"The spectators appearing to be amazed at these feats, were told that
there were upwards of fifty persons in the same company who could do
the same thing; that there was not one who could not 'plug nineteen
bullets out of twenty,' as they termed it, within an inch of the head
of a ten-penny nail.
"In short, to evince the confidence they possessed in these kind of
arms, some of them proposed to stand with apples on their heads, while
others at the same distance undertook to shoot them off, but the
people who saw the other experiments declined to be witnesses of this.
"At night a great fire was kindled around a pole planted in the Court
House Square, where the company with the Captain at their head, all
naked to the waist and painted like savages (except the Captain, who
was in an Indian shirt), indulged a vast concourse of people with a
perfect exhibition of a war-dance and all the manoeuvres of Indians;
holding council, going to war; circumventing their enemies by defiles;
ambuscades; attacking; scalping, etc. It is said by those who are
judges that no representation could possibly come nearer the
original. The Captain's expertness and agility, in particular, in
these experiments, astonished every beholder. This morning they will
set out on their march for Cambridge."
From the _Virginia Gazette_ of July 22nd, 1775, we make the
following extract: "A correspondent informs us that one of the
gentlemen appointed to command a company of riflemen to be raised in
one of the frontier counties of Pennsylvania had so many applications
from the people in his neighborhood, to be enrolled in the service,
that a greater number presented themselves than his instructions
permitted him to engage, and being unwilling to give offence to any he
thought of the following expedient: He, with a piece of chalk, drew on
a board the figure of a nose of the common size, which he placed at
the distance of 150 yards, declaring that those who came nearest the
mark should be enlisted.
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