Nova Scotia through New England, to modern-day Ohio and Michigan. Rangers wore green in contrast to their red-coated allies and were required to be “equipped each with a firelock, sixty rounds of powder and ball, and a hatchet” and to be ready “. . .to march at a minute’s warning.” Many of these practices were carried on by the militia and minutemen of the American Revolution. During the fighting at Lexington and Concord, a false rumor spread among the British soldiers that the colonial men, known for their tomahawks, were scalping the British wounded. Because many British soldiers considered the colonists brutes on a similar level as the Indians, the rumor spread quickly, instigating actual British atrocities. The Rules for Ranging also said to “fall or squat down” when engaging an enemy. Rangers often shot and reloaded from this prone position, “while lying on their bellies” which is a firing position known to marksmen for its accuracy. The British soldiers referred to this peculiar technique as “Indian style.”

It has been reported that no less a military man than Britain’s General Gage found Rogers lacking the qualities of an officer and a gentleman. Gage also distrusted Rogers for his dealings with the Indians, the fact that he was a colonist, and his close friendship with one of Gage’s primary rivals, General Jeffrey Amherst. As another testament to Rogers’ tarnished reputation, 20 years later at the outset of the American Revolution, George Washington had Rogers arrested as a spy when Rogers, apparently in good will, wrote to Washington for an appointment in the Continental Army. Rogers had previously turned down an appointment in the Continental Army from the Continental Congress on the grounds that he was a British officer. Rogers later served with the British and participated in the capture of American patriot Nathan Hale. Not only did Rogers end up on the wrong side of the fight for American liberty, he suffered from alcoholism, was divorced by his wife, and ended his life as a broken man, having spent a considerable portion of his own wealth equipping his Rangers.

While Rogers may not have possessed all the virtuous characteristics we expect from an American Rifleman, his life, like many others in the American story, was a paradox, an uneasy truth of virtue mixed with vice. A man with both his talents and vices exposed to history, Robert Rogers’ legacy can still be found in the unorthodox tactics of the fight for American liberty. Both Continental Army General Israel Putnam and Colonel John Stark, a hero of Bunker Hill, had been captains in the Rangers. Certainly, Rogers cannot be given credit for all of the tactical ingenuity of the revolutionary generation, but many of the Massachusetts militia who routed the British on the day of “the shot heard round the world” are reported to once have been Rogers’ Rangers. Regarding the devastating British retreat from Lexington and Concord, Lord Percy of the British officer corps remarked about the colonial militia, held in low regard by the British troops, that “there were men amongst them who knew very well what they were about.” Lord Percy further attributes the skill of the militia men to their “having been employed as Rangers.”

The Complete "Rules for Ranging"

Portrait of an American Rifleman:Samuel Woodfill

It was a humble Christian man, adopted as Kentucky's own, who was known to French Field Marshall Ferdinand Foch as “the first soldier of America” and known to General Pershing “as America's greatest doughboy” (a nick-name American soldiers of that generation picked up during the dusty marches of the Spanish American War). Until Pershing selected Samuel Woodfill as one of three American soldiers to be honored at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1921, Woodfill had lived in the same obscurity his name and story would return to generations later. At the time, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner with decorations from six other nations, Woodfill held more medals than any other soldier in the army. He received standing ovations when spotted at public events; he even met with the president. Congress and the New York Stock Exchange both interrupted business to honor him. Today it is speculated that he is most well known as the namesake of Woodfill Elementary School.

During Samuel Woodfill's own elementary years, hunting with the musket his father carried in the Mexican and Civil Wars, he was already considered a good shot by age 10 and later was know in the Army for his exceptional marksmanship. In Alaska, before The Great War, he honed his skill as a rifleman and is reported to have once taken 3 caribou from 1800 yards. In comparison to many of the other troops of the American Expeditionary Force that were rushed to Europe, Woodfill had what must have seemed magical skill with a rifle from his years of practice on American soil. It's been said that in his hands a rifle was as steady as if on a tripod or locked in a vise.

On October 12, 1918, at Cunel, France, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Lieutenant Woodfill eliminated five machine gun nests and 21 German soldiers with 21 rifle rounds, his sidearm, and a pickaxe. The 35 year old lieutenant's company came under machine gun fire while moving towards the village of Cunel under foggy conditions. Woodfill dispatched himself, followed by two soldiers at 25 yards, to stalk out the machine guns. Seeing flashes from a church bell tower, he killed five German machine gunners from 300 yards with five shots. He then eliminated another machine gun from a barn loft. Next, taking cover in a shell hole, he was overcome by mustard gas; recovered, he moved to the rear of a gravel pile. From this vantage point he took out a third machine gun nest from 40 yards. His rifle now empty, he killed an escaping soldier with his pistol and another after moving to the machine gun's position. After that, Woodfill killed a German sniper who was spotted by one of his men. After passing through the village, he destroyed another machine gun crew, taking three prisoners. Spotting the fifth machine gun crew, he killed all five, then dove into a trench occupied by two German soldiers. The first he killed with his pistol, which then jammed, leaving him only a pickaxe to finish the other. Unofficial Army accounts of the events of the day state that most of Lt. Woodfill's kills were head shots. Removal of the machine guns allowed the company to advance through the village of Cunel, a skirmish in what has been billed as one of the bloodiest single battles in U.S. History and the battle that won the war.

Samuel Woodfill survived the war with only shrapnel wounds, re-enlisting in the Army to later retire as a sergeant. During his brief national fame, the humble Woodfill squashed congressional candidacy speculation and tired of being what he called a “circus pony.” He then returned home, slipping into poverty and obscurity. After the outbreak of World War II, the old soldier was commissioned as an Army Major at the age of 59 and spent most of the war as an Army instructor in Alabama.

After his second career in the Army, Samuel Woodfill retired to a farm in his native Indiana where he died at age 68. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Years earlier, a few days after Woodfill performed the Medal of Honor winning attack, he wrote a message to his wife on the back of her picture that he carried in his shirt pocket: “I will prepare a place and be waiting at the Golden Gait [sic] of Heaven for the arrival of my Darling Blossom.” Later, Woodfill reportedly said, “I guessed wrong. There was no German ammunition with my name on it that day.”

Portrait of an American Rifleman:Isaac Davis

After the renowned battle between the British Regular Army and the American Colonial Militia at Lexington and Concord, Lord Percy, an officer of the British Army remarked about the colonists that “there were men amongst them who knew what they were about.” Isaac Davis was a man who knew what he was about. Isaac Davis wasn’t just some farmer with a musket. A gunsmith by trade and a captain of the militia in Acton, Massachusetts (an organized group of able bodied men dedicated to the defense of their town), Isaac Davis played a significant role in supplying arms to his community and preparing for its defense. And on April 19, 1775, those preparations made history.

General Gage, commander of the British troops in Colonial America, predicted that local opposition to his troops might be “irregular, impetuous, and incessant” and the “bushmen” could be troublesome, men “who from their adroitness in the habitual use of the Firelock suppose themselves sure of their mark at a distance of 200 rods [1100 yards?].” But the British troops who marched to Concord from Boston to seize and destroy “. . . all military stores whatever” did not expect the organized opposition they met. Isaac Davis, a man of 30, with a wife and four children, was captain of Acton’s Minuteman Company. His men carried their muskets with them at all times. Davis’s men drilled twice weekly, practicing marksmanship in a field behind the Davis home since November of 1774, and were all outfitted with bayonets and cartridge boxes (which aided in increasing their rate of fire) provided by Davis himself. When the men were alerted of the British march, 37 of them rendezvoused at Davis’s house. Each man carried his musket, powder horn, cartridge box, bayonet and a ration of bread and cheese. Davis reportedly said before leaving his home, “I have a right to go to Concord on the King’s Highway and I will go to Concord.”

The Acton militia gathered with militia from Concord and other surrounding towns at a hill above Concord’s North Bridge. British troops were guarding the bridge to assure retreat of their fellow soldiers searching a nearby farm. As the militia officers were meeting, smoke was seen rising from Concord. Mistakenly believing that British troops were burning the town, the militia officers decided to take the bridge and go to the aid of the townspeople. Upon the approach of the militia men, the British Redcoats began retreating across the bridge towards Concord tearing planks off the bridge as they withdrew. For unknown reasons, Davis’s men were placed in the lead, a position normally reserved for a more senior officer. It is possible that Davis and the men of Acton led the formation due to their superior training and possession of bayonets. When asked if he was afraid to lead his men at the front, it is reported that Captain Davis replied “No, I am not and I haven’t a man that is.”

Reports of exactly what happened next are conflicting, but what is known is that as the militia moved toward the bridge with the orders, “Don’t fire first. . . don’t fire first!”, several volleys occurred between the British regulars and the colonists, with Isaac Davis being the first to fall by a fatal shot. The militia then crossed the bridge giving heavy fire with superior marksmanship. The militia pursued for a short distance and then took position on a hill while the “regulars” retreated. The rest of the day went as poorly for the British troops as they were routed by the “country people” all the way back to Boston.

Decades later, the famed Senator Daniel Webster spoke of Isaac Davis: “An early grave in the cause of liberty has secured to him the long and grateful remembrance of his country.” Today, every April 19th, proud New Englanders celebrate “Patriot’s Day” by retracing the “Line of March” from Acton to Concord, where a statue of a minuteman crafted in the likeness of Davis’s descendants stands. The statue is engraved with Emerson’s verse:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled.

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

Portrait of an American Rifleman: John L. Burns

When John Burns took to the battlefield at Gettysburg in 1863, he did so in the same spirit as many of the opposing Confederates on the field of battle, in defense of liberty and home. No, John Burns was not a soldier of the Union Army, he was a Pennsylvania farmer whose home, community, and life were under threat of an invading army. Like our forefathers of the American Revolution, who took up arms to defend the same at Lexington and Concord, Mr. Burns, a 72 year old farmer, took up arms to defend his life, family, property, and community. Now John Burns was no stranger to serving his country or community. A veteran of the War of 1812 and the War with Mexico, a constable for the town of Gettysburg, and a local farmer, Mr. Burns fit the image of the traditional American Rifleman, a true citizen soldier.

As constable of the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (a position perhaps similar to a modern day sheriff), John Burns attempted to oppose the Confederate forces invading the town of Gettysburg by raising a party of volunteers. It has been said he “adamantly asserted his civil authority” in protecting the town. Overwhelming numbers of Confederate soldiers, under the command of General Jubal Early, arrested John Burns for his opposition. After destroying a bridge, rail and telegraph lines, Early's men moved on, leaving the town of Gettysburg and freeing John Burns. Burns immediately set to arresting Confederate stragglers until several days later when the Federal Cavalry arrived.

On the first day of fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg, John Burns left his home on foot with a musket and powder horn, dressed in dark trousers and a blue “swallow-tail” coat, and walked until he reached the fighting near McPherson's Farm. Along the way, Mr. Burns borrowed an Enfield rifle and cartridges from a wounded Union soldier. A skeptical Union major sent Burns in to the nearby woods, where he might find shelter from the heat and enemy fire. Burns there attached himself to the 24th Michigan Infantry as a sharpshooter and is reported to have served gallantly with the “Iron Brigade,” including shooting a charging Confederate officer from his horse. Another report states that a Union colonel, impressed with Burns' skillful shooting, sent the old man a favorite long range rifle. Burns is reported to have said he was certain of killing at least three of the rebels and years later he is reported to have remarked he would like “one more good chance to give them a rip.” But for the Battle of Gettysburg, Mr. Burns was finished. He had been wounded in the arm, leg, and breast and managed a precarious escape home after the Union forces began to retreat their position.

John Burns fully recovered from his wounds and President Lincoln, when in Gettysburg delivering his famous address, met with Burns. John Burns is believed to be the only civilian who took up arms at Gettysburg. Burns briefly became a national hero and was immortalized in poetry by Bret Harte: Brief is the glory that hero earns. . . John Burns--a practical man--Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows, And then went back to his bees and cows.

Though you might not have heard of this American Rifleman in history class, a statue of him stands in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, honoring his service to his community and as a calling to future generations to honor the tradition of their riflemen forefathers.