Thrifty Yankees at Bunker Hill developed "spin"...... About military theory and discipline the Americans knew very little. Personal discipline, individual initiative, devotion to the duties of community life, and respect for fellow members of the community -- these were the cornerstones of life in the New England colonies. To the hardworking and thrifty Yankee farmers who awaited the British regulars on Breed's Hill, wasting anything was a sin, and wasting anything as valuable and hard to come by as ammunition was unthinkable. For years their lives had depended upon the ability to hit what they aimed at, whether it was game for the dinner table, or Frenchmen and Indians on the warpath. Some of them had discovered that a musket ball seated in a piece of greased paper and rammed into a grooved or "rifled" gun barrel, developed a spin which increased both accuracy and range. Very few of them possessed a bayonet. http://members.tripod.com/~grgordon/bunkerhi.htm