This week on C-SPAN's Lectures and History podcast, Wright State University professor Paul Lockhart

teaches a class on the development of weapons technology during the American Revolution.

He examines how advancements in arms and tactics shape the fight for American independence.

He's the author of The Whites of Their Eyes, Bunker Hill,

the First American Army, and the emergence of George Washington, which explores how the early revolutionary forces evolved under Washington's leadership. And a note to our listeners. With the

academic year now wrapped, lectures in history will pause new episodes until September. Over the

summer, we'll revisit some of our most engaging past lectures

and other history-related content. This episode was recorded in February of 2023. More in a

moment. Well, folks, welcome to today's installment of History of the Gun, History 3100,

where we're going to be talking about firearms in the West

to 1800, a technological development of firearms to 1800, and specifically the case

of the American Revolution.

I'm Paul Douglas Lockhart, I'm a professor of history here at Wright State University,

so let's get started.

Today I want to, since we've been focusing so far in this course on the development

of small arms in particular, in a parallel development between small arms technology

and the changing art of war. The two things go very much hand in hand as we've seen, and

in particular with small arms that development is kind of complicated, as we've seen. And in particular with small arms, that development is kind

of complicated. As we've seen with artillery, the benefits of artillery are demonstrated very

early on. They're immediately obvious. Artillery can knock down castles, right? And so artillery

becomes part of the Western way of war before the late Middle Ages are over. But with small

arms, with individually held firearms, that case is not so easily made.

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