Battle of Waterloo 1815/ Hougoumont - RARE British Baker Rifle .653 Musket Ball

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The Battle of Waterloo 1815 200th Anniversary � This is a very RARE find. One British Baker rifle .653 musket ball found around Chateau d'Hougoumont on the extreme British right flank of the Waterloo battlefield. I found a few of these amongst a load of French .69 Charleville balls discovered around the Chateaux (the finder assuming from their smaller calibre that the musket balls were French instead of British). At first I was utterly perplexed as to their origin, assuming that they were from some large calibre pistol from the period that I was unaware of. However, after some extensive research, I discovered that Wellington had strengthened the Light Companies of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards defending Hougoumont with a company a riflemen from the 2/95th Rifles armed with the famous Baker Rifle (information that I was previously unaware of). � The British Baker Rifle, officially known as the Pattern 1800 Infantry Rifle, was invented by a Whitechapel gunsmith called Ezekial Baker and was the first rifled musket to be accepted into service in the British Army. The tactics of the American militia and frontiersmen during the American Revolution introduced a new style of warfare to the British Army and highlighted the need for trained light infantry able to act independently as sharpshooters. In 1800 the first Experimental Rifle Corps was formed. During the Napoleonic Wars, the legendary green-jacketed 95th Rifles and the light troops of the King's German Legion were issued the Baker Rifle as their standard infantry weapon. The Baker Rifle fired a .653 calibre musket ball wrapped in a greased, leather patch that was stored in the "patchbox" in the butt of the rifle. The purpose of the greased patch was to grip the seven rectangular grooves in the rifle barrel causing the musket ball to spin, increasing accuracy over greater distances. However, the task of wrapping the musket ball into the leather patch � combined with the difficultly of ramming the ball into the barrel meant that the rate of fire became drastically reduced to just two rounds a minute (as opposed to the standard three rounds a minute). For this reason, during the heat of close battle, most light troops were ordered to sacrifice accuracy for an increased rate of fire by discarding the leather patches and loading the musket balls patch free. (At the time of the Battle of Waterloo, the leather patches were issued separately from the musket balls and it was the job of the rifleman to wrap the musket ball before loading. In later years the British Army began issuing musket balls already patched in order to speed up the rate of fire without sacrificing the unique accuracy of the rifle). The Baker Rifle .653 musket ball is slightly smaller than the French Charleville .69 musket balls found on the battlefield. However, the calibre of the rifle enabled it to fire the French musket ball if necessary and there are stories of Rifleman and KGL light troops raiding the pouches of dead Frenchmen when ammunition began to run low during the battle. The Waterloo Campaign began on 15th June 1815. After Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, the Seventh Coalition was formed in order to prevent his further attempts to conquer Europe. The battle of Ligny on the 16th June was the first major confrontation of the campaign and became Napoleon's last victory. � The French Armee du Nord defeated the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blucher. However, most of the Prussian army survived intact and later played a significant part in the Allied victory at Waterloo. Two days later on the 18th June and just to the North-West of Ligny, the Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington faced Napoleon's Army of the North across the battlefield of Waterloo. � Napoleon's intentions had been to divide and conquer by defeating both the British and Prussians in detail before the allies had an opportunity to unite and combin... read more

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