The smooth bore musket was easier and quicker to load than a rifle but the accuracy was terrible. Given the European war model was just line up as close as possible, the musket ball didn’t have to be accurate because by the law of averages you had to hit someone. Battles were fought like this for quite sometime and since you were shoulder to shoulder and were well practiced with the easier to load musket ball. The use of this war model continued throughout the majority of the 18th century even though militias didn’t think lining up was very wise. When the Continental Army was formed, the European war model of shoulder to shoulder was used due to the use of the musket ball and the seeming success of the British.

In Europe, armies were long standing and drilled to maintain the “fighting” skills. It was important that they maintain the military mindset that no matter what , you stood on the line unless you were commanded otherwise. However, in the newly independent America the Continental Army went from 25,000 standing members to 1,000 members . Other countries had professional soldiers while America would depend on volunteers or conscription during this time.

Smallpox ultimately lead to a new way to treat a potentially deadly disease. It affected all social levels and was really quite brutal. It effected the colonial army, with more soldiers dying from smallpox than the war. As is true for all new treatments inoculation was very controversial. The development of a better treatment through investigation of milk maids and cowpox, greatly improved not only smallpox but in time this method help protect people from many other diseases

The benefits are during the investigative process, treatments for other diseases may be found. The major drawback is the number of deaths that occur during this process. Trial and error medicine on human beings is not without great risk.

The broader themes in 19th century century include the fact that fewer farmers were needed and subsistent farming was almost a thing of the past. All of this began with the invention of the reaper and other improvements that resulted in larger farms that needed fewer workers because machinery did the job faster.

Improvements in transportation was another change brought about by the improvements in farming. Once harvested, farm goods needed to get to markets quicker. This lead to improvements in roadways, manmade canals and ultimately the need for the railroad..

The changes in our agrarian society led to the growth in the population in cities. Since farming was less labor intensive farmers had to find other ways to support their families. The cities neede workers to build not only farm machinery but other machinery as well. Also their was growth in other production of other necessities as well such as fabric for clothing ,ready made clothing, eventually canning of foods in tin cans and the meat packing industry. The times were changing.