What are "stands of muskets"????

Question

i'm doing a project on andrew hackson and it says that he sent 5,000 stand of muskets to south carolina during the nullification crisis....
does that mean 5,000 soldiers or something???

help!?!?!

Answer 1

it means 5,000 muskets........rather than lay muskets on the ground, soldiers/hunters would "stand" them up against each other..the familiar three guns in a tripod standing up you see in pictures of the period.....

and while it could mean troops, remember,almost everyone in those days had some military experience and were in a militia........like the National Guard today.....all they needed was guns to make them a powerful force to whoop anything other than a professional army

Answer 2

He probably meant 5000 soldiers. A soldier was really of no use without a gun back then so no matter how many infantry they were able to get to join up with them each would need a musket. To be able to get together 5000 muskets for use in a battle would be a way of expressing what kind of force they were prepared to bring up against an enemy army. He probably would have mentioned a certain number on cannons also.
.
.