SpudFiles

Since there are no reasonable Revolutionary war forums that I can find, and I need this info quickly for history, does anyone know what happened to American soldiers in the Revolutionary War who were lefties? Were they treated differently, or did they just have to learn to shoot righty?
Thanks!

igpay wrote:did they just have to learn to shoot righty?

It'll be this option, as sure as can be.
In times past, when left handedness was thought of as the work of the devil, left handed children were forced into right handedness, usually by being beaten until they were essentially right handed through practise.

I can't see any reason why anyone would have expended extra money for making left handed rifles - heck, the military don't even do it these days!

Also, left handedness was less common back then, because their social pariah status meant they were less likely to hand over the genes to offspring, thus less cases of left handedness.

Thanks for your answer to my particularly off-topic question. Now I get extra credit!

igpay wrote:Thanks for your answer to my particularly off-topic question.

No problem.

Word of advice - I don't actually have the citation for that, but that'll have been the way it was. Left handedness was shunned back then, and was rarer anyway - there won't have been any different treatment of them.

Mind you, most of the rifles were inaccurate enough that shooting them off handed wouldn't have made any huge difference!

And I looked at the title and though "Communists? In the American revolution?!"