An 1806 Napoleonic Wars Period 'Brown Bess' Musket By James Yeomans Of London with Bayonet Regimentally Marked For the 79th Foot The Cameron Highlanders. Later Used By Native Troops, Such As The Ghurkas, Alongside The 79th at Lucknow.

All the fittings are very good, a superb 36 inch length barrel, fine lock, trigger guard, butt plate, etc, ramrod, sling swivels and brass mounts, new land pattern flush fitting side plate with central screw to avoid recoil damage to the side nails. With a fine leather strap, very nice upgraded from flintlock to percussion action, good proof marks, clear inspection stamps and dating. Lock marked Yeoman's and dated 1806 with Tower ordnance inspector stamp of Richard Duce. {the number 2} plus the EIC heart. Bayonet maker marked by Salter, regimentaly marked 79th Foot.
The 79th Regiment of Foot (Cameron Highlanders) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on August 17, 1793, by Sir Alan Cameron of Erracht.

One of the 142,970 British contract made 'India Pattern' muskets turned over by the East India Co. army to the British Board of Ordnance for the Napoleonic wars, due to the urgent need for arms to counter Napoleon's massive armament reserve.

The lock is stamped by the primary, senior ordnance inspector, Richard Duce {his mark of Crown 2}. Who was also the controller of tempering & hardening of locks, after their arrival from the stores for fitting to the musket, and apparently he inspected all the EIC bess that were handed over to the British Ordnance for the Napoleonic Wars. An account that was confirmed to us by our friend and historic colleague, Howard Blackmore of the Tower of London armoury.

Originally made for the Honourable East India Co. and the muskets were co-opted by the British Board of Ordnance for the regular British infantry from the EIC contract guns about to depart for India.

In around 1830-40's the flintlock actions of muskets and pistols could, and would, be converted from flintlock to percussion action, often if they were still in government service. The all new {at the time} percussion action could extend the life of a gun and make it considerably more efficient, as flintlock arms were rendered incapable of action in the rain, or even damp conditions. At this time this newer Brown Bess bayonet type was added to the gun.

While this musket was perfect for service in the regiment up to the 1850's, when the 1853 Enfield rifle-musket was designed and issued to front line regiments, and then, the 79th was sent to India to fight in the Mutiny in 1857. However their older muskets were likely sent to accompany them to India with the regiment in order to arm the loyal Indian regiments that fought alongside the 79th in combat.

While the 79th Foot was a purely British regiment raised in Scotland, British military operations during the rebellion relied heavily on integrated forces. British "Queen's" regiments rarely fought in isolation; instead, they routinely operated in mixed brigades alongside loyal native Indian units

During the siege of Lucknow, and the subsequent operations in Rohilkhand, the 79th Highlanders fought shoulder-to-shoulder with loyal native units, which included Sikh regiments, Punjabi infantry, and loyal Gurkha battalions {such as those from the Kingdom of Nepal and the East India Company's own loyal remnants}

The 'Brown Bess' musket began its life almost 300 years ago, and it helped in creating one of the greatest trading empires the world has ever seen and, among other achievements, made the 'British Square' the almost undefeated form of infantry defence throughout the world. Made in four distinct patterns it originally started life as a 46 inch barrel musket called the Long Land or Ist pattern Brown Bess. Then in around 1768 the gun evolved and the barrel was shortened to 42 inches as 46 was deemed unwieldy and renamed the Short Land or 2nd pattern. Although the Long Land was made continually for another 20 years. With the onset of the Napoleonic Wars in the 1790s, the British Board of Ordnance found itself woefully short of the 250,000 muskets it would need to equip its forces. It managed to produce around 20,000 short land pattern muskets but this was simply not sufficient. At that time the British East India Company maintained it own troops and had contracted with makers to produce a simplified version of the Brown Bess musket with a 39-inch barrel and less ornate furniture and stock work. It was generally felt that the standard of these "India pattern" muskets was not up to the standard of the earlier Besses, but necessity required action so the authorities convinced Company officials to turn over their stores to the Crown. By 1797 the urgencies of war ultimately created the demise of the Short Pattern, and all manufacture was turned to building the more simple 'India' pattern. For the most part, the gun underwent few changes from its introduction until Waterloo, with the exception of the cock, which was altered from the traditional swan-neck style to a sturdier, reinforced ringed version in around 1808.

The Brown Bess musket was the standard weapon of the British for more than a century. soldiers marched into battle with this musket—nicknamed “Brown Bess”—for more than 100 years. British redcoats used the Brown Bess to fight the War of Independence in the colonies, and many of their opponents in the Americans’ Continental army used it as well.
British soldiers fighting in the Napoleonic wars carried it into battle, and it was the principal firearm used by the infantrymen who fought the War of 1812.

Because the weapon was slow to load and relatively inaccurate (experienced soldiers generally estimated its range between 50 and 100 yards), armies developed tactics that helped compensate for its shortcomings. The limitations of smoothbore muskets like the Brown Bess forced units employ “linear tactics,” in which a hundreds of soldiers stood in neat lines, shoulder-to-shoulder and out in the open. While such tactics appear decidedly unstealthy to twenty-first century eyes, they proved essential on the battlefields of all the conflicts which Britain was involved.
There, stealth was a low priority. Packing the men into blocks allowed officers to coordinate their troops’ fire into synchronized volleys. Firing a hundred guns in the same direction at once helped ensure that at least some, often most of the inaccurate musket balls found their targets. And grouping the men into neat lines out in the open helped commanders ensure that few of their troops gave in to the natural instinct to flee.

Of course, packing troops into blocks and fighting in the open required tremendous discipline from the individual soldiers. Infantrymen had to stand exposed to enemy fire as they loaded and fired their own muskets. And in some situations, soldiers learned the grisly dangers of fighting in lines—as at the Battle of New Orleans in the 1812 war, where American artillery attacked the exposed British formations with devastating effect.

Engagements for the infantry were traditionally at relatively close distances, often the result of closely controlled battlefield management. In 1811 a soldier of the 71st Regiment of Foot, writing of fighting the French at Fuentes de Onõro, recorded: “… during our first advance a bayonet went through between my side and clothes, to my knapsack, which stopped its progress. The Frenchman to whom the bayonet belonged fell, pierced by a musket ball from my rear-rank man. Whilst freeing myself from the bayonet, a ball took off part of my right shoulder wing and killed the rear-rank man, who fell upon me. We kept up our fire until long after dark. My shoulder was black as coal from the recoil of my musket; for this day I had fired 107 round of ball cartridge.”

This was not an uncommon account and it would have been just as true of Waterloo. If we were to take an average of 80 cartridges fired by about 50,000 allied infantry at Waterloo the expenditure of ammunition would have amounted to more than four million cartridges. Although not scientific, it does give a flavour of the ferocity of battle that Sunday in June 1815.

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