During the Revolutionary War, and most likely before and after, officers and gentlemen were prime targets for thieves and blackguards, including drunk or disgruntled rank and file. This could occur either while walking the streets of cities and villages, or in camp or along secluded country roads. Snatching a fattened purse, or taking out their anger and frustration on the well ballasted upper class spurred frequent attacks during solo or late-night strolls. For protection, the officer and gentleman rarely carried his sword, but instead a cane, but surprisingly, no ordinary cane of solid wood. Like brass knuckles of later years, these canes packed an incredible punch when the seemingly unarmed officer was accosted by a gang of brazen-faced gutter-bloods.
For within this simple, ornate cane, was a hollowed-out section in which molten lead had been poured in and solidified. When swung, it would hit with such a force as if one were stricken by a sledge hammer, no doubt breaking bones or spilling teeth over the gutter – even causing death. During an early excavation in New York City of one of the many forts that were spawned during the American Revolution, such an item was found on Statin Island and was labeled a loaded cane. When the British armada arrived and anchored off New York City in early July, 1776, their army encamped on Statin Island prior to their attacks on Long Island and Manhattan. The British would maintain New York City, Statin Island, and Long Island as a base of operations from 1776 till the end of the war. The following is an article taken whole from the New York Historical Society’s Quarterly, Volume 14, No. 4, 1930. It was written by W. L. Calver, Field Exploration Committee.
Many and various are the objects, whole or fragmentary, recovered from the dust heaps of the camps of the Revolution, and quite generally these mementoes, whether they be strickly military or otherwise, are easily recognizable. Occasionally, however, in the course of our exploration work, our sieves give up bits of debris which tax our experience and imagination in an effort to identify them. To this class belongs the curious object shown in the plate [see attached image]. It is, as we have determined, the leaden charge from a “loaded cane”. Rarely do we hear of these implements today, but before they were outlawed, they were apparently in quite common use. In what is now known as the “underworld” the billy and blackjack have taken their place. Possibly the sinister object which was dug up in the camp refuse dump at the British Revolutionary fort at Richmond, Staten Island, served to augment the force of a blow from a bludgeon of an 18th century rogue; but its proportions lead us to believe that, mounted in a genteel appearing staff, it was, in the hand of a British officer, a safeguard against possible attack by footpads, and a first line of defense against the wrath of a drunken servant or a soldier with a grouch.
The charge was applied by boring, with a ¾ inch auger, downward into the stick at the larger end for the distance of about two inches, and then cross boring with a 3/8 inch bit through the aperture thus formed at right angles about 7/8 inch from the top. A strip of canvas was then wrapped about the staff to close the small holes, and into the recess, with the staff in a vertical position, the charge of about six ounces of molten lead was poured. Some little dressing off was probably required, and then to the top end of the staff there was applied a cap, probably a neat one of silver, about 1 ¼ inch high. Upon the cap of a cudgel of this character which we have recently seen, taken from the hand of a riotous East Indian, there is inscribed in the native lingo the legend: “This for the heads of my enemies.”
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OF FURTHER INTEREST ON REVOLUTIONARY WAR JOURNAL
Source
Calver, W. L. “A Loaded Cane from a Revolutionary Fort”. New York Historical Society’s Quarterly, Vol. 14 (1930) No. 4.