Captain Samuel Cabell and the Amherst Rifles started what would be four months of training in Williamsburg before taking the field. They received uniforms and rations, took target practice, and drilled. His father William Cabell’s commonplace book and Alexander Brown’s, the Cabell and Their Kin provide an outline of their experience during this period, learning to be soldiers and preparing to go to war.
Each man in the company, about 35 overall, was armed with “one good rifle and a tomahawk”. Those who provided their own rifle received extra pay in the form of “20 shillings by the year, at the expense of the publick”. On June 11, William purchased a sword for Captain Samuel Cabell, from a James Geddy of Williamsburg. Samuel’s pay was 40 pounds a month according to his later pension records. The funds to provision the company seem to have come from a mix of sources – his father’s pocket, the Amherst Committee of Safety and at least one disbursement from the brigade’s commanding general. The tradition for officers to be from wealthy families reflected the class-based system of the time but was also a necessity in a time when an officer was expected to foot the bill for some of his unit’s expenses. William was busy in late March 1776 providing for his son’s rifle company. The transactions in his pocket book include a warrant from the Committee of Safety for 23 pounds 9 shillings for 469 rations. Noted in his pocket book are transactions for 400 lbs. bacon,1 ½ barrels of meal, 394 lbs. of flour, and 30 gallons of whiskey.
Unlike typical Continental infantry, riflemen wore hunting shirts of linen, or sometimes buckskin. Brown notes that officers had fringes to distinguish them, drummers and fifers had dark cuffs and privates had no cuffs. The going rate for hunting shirt that spring was 12 shillings new and 3 shillings “to make do” – presumably for alterations or repairs. Both officers and men wore hats “cut round and bound with black, with brims two inches deep, cocked on one side, with a button, loop, and cockade worn on the left.” They were required “to wear their hair short and as near alike as possible”.
The tradition of wearing hunting shirts on the frontier was not new. Some said they were inspired by native American clothing, with its fringed seams. The shirt may have originated on the Virginia frontier, though it would also be worn by Maryland and Pennsylvania riflemen. As early as the summer of 1775 when Virginia rifle companies arrived in the Boston area, their white shirts drew notice from New Englanders. As the stories of the riflemen’s marksmanship spread, General Washington saw a psychological advantage in outfitting more soldiers in these distinctive shirts. On July 24, 1776, Washington wrote that he “earnestly encourages the use of the hunting shirts,” in part because they were “justly supposed to carry no small terror to the enemy, who think every such person a complete marksman.” The British came to call them “the shirtmen”.
William’s diary notes for March 27, 1776 “Capt. Cabell’s Comp’y to draw ammunition to-day for the trial of their rifles to-morrow” for two hours of target practice. The frequency of their practice likely depended on the availability of gunpowder and shot, which were scarce.
Many young men on the frontier grew up using rifles for hunting game. Rifles were distinctly different from the standard musket used by the infantry. The rifle’s grooved bore spun the round, like the spiral on a football, for greater accuracy in flight. This technology, originally from Germany, arrived in Pennsylvania with German settlers, where it would then make its way down the Shenandoah Valley. A rifle was accurate at 250 yards. In contrast, the musket was only accurate at 50 yards, with lateral drift of 3 feet at 100 yards. One historian, Willard Stearn Randall, estimated that only one musket shot in 300 hit its intended mark in battle. Rifle accuracy was another story. Newspapers of the time reported on a competition where each member of one rifle company placed shots in a seven-inch target at 250 yards.
While the rifle was far more accurate, it took much longer to load than the musket, requiring the user to pour gunpowder down the barrel from a powder horn since it did not take cartridges. A rifle would take 1 to 2 minutes to reload. A musket could fire 3 to 4 rounds per minute. The rifle’s octagonally-shaped barrel did not allow a bayonet to be affixed, making its user vulnerable to redcoat charges. George Washington once proposed giving riflemen spears for self-defense, but carrying a second large weapon proved impractical. The tomahawk may have been a small measure of self-defense if it came to hand-to-hand combat. It spoke to the “Indian-style” of warfare, rifle companies were expected to provide, relying on stealth to disrupt the enemy and its scouts from behind cover, when the riflemen were not joined with their regiment in battle formation.
On May 15, while Samuel and his rifle company were training in Williamsburg, the Convention of Virginia passed resolutions instructing their delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to “declare the United Colonies free and independent states.” Brown writes “Some gentlemen made a handsome collection for the purpose of treating the soldiery.” On the next day, Samuel Cabell and his company joined the rest of the regiments who “were paraded in Waller’s Grove, before Brigadier General Lewis, the Committee of Safety and members of the General Convention”. The resolutions were then read aloud to the soldiers, followed by three toasts, each followed by a volley of artillery and small arms and “acclamations of all present.”
The American Independent States!
The Grand Congress of the United States and their respective legislatures!
General Washington and victory to American arms!
The Virginia Convention delegates, including Samuel’s father William, provided the resolution, which Richard Henry Lee would ride north to present to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in June 1776. Before then, John Adams had not been able to start a debate on the floor on “independency” without a motion. Lee’s arrival and the Virginia delegates’ resolution gave Adams his motion. While the Congress debated independence in the airless summer heat of the Pennsylvania State House, there was unfinished business for Samuel and his brothers in arms in Virginia.
Even though Lord Dunmore had slipped out of the Governor’s Mansion in Williamsburg in June 1775, Crown authority was still a threat to Virginia. His royalist and loyalist forces after their defeat at Great Bridge had later attacked and burned Norfolk in early January 1776 before taking to sea. On May 26, 1776, the Royal Governor’s 100-vessel flotilla anchored off Gwynn’s Island on the west shore of the Chesapeake. His entourage included Royal Marines, British regulars, the Queen’s Own Loyal Virginians and the Ethiopian Regiment of freed Blacks. They brought many mouths to feed, little food, and what became raging outbreaks of both smallpox and typhoid fever.
In order to expel British forces from the colony once and for all, the Virginia 3rd and 7th regiments were dispatched and marched to the Chesapeake shoreline. At least two Amherst riflemen in the 6th Regiment noted action at Gwynn’s Island in their pension records. Presumably, their company was detached from the 6th Regiment to assist. If so, Gwynn’s Island was likely Captain Sam Cabell’s first engagement. From July 8 to 10, the patriots lay siege to the flat Island, just offshore. The Virginians unleashed a continuous artillery bombardment on the island, cutting off any chance of aid from land in the process. Faced with rebel shelling, hunger and sickness, John Murray, Lord Dunmore, and British military personnel and white loyalists who were healthy enough to travel, departed in a ship for New York, ending British presence in Virginia for the time being.