It was a single-shot percussion-cap breech-loader that could be fired eight to ten times a minute, three times the rate of the Springfield rifled musket in experienced hands. The Sharps rifle was invented in 1848 in Hartford, Connecticut, by gun-maker Christian Sharps. Yet because many of the men were so comfortable with their personal rifles, they continued to use them throughout the war, even if they were muzzle-loaders and often weighed upwards of thirty pounds or more! The Sharps breach-loading rifle used by Union sharpshooters
Confederate sharpshooter crack#
Berdan went to Lincoln, who after watching Berdan give a dazzling demonstration of speed and accuracy with the Sharps rifle, ordered it issued to the crack regiments. Winfield Scott, fearing that this would lead to waste of ammunition, overruled Berdan, insisting on standard issue Springfield rifles. Berdan requested issuance of Sharps rifles because of their fast breech-loading and outstanding accuracy at long range. This became the practice for both Union and Confederate armies for the remainder of the war.Īt first many of the snipers provided their own weapons, but this practice often posed problems of ammunition supply.
They served throughout the war, and it was claimed that Berdan’s regiments probably killed more rebel soldiers than any other regiments in the army.īy mid-1862, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton came to believe that regiments made up exclusively of sharpshooters were too unwieldy for tactical use, and the riflemen would best be organized as companies or squads, or even just as individuals, in regular regiments, to be deployed as the field commander chose. Sharpshooters had been mustered into service. But Berdan recruited extensively from Wisconsin to Vermont, and by November of 1861 the 1st and 2nd regiments of U.S. The chosen few had to put ten consecutive shots in a 10-inch circle at 200 yards, although with their choice of weapon and position. He received permission from the government to recruit two regiments of qualified riflemen that would be armed with superior rifles. Berdan of New York, a mechanical engineer and prolific inventor who originated a repeating rifle before the war, and a range finder and a torpedo boat for evading torpedo nets during and after the conflict, and the amateur champion marksman of the United States since 1846. The concept of using expert marksmen in a role distinct from that of the ordinary infantryman was proposed in the summer of 1861 by the brilliant but erratic Hiram G. But that was the task of the Civil War sharpshooter, both Union and Confederate. It took cool nerves under those conditions to estimate carefully the distance to the target, determine the high trajectory needed at the time, and allow for any wind.
Now imagine firing a rifle at a distant enemy on a battlefield covered with powder smoke, with shell fragments flying around, and with the enemy riflemen and artillery in turn finding you a very desirable target. And the black powder of the Civil War era was not high power. Even with those qualifications and today’s high-powered rifles, it is difficult to hit a man-sized target at three hundred yards without resting the rifle securely. It takes a keen eye, steady hands, a great deal of training and practice, and a good firearm. Hitting a distant target with a bullet only looks easy. Editor’s note: At the time this article was originally published in The Charger in the fall of 2001, Sid Sidlo was editor of the The Ramrod, the newsletter of the North Carolina CWRT.
0 kommentar(er)
