There’s a legend that as boy, Davy Crockett was sent into the woods to hunt squirrels using round dried peas instead of lead bullets.  This may be true.  One of these days I’m going to have to try shooting peas out of a muzzle-loader to see if they break up or stay in one piece. Davy was also said to be able to “grin” raccoons to death, smiling at them until they fainted and fell out of the tree.  Maybe Hillary Clinton could do this, but I doubt anyone else could. No doubt he used round balls in "Old Betsy" at The Alamo, but fat lot of good it did him. Maybe he should have grinned at the Mexicans he was fighting.

The other tactic allegedly used on small game was “barking” it. This was to shoot the branch just under the squirrel.  The impact of the splintering wood was supposed to kill the squirrel, and the ball, stuck in the branch, could be dug out and re-used.  Frankly, I think “barking” is a legend.  I tried it myself with dubious results (see the essay “The .54 Caliber Fox Squirrel”) but perhaps others may have been better shots than I am and could do it.  Then again, I can’t imagine someone climbing a tree and clinging to the trunk so as to dig out a bullet from a limb. Using a dried pea is much more logical.