Early socket bayonets had an unfortunate tendency to fall off the weapon at inconvenient times. The blade had a collar that fitted over the muzzle, and was offset, to allow loading and firing. Invention of the socket bayonet in 1678 is credited to Marquis de Puységur (1656-1743) Marshal of France under King Louis XV.
The bullet is a fool the bayonet is a clever fellow. The plug bayonet was a short-lived innovation it had to be pounded out of the barrel to fire the weapon, and it is surprising so many survive in pristine condition in museums and arms collections. By the 1660s most European armies carried “plug bayonets.”Īt Killiecrankie in 1689, a wild charge of Scottish highlanders fighting for James II routed a larger force of Royalists fighting for King William III because the Royalists delayed fixing their bayonets. Jean Martinet (died 1672) whose name became an epithet for harsh drillmasters, is credited with issuing bayonets throughout the French Army. The musketeers jammed their tapered knife handles into the muzzles of their weapons, making improvised pikes to fend off the attacking horsemen. According to legend, in 1647, German cavalry charged a regiment from Bayonne. Bayonne, in the Basque country, produced a hunting knife called a bayonette. The origin of the bayonet lies 200 years earlier in France. The socket bayonet allowed the user to fire his rifle through the collar of the bayonet, which fit around the rifle’s muzzle like a ring around a finger.
Union soldiers from the 6th Maine Regiment stand in formation with socket bayonets fixed after the Battle of Fredericksburg.
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