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One hypothesis is that the "Brown Bess" was named after Elizabeth I of England, but this lacks support.Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries, traces the name to at least the 1760s, and his research suggests the name was adopted from slang for a mistress, prostitute, or lowly woman who also appear in period sources referred to as "Brown Bess".
The U.S. Model 1832 foot artillery short-sword has a 6-inch (15 cm) solid brass hilt, a 4-inch (10 cm) crossguard, and a blade usually 19 inches (48 cm) in length.This model was the first sword contracted by the U.S. with the Ames Manufacturing Company of Springfield (later Chicopee), Massachusetts, with production starting in 1832.
The Charleville's 0.69-inch (17.5 mm) caliber barrel was slightly smaller than its main competitor, the 0.75-inch caliber Brown Bess produced by the British. The smaller round was intentionally chosen to reduce weight in the field, but still had enough mass to be effective as a military round. The Charleville's stock was usually made out of walnut.
While this was the main British musket, it was briefly used by the Americans until 1777. This musket was used to fire a single shot ball, or a cluster style shot which fired multiple projectiles giving the weapon a "shotgun" effect. There were two types of the Brown Bess: the Short Land Pattern and the Long Land Pattern.
Brown Bess musket – precursor to the early British rifles. The origins of the modern British military rifle are within its predecessor the Brown Bess musket.While a musket was largely inaccurate over 100 yards (91 m), due to a lack of rifling and a generous tolerance to allow for muzzle-loading, it was cheap to produce and could be loaded quickly.
Compared to the British Brown Bess, it fired musket balls that fitted more tightly into the barrel resulting in a better accuracy but a lower rate of fire and more fouling issues. The Grande Armée marched into the German countries and left approx. 750,000 muskets retreating in 1815; until about 1840, French weapons were used in Germany.
The Model 1795 fired a smaller round than the British .75 caliber Brown Bess, but the Model 1795 also had both a slightly longer range and slightly better accuracy than the Brown Bess musket. This gave the American forces an advantage of range when they faced British forces in the War of 1812.
Both the original smoothbore version and the modified rifled version of the Model 1842 were used in the American Civil War. The smoothbore version was produced without sights (except for a cast one on the barrel band). When Model 1842 muskets were modified to have rifled barrels, sights were usually added at the same time as the rifling.