FLAT TOP. — We got our new rifled muskets this
morning. They are mostly old muskets, many of them used, altered from
flint-lock to percussion, rifled by Greenwood at Cincinnati. We tried them on
the hill one and a half miles east of camp, spending three hours shooting. At
two hundred yards about one shot in eight would have hit a man; at four hundred
yards, or a quarter of a mile, about one shot in ten would have hit; at
one-third to one-half mile, say seven hundred yards, about one shot in eighty
would have hit. The shooting was not remarkably accurate, but the power of the
gun was fully as great as represented. The ball at one-fourth mile passed
through the largest rails; at one-half mile almost the same. The hissing of the
ball indicates its force and velocity. I think it an excellent arm.
Companies B and G went out to Packs Ferry to aid in building
or guarding a boat, built to cross New River
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 284
