When the English man stepped off his boat to the shores of what would become America, he brought by his side a short, durable, cheap to produce sword called a hanger sword. Whilst the firearms of the 1600's were slow to reload, the hanger was quick to draw, and it was in those tight locked, shielded ranks of beleaguered Virginia Targeteers' the foundation of the United States was laid.
Fast forward a century later and the hanger was still by the side of American militia man and Minute Men. By 1776 Irregular units, through choice or logistics, favored rifles incompatible with the bayonet, and Colonial Regulars, although willing and able to stand toe to toe with the feared British bayonet charge, were in short supply of bayonets. Once again the hanger was there to pave the way, and although the bayonet would be largely supplied and adopted on larger battlefields by the end of the American Revolution, it was hangers that greeted the Americans former British countrymen and their Indian allies in the dark swamps of the south, thick woods of New England, the all but forgotten mountain campaigns of Appalachia, and atop the British redoubts at Yorktown. The hanger was on the hips of privates, NCO's and officers alike at the British surrender, and we know from the journals of American soldiers many an all but lost day was saved by the gleam of a hanger and the rallying cry of its wielder.