Lewis Wetzel;
Descriptions of Lewis Wetzel's appearance are similar to other accounts of contemporary white and Indian scouts. Christian Cackler recalled, "Lewis Wetzel was a man about six feet and well porportioned rather raw boned & active dark and swarthy. I have seen Indians since I thought was about as white as he was."14 Lewis Bonnett remembered him as possessing very muscular arms and shoulders with well-proportioned legs and smallish feet, braided hair carefully knotted around his shoulders which reached nearly to his calves when combed out, extremely piercing black eyes, swarthy complexion much pitted by smallpox, and pierced ears from which he wore silk tassels and other ornaments.15
Wetzel's legendary athletic prowess was attested by Caleb Wells. When attacking an Indian camp with Wetzel, Wells began chasing an Indian only to be outrun by Lewis. By the time Wells reached the stricken Indian, Wetzel had tomahawked and scalped him. Since Wells had considered himself swift of foot, he later challenged Wetzel to a race of one hundred yards. Not only did Lewis easily win the race, but he discharged his rifle at the beginning, reloaded as he ran, and fired again as he reached the finish line.l6
Foremost among Wetzel's skills was his ability to load a rifle while running at top speed to avoid capture. His adroitness was illustrated by his escape after Colonel Crawford's defeat on the Sandusky in 1782. Thomas Mills implored Wetzel to return and assist him in retrieving a valuable horse. Although Wetzel warned Mills that the Indians might lay in ambush for just such an attempt, he persisted. Lewis accompanied him only to see his worst fears realized. Mills was shot while reaching for the animal's tether rope. After shooting one of the assailants, Wetzel outdistanced all but four of the most determined Indians. They laid aside their guns, assuming the white man would never succeed in reloading. Lewis accomplished this near-impossible feat three times, and shot as many of his pursuers. The fourth gave up the chase with the exclamation, "No catch [th]at man, gun always loaded."17
Wetzel's ability to reload on the run is an exploit not even claimed by Samuel Brady. A rifle, its barrel interior configured with raised and spiraling lands, presents a more difficult task of normal reloading than does a smoothbore weapon. This is especially so after an initial discharge due to the heavy residue of black powder. Present-day students of material culture are perplexed at providing a probable explanation for this phenomenon so generally attributed to Wetzel. One possibility is, when making his famous races against death, Wetzel loaded with unpatched balls of considerably less size than the caliber of his rifle. He might then have seated the powder and ball by bouncing the butt of his rifle on the ground as he ran, as well as striking the breech area of the barrel with the heel of an open palm. This would avoid the cumbersome use of a ramrod. An enlarged touchhole could also allow the flintlock pan to have become self-priming.
Jacob Wetzel was credited with a quick reload during the late 1780s when Indians attacked a cabin occupied by himself and his sister Susannah. After Jacob cleverly used a wooden head decoy to attract the first shot, the Indians rushed the cabin on the assumption that he had been killed. "Jacob shot one dead on his approach--and Susan quickly shut and bolted the door. Jacob soon had powder in his gun and roling two naked bullets down, and fired out a porthole just as the Indian was in the act of making off--the two balls taking effect in the Indian's back which soon brought him to the ground." This quick reload employing "two naked bullets" clearly suggests no use of a ramrod or the normal greased patch.18
Jeptha R. Simms published an account of Nathaniel Foster, born about 1767 in Vermont, who became a much-noted hunter in the vicinity of Herkimer, New York, by the early 1790s. Foster is credited with an ability to fire six shots per minute with his rifle.
While hunting he usually wore three rifle balls between the fingers of each hand, and invariably thus in the left hand, if he had that number of balls with him. He had a large bony hand, and having worn such jewels a long time, they had made for themselves cavities in the flesh which concealed them almost as effectively as they were, when hid in the moulds in which they were run from the fused lead. The superficial observer would not have noticed them.
Foster's quick shooting was in the days of flintlocks. He had a powder flask with a charger, and with six well pared balls between his fingers, he would pour in the powder, drop in a ball that would just roll down without a patch, and striking the breech of his gun with his hand, it was primed; soon after which the bullet was speeding to its mark. These rapid discharges could only be made at a short distance, as to make long shots it became necessary to patch the balls and drive them down with a rod, the latter being dispensed with the former case.19
