Hi Bernard,

I read with interest your reply concerning archers in favour of musketeers. I never knew that Wellington considered a corp of bowmen – although no surprise what with flintlocks being slow-loading, inaccurate, and misfiring in wet weather! However, perhaps one avenue he could have explored would have been to recruit American Native volunteers into his ranks (something both sides did during the Seven Years War in what was then called the ‘colonies’)  as most of these fierce, war-painted people still skilfully utilized the bow as a potent weapon. Even as rifled firearms developed to revolvers and breech-loading bullets with percussion caps, distributed to US federal troops, renegade Indian tribes were still regarded as a dangerous foe (you only have to ask Custer…oh wait, he was killed at the Little Bighorn). However, I’m not sure about the range of an Indian bow compared to muskets of Napoleonic Wars. Perhaps – if recruitment had gone ahead – they’d be trained to deliver
a withering hail of arrows as happened at Crecy or Azincourt; having Indians deployed as skirmishers probably wouldn’t make a dent in the enemy ranks. Or perhaps from horseback? Much deadlier reload speed than carbines. Also a question of tactics, do you reckon?
Robert Douglas