Old Tennessee Marksmanship

[byrnemm]

I found this while reading the diary of Alvin York. If you don't know who he is, get to reading! I'm questioning the legality of the turkey target practice..

MARCH, 1918

Camp Gordon:

Well, they gave me a gun, and oh my, that old gun was just full of grease and I had to clean that old gun for inspection. So I had a hard time to get that old gun clean, and oh, those were trying hours for a boy like me, trying to live for God and do His blessed will. So when I got this gun, I began to drill with the gun, and we had to hike once a week. So I have seen many boys fall out of the hikes. We would have to take long hikes with all our stuff on our back and carry that old gun. Ho ho. And we would have to go out before daylight and have sham battles. So I began to want a pass to go home. That first Army rifle they issued me was all full of grease. Of course I didn't like that. The rifles we used in the mountains were always kept clean. They were muzzle-loading rifles, cap and ball. They make their own guns there in the mountains. They are the most accurate guns in the world, up to 100 or 150 yards. I would rather have had a clean army rifle than a muzzle loader for what we were going to use them for, on account of the repeating shots, but they are not any more accurate than the muzzle-loading rifles. The Greeks and Italians came out on the shooting range and the boys from the big cities. They hadn't been used to handling guns. And sometimes at 100 yards they would not only miss the targets, they would even miss the hills on which the targets were placed. In our shooting matches at home we shot at a turkey's head. We tied the turkey behind a log, and every time it bobbed up its head we let fly with those old muzzle loaders of ours. We paid ten cents a shot and if we hit the turkey's head we got to keep the whole turkey. This way we learn to shoot from about sixty yards. Or we would tie the turkey out in the open at 150 yards, and if you hit it above the knee or below the gills you got it. I think we had just about the best shots that ever squinted down a barrel. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett used to shoot at these matches long ago. And Andrew Jackson used to recruit his Tennessee sharpshooters from among our mountain shooters. We used to call our most famous matches "beeves." We would make up a beef, that is, we would drive up a beef and then each pay, say a dollar until we had made up the value of the beast. The owner got this money. And we were each allowed so many shots. The best shot got the choice of the hind quarters, the second best the other hind quarter, the third the choice of the fore quarters, the fourth the other fore quarters, and the fifth the hide and tallow. Our matches were held in an opening in the forest, and the shooters would come in from all over the mountains, and there would be a great time. We would shoot at a mark crisscrossed on a tree. The distance was twenty-six yards off hand or forty yards prone with a rest. You had to hit that cross if you ever hoped to get all of that meat. Some of our mountaineers were such wonderful shots that they would win all five prizes and drive the beef home alive on the hoof. Shooting at squirrels is good, but busting a turkey at 150 yards--ho ho. So the army shooting was tolerably easy for me.

[Guest Bluemax]

If you get a chance watch the b&w movie about Alvin C York. I not only depicts the turkey shoots in the fashion described in your post but shows him polishing off a few German soldiers in like fashion

[Guest oldsmobile98]

We should start doing some TGO beeves.

[byrnemm]

If you get a chance watch the b&w movie about Alvin C York. I not only depicts the turkey shoots in the fashion described in your post but shows him polishing off a few German soldiers in like fashion

cool. thanks, added it to my netflix.

[Garufa]

We should start doing some TGO beeves.

I wouldn't know where to put a whole beef critter.

[JAB]

I wouldn't know where to put a whole beef critter.

"In mah belly!" (to quote Fat B*st*rd from the Austin Powers movie.)

Not all at once, naturally. I probably wouldn't have to worry about it, though. I'd have to win, first.

Edited May 14, 2010 by JAB

[56FordGuy]

I wouldn't know where to put a whole beef critter.

You can store it at my place for a while...

I actually had a herd of 'mystery cows' show up a week or two ago. Got it sorted out, but they're still here. What's one more?

[inspecting1]

I'm game when and where

[Guest goomba]

the movie "Sgt. York" really got me to thinking about shooting rifle's & marksmanship as a kid. I love that movie.

one of these days I'm gonna have to visit his old house, which I think one of his kids runs for the park service.

[tn hp]

I am sure that PETA would probably show up at one of those shoots today but, I understand that domestic turkeys were used and as far as legality, those shoots took place before and after WWI. They would not have been regulated at that time much like cock fights before the laws were inacted prohibiting them. Even with the laws, cock fights still take place.

Even today, there are piegon shoots in which high stake bets are made as to whether or not the piegon will fall inside or outside the circle. I haven't been to one of these and am not a part of that "sport". It is still popular in Europe.

I must have watched Sgt. York a hundred times and have the black and white and "colorized" version. The B&W is, in my opinion, the best. The movie does a great job depecting early pit operations at a military rifle range. My dad always got a kick out of how a miss was displayed from the pits. In the movie and according to my dad, a WWII vet, they actually had a pole with a pair of women's bloomers attached, known as "Maggie's drawers". I remember how disappointed Dad was when shot a match with me a Tullahoma's AEDC range and learned that "Maggies's drawers" were no longer used to "mark a miss".

He said the whole firing line would howl and cheer when "Maggies drawers" appeared. Dad, like Sgt. York, and thousands of others, went through basic training a Camp Gordon. After basic training, he was assigned to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, then Fort Ord, CA before shipping out to the Pacific with the 32nd Red Arrow Division.

[Guest 70below]

Anybody made it to the Museum of Appalachia yet to see the captured German machine gun of Sgt Yorks yet? Supposedly there is a whole Sgt. York exhibit.