Something more about arms.
We are glad to see that in the views we have expressed on this subject we have the concurrence of our able contemporary, the Richmond Enquirer. That journal expresses the opinion that in the rural districts every house possesses arms enough for its own defence a gun for every third male, or about 950,000 rifles and shot-guns, the private property of the Southern population. That paper says:‘ "Knowing this to be the case, we are disposed to be a little incredulous when we hear it said that certain localities could send additional companies into the field, if it were not for the impossibility of obtaining suitable arms. No doubt every company organized would like to have the best arms in use; but when this is unattainable, it ought not to follow that the country should be left undefended. It is true that the rifled musket can do execution with some precision at the distance of five hundred yards, and that the shot-gun at the same distance would do none. But, then, is it to be supposed that Virginians are going to stand stilt and be shot down, at their own doors, by Yankee invaders? There is a very simple mode of shortening the distance. At fifty yards, each barrel loaded with fifteen buckshot, the gun, which was harmless at a long distance, fires I whole broadside at every discharge. Any one of the thirty buckshot will die a man; and if armed low, a little above the knee, the double but place may knock down a half dozen Yankees at every fire, white the Minnie ball can only hit our, and even that is improbable at a short distance.--So much for the heavy double-barrel shot-gun. Then there is the hunter a ride, which will do execution, in the hands of a Southern marksman, one hundred and fifty yards.--These will do for the fences, rocks, and trees, Daniel Boone or Indian fa-bion, until the shot gun can get within killing range."
Even if there were not private arms enough, we could fight with slings, bows and arrows, reap- hooks, tomahawks, scythes, carving knives, anything knives, anything defence of hearth-stones and little ones. As we have before said, the most destructive battles in the world occurred before the invention of gunpowder. It is not the weapon as much as the man who used it. A people, whose farms are threatened with confiscation and whose hearth-stones with pollution, will scarcely wait for improved arms to defend themselves. If a robber attacks your house at night, you will not send to a neighbors a quarter of a mile off, for a Minnie musket, if you have in your house an old horse pistol, an axe, or a hatchet. One of the best weapons for warfare, and which is used on board all our ships-of-war, is the pike. This is employed for the hardest part of the fight — that is, when the crew of one ship attempts to board the other. These pikes can be readily manufactured. A long hunter's rifle is excellent; so are double-barrel shot guns; so is anything that will hurt or kill, provided always that it is in the hands of a man.
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