Exercise With Krag Jorgensen Rifle

[Knute1]

Need to get back in shape after the holiday festivities? Got a few extra pounds you would like to loose? Want to enjoy one of your favorite hobbies while loosing weight? Consider exercising with your Krag Jorgensen rifle the military way. (This is all tongue in cheek, so don't take me seriously.)

Here is the "Manual of Physical Drill, United States Army" copyrighted 1897. Drilling with the Krag starts on page 8.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ma ... frontcover

[butlersrangers]

Thanks Knute, I did a quick Krag Work-Out this morning and now I feel better about myself!

I wish you had 'Posted' this back in March. We could all be looking like a bunch of 'school boys'.

The two man exercises will have to wait, until after, we are all vaccinated!

[Knute1]

Men must have had less inhibitions back then. The 2-man exercise looks like ballet. I'd like to see a video on it.

[butlersrangers]

The video would likely be called - "Dances with Krags" or "Dirty Krag Dancing" ... umm .... I'll pass!

[waterman]

I find the picture interesting. Caption is "Pa. recruits" but it does not look like any sort of recruit exercise, even circa 1900. With the white shirts and everybody pretty well dressed, even to straw hats, it looks like some sort of Sunday outing. The small embankment they are laying on looks like the slope of a small sand dune, easy to dig your elbows into that. The vegetation looks like something that grows on sand dunes. What kind of activity required Sunday-best clothes and Krags?

[butlersrangers]

Regrettably, there wasn't any more identifying information posted with this photo on the internet.

Most of the faces look pretty young, except the mustached man (teacher?) mouthing comments, in the center of the group.

Schoolboys? Young College Students? Mormon Tabernacle Shooters? Inquiring minds want to know!

[butlersrangers]

redundant

[Culpeper]

It looks like it could have been taken any time from 1917 to the early 1930s.

I'm betting 1917 or 1918. Not many men were clamoring to be a recruit in a guard unit after 1919 due to everyone was exhausted from the Great War and wanted get on with life. The Congress and the States were trying shed as many men as possible. Budgets were slashed to pre-war numbers. The 1920s were roaring after the mild depression in 1919-20.

Plus the style of haircuts, hats, and shirts puts it in that era.

And the length of the shadows and the amount of grass in the photo puts it around June 3rd about 8:45 in the morning.


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[Knute1]

I believe Culpeper is very close in his estimate of "about 8:45" in the morning. Considering geographically where Pennsylvania is located, the margin of error would be +/- 15 minutes.

[butlersrangers]

I retraced my steps and found the source of the photo of the young men in straw hats with Krags.

It was posted on Jouster2 in a thread titled 'AEF Krags' by 'Story'. The source was digital.library.temple.edu and captioned "recruits train in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania" and appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in 1917.
(The photo is contained in the George D. McDowell collection).

'Story' theorizes that the photo is possibly connected to the Philadelphia Military Training Corps and may be near Philadelphia at the estate of eccentric Millionaire, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Sr.
Mr. Biddle was a proponent of War Preparedness, Boxing, Savate, Jujitsu, bayonet & knife fighting, and training for close combat.
He joined the Marine Corps at age 41, was commissioned, and trained Marines in these skills during WWI and WWII.

Anthony J. Drexel Biddle does not look very formidable in his photographs. By 1917, he appears to be a paunchy middle aged man, but, he must have been quick, tough and agile.

Back to the 'recruit' photo, I find it significant that there is absolutely nothing Military in the picture, except, the Krag rifles.

(BTW - There was a "season" governing men's hats in the early 1900's. "Straw Hat Day" occurred in mid-May, when it became OK to wear a Straw 'Boater' for the warm months.
However, September 15th was "felt hat day" and time to don your Fedora.
If you persisted with the straw hat, after mid-September, people would take it off your head and throw it in the street or punch a hole in it.
Oh, the tyranny of fashion! Maybe these gentlemen are defending their Straw Hats).