A lot has been said about the extraordinary marksmanship of the American colonists and how it helped win the Revolutionary War. A lot of that is exaggerated, but it is true that many Americans, having grown up in a semi-frontier land, were more proficient with firearms than many of the British soldiers. John Andrews, a Boston merchant, described an incident in Boston in the fall of 1774 that illustrated this:
It’s common for the soldiers to fire at a target fixed in the stream at the bottom of the common. A countryman stood by a few days ago, and laugh’d very heartily at a whole regiment’s firing, and not one being able to hit it. The officer observ’d him, and asked why he laughed. Perhaps you’ll be affronted if I tell you, reply’d the countryman. No, he would not, he said. Why then, says he, I laugh to see how awkward they fire. Why, I’ll be bound I hit it ten times running. Ah! will you, reply’d the officer; come try: Soldiers, go and bring five of the best guns, and load ’em for this honest man. Why, you need not bring so many: let me have any one that comes to hand, reply’d the other, but I chuse to load myself. He accordingly loaded, and ask’d the officer where he should fire? He reply’d, to the right — when he pull’d tricker, and drove the ball as near the right as possible. The officer was amaz’d — and said he could not do it again, as that was only by chance. He loaded again. Where shall I fire? To the left — when he perform’d as well as before. Come! once more, says the officer. — He prepar’d the third time. — Where shall I fire naow? — In the Center. — He took aim, and the ball went as exact in the middle as possible. The officers as well as soldiers star’d, and tho’t the Devil was in the man. Why, says the countryman, I’ll tell you naow. I have got a boy at home that will toss up an apple and shoot out all the seeds as its coming down.
Not that marksmanship won the war. Battles weren’t fought by snipers; they were fought by men standing in ranks (more or less), firing together, charging together, fighting with bayonets and with cannons loaded with grapeshot (in effect, giant shotguns). A determined charge could overwhelm a group of crack shots, as was shown time and time again. But in small skirmishes and hit-and-run actions, a good shot could make a big difference. And so, in some cases, could a shot not taken — such as when a British rifleman decided not to shoot at an American officer who was looking at the lay of the land — only to find out later that the officer he had spared was George Washington!
Source: Letters of John Andrews, Esq., of Boston. In Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 8, 371-72.