I don't know if anyone is still following this thread or not. I have continued to research my collateral ancestor in an effort to get this rifle as close as possible. In case you haven't yet figured me out, I'm one of those people who finds as much pleasure in the chase as I do in the kill. Getting there is half the fun.
Anyway, yesterday I received some documents in the mail from the Wayne County Kentucky Historical Society regarding my ancestor who fought at the Battle of New Orleans. Knowing some of his specifics allowed me to do more directed searches, which led to finding this on the internet:
"The United States quartermaster distributed this pay to the Tennessee troops who had preceded them, but withheld it from the Kentuckians. Believing that they would be furnished suitable clothing or pay, blankets, tents, arms and munitions, with reasonable promptness, they left home with little else than the one suit of clothing they wore, usually of homespun jeans....
Not one man in ten was well armed, and only one man in three had any arms at all.’ It is the business of a government to arm its soldiers, but such arms as the Kentuckians took to New Orleans were their own private property. The Secretary of War had promised to send arms and munitions down the Mississippi River for the supply of the Kentucky militia, but through the incompetency of the quartermaster at Pittsburg, whence the arms were to be shipped, these supplies were much delayed in starting, and had gotten only as far on the way as the mouth of the Ohio River on the day when the Kentuckians reached New Orleans, and did not get to that city until many days after all need for them was past. However, the citizens of New Orleans contributed enough of their own private and personal guns and rifles to arm Slaughter’s regiment, about seven hundred men fit for duty..."
Based on that, this rifle has become more of a crapshoot than ever. It may have originated in Kentucky. It could've been a borrowed rifle from someone in Louisiana. The only thing I can say for certain is the rifle was not of military issue.
So, I have decided then to move in a different direction. Instead of trying to build a specific style, this rifle will have attribues of the Kentucky Schools, but be built as a rifle to commemorate the upcoming bicentennial of the end of the War of 1812, and the Battle of New Orleans. I have a couple of ideas in mind that I think will result in a very nice finished piece.
