Sharpshooters: Marksmen Through The Ages

by Gary Yee

  Another recruitment promise was that every man who brought his own target rifle would be compensated for it. As this promise was never made by the War Department but by the officers who recruited them, it was never fulfilled. However, two companies (and part of a third company, C, D, and E) of Berdan’s First United States Sharpshooters marched off to war armed with target rifles. Two other companies from Massachusetts were supposed to join Berdan’s regiments, but Massachusetts Governor Andrew intervened and decided that they should fight alongside Massachusetts men. Named after their governor, they were known as the 1st and 2nd Andrew’s Sharpshooters.

  Since neither target rifle nor Sharps breechloaders were available, Army Ordnance Chief Ripley offered Berdan the common Springfield rifle musket. Seeking to keep logistics simple, Ripley was unreceptive to firearms innovation. Doing so would create a logistical nightmare with various types of ammunition as well as spare parts for repair. Berdan knew that the men would reject the Springfield and declined them. Berdan wrote to General-in-Chief McClellan asking for the .56 caliber Colt Root Revolving Rifle, a five-shot rifle that had a revolving cylinder much like modern revolvers. Berdan’s letter eventually reached President Lincoln who overrode Ripley’s objection.

  While the Root Revolving Rifle offered the advantage of being a repeater, it was generally disliked by the men who reluctantly accepted them only on the premise that it was an interim arm until the Sharps could be supplied. There were several complaints but it was chiefly related to a revolver’s habit of spitting lead shavings out from between the gap of the cylinder mouth and the barrel. The lead shavings “fly six to eight feet endangering a persons eyes.” Men picked lead from each other’s face and neck. More dangerously the design was not immune from multiple cylinders discharging simultaneously. Called chain fires, they are attributable to loosely fitting percussion caps that moved when the gun discharged. The danger is that if the sharpshooter held onto the forearm, he could end up with lead balls embedded in him, as was the case for one sharpshooter whose hand was disfigured by a chain fire.

  Morgan James scoped rifle with false muzzle. (West Point Collection)

  Eventually the .52 caliber Sharps breechloading rifle was issued to the Berdan Sharpshooters and they gladly exchanged their Colts for the Sharps. The falling block Sharps had been adopted by the cavalry before the war and was perhaps the best breechloader in service. Breechloaders have been around since Henry VIII but they all suffered from inadequate gas sealing. The result was dangerous hot gases near the user’s face—something neither conducive to marksmanship nor user confidence in his firearm. The Sharps overcame this problem with a two-piece gas seal. Within the sliding breechblock was Conant gas check and the Lawrence cylindrical insert. Upon firing, the gases blew the Conant gas check against the Lawrence cylindrical insert. When the gas check and cylindrical insert were pressed against each other, they prevented any gas from escaping. Being a breechloader they were easier to clean than a muzzle-loader and easier to reload while prone. Weighing only 8 pounds, the Sharps was lighter than the Springfield and its shorter 30-inch barrel was much handier than the longer 39-inch barrel Springfield.

  Born in Ostego, New York, Truman Head headed west to California where he engaged in various pursuits including grizzly hunting. At war’s outbreak, he joined Company C. of Berdan’s Sharpshooters and privately purchased a Sharps breechloading rifle. Being one of the oldest members of the regiment, he acquired the moniker California Joe, and was a regimental favorite. Besides the Sharps, there are numerous accounts of him using a scoped rifle with which he killed a Negro rebel sharpshooter. After Malvern Hill, Head was hospitalized for vision problems and discharged on November 3, 1862. He returned to San Francisco where he worked as a laborer and a night inspector for the U.S. Customs Department. He passed away in 1875 and is interred at the Presidio National Cemetery in San Francisco under his given name.

  Hiram Berdan and California Joe

  The Sharps was carried by Berdan’s men throughout the course of the war and was not exclusive to them. Other infantry units known to be partially equipped with Sharps include the New York Independent Sharpshooters and both companies of Andrew’s Sharpshooters.

  The Confederates were at a disadvantage in having less industrial capacity, and relied on Enfield rifles for their sharpshooters. A single-shot rifle musket, the Enfield was the English equivalent to the American Springfield. Whereas the Springfield was capable of hitting a man at 500 yards, the Enfield could be relied on up to 900 yards. Firing a bullet slightly smaller than the Springfield’s, its accuracy was attributable to the progressive depth rifling. Most Enfields imported during the war had a 39-inch-long barrel and among the Confederates the shorter 33-inch rifle was reserved for the Confederate sharpshooters.

  During the war, both sides issued non-standardized firearms in limited numbers. On the Union side, Horace E. Dimick of St. Louis, Missouri was contracted to provide target rifles for Birge’s Western Sharpshooters. Dimick came from Kentucky and in 1849 opened shop on 38 North Main Street. While competing with the Hawkens Brothers, Dimick’s line also included target rifles. As a private maker, there was no set pattern or caliber and each rifle could be distinct from the next. They had either brass or steel hardware (trigger guard, buttplate, thimbles escutcheon for lock screws, nose). Some had poured pewter noses. Generally they are similar in appearance to the Hawkens (sometimes misspelled as Hawkins) rifles carried by many Fur Trade-era trappers. The half-stocked ones had a metal rib beneath the barrel. The nose served to protect foreend wood as well as being the entry pipe for the ramrod. Some had the sharp crescent-shaped buttplate which were intended to be shot off the arm and not the shoulder. The trigger guards varied, depending on what was available to the maker. Double set triggers were also optional on these guns. Since Dimick catered to the civilian market, there was no fixed caliber, and surviving examples have been found in .34, .48, and .50 caliber with barrel lengths varying from 31 to 36 inches. Since each rifle bore was a unique caliber, the rifle was accompanied by a bullet mold with which the user could cast bullets.

  Whether the rifle was made by the Hawkens or Dimick, these rifles had very heavy barrels that were designed to withstand a heavy (100 grains FF) powder charge. When he received the contract, Dimick had only about 150 rifles at hand. To meet his contractual obligation, Dimick bought rifles from other makers including Eastern gunsmiths. The December 1862 Illinois Adjutant General Report states, “The regiment is all armed with the sporting rifle.” By the 1863 second quarter report there were only 538 remaining and by the 1864 fourth quarter report, this had dropped to thirteen. Their duties as skirmishers created a demand for greater firepower and many men bought Henry lever action repeaters.

  Blackpowder is available in various grain size and from coarser to finer grain they are in the following sequence: F, 2F (or FF), 3F (FFF) and 4F (FFFF). F would be used in very large bore punt guns, 2F for muskets and some rifles (from .72 to .50), 3F for revolvers and some rifles (.50 cal. down to .30 cal.) and 4F for priming flintlock pans. Measurement of powder is by volume and not by weight. Soldiers carried paper cartridges that had a premeasured powder charge. Most Civil War-era muskets and minié guns had about 60–65 grains of 2F. .45 caliber round balls are about 40 grains of 2F. In working up a load for the maximum accuracy, sportsmen often experiment with different powder charges and bullet design or in the case of patched round ball, ball diameter and patch thickness.

  Target rifles were used in limited numbers by both sides. There is no common characteristic of a target rifle and some were slightly heavier than a regular rifle musket while others were 50 pounds! The optically equipped ones were known in the vernacular of the period as target telescope rifles. Besides bullet molds and bullet swagers to size them, some also had patch cutters, false muzzles to protect the muzzle while it was being loaded and bullet starters to start the bullet down the bore. The loss of any of these accouterments meant that the rifle was useless. At Malvern Hill, the knapsa
cks belonging to the 2nd Andrew’s Sharpshooters were stolen meaning that their rifles had to be sent home and Sharps distributed as replacements.

  Telescopes are centuries old and the earliest known scoped rifle in America was made in 1776 for Charles Wilson Peale. A portrait painter, Peale was no rifleman and having no understanding of cheek weld, was struck in his eye when it recoiled. As a remedy, a spring-loaded sliding buttpad like the one made in 1770 by English gunmaker Charles Byrne was installed. A militia officer, it is very unlikely Peale’s rifle was fired in combat. Scopes became popular around 1830 and the first known use in combat was by Horatio Ross who used a scoped rifle to protect women and children from mutinous sepoys in India (1856).

  In 1854, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army Lord Hardinge wanted the best rifle possible for the army. Hardinge specified that the bullet should weigh the same as the service bullet, then 530 grains, but that it could be smaller bore than the .577 currently in use. The only other restriction was that the service charge of 70 grains was used. Accepting the challenge was Joseph Whitworth who was no gunmaker but the finest mechanic of his time. Whitworth believed that a bullet fitted precisely to the bore would yield the greatest accuracy possible. He conducted tests and concluded that a hexagonal bullet fired from a 1:20-inch twist polygonal rifling barrel would yield the best results. Tested in 1857 against the Enfield service rifle, it outshot the Enfield after 500 yards. The Enfield was shooting so wildly at 1,400 yards that it ceased to be tested. The Whitworth on the other hand was capable of striking a 2-foot by 32-foot oak target at 1,880 yards! The bullet not only hit the target but drove deeply into the wood. Easily the most accurate rifle of its time (until surpassed by the Gibbs-Metford rifle), Whitworth failed to gain the military contract since its smaller bore fouled easier than the Enfield and was near impossible to reload when it fouled. Additionally the Whitworth cost four times an Enfield.

  During the American Civil War, two types of lever action repeaters were fielded by the Union Army. The Spencer required the shooter to put the hammer on half cock, work the lever to eject the spent cartridge and chamber a fresh cartridge, cock it to full cock before shooting it. To reload the Spencer, the soldier removed the magazine tube from the butt and inserted seven rounds before replacing the magazine tube. To facilitate this, a Blakeslee Box that had tin tubes pre-loaded with seven rounds made reloading very quick for the Spencer armed soldier. The Henry was more advanced in that all the soldier had to do was to work the lever. This not only ejected the spent cartridge, it cocked the hammer and reloaded the chamber with a fresh cartridge. Disadvantages include its open, tubular magazine which soldiers had to be mindful to prevent mud or dirt from entering the magazine tube. Second, the Henry’s 44 Henry rimfire bullet not as powerful as the .56 caliber Spencer bullet. Armed with either, the Union soldier enjoyed firepower unrivaled by anything produced by the Confederacy.

  Standard and ratchet rifling.

  An assortment of sights was offered with the Whitworth, but some were also adapted for the side-mounted Davidson scope. Scopes of the period offered limited internal elevation capability. By mounting the scope on the side, the scope could be depressed for distances greater than a centerline barrel-mounted scope. Another advantage of the Davidson side-mounted system was the user could still use his metallic sights. Weighing slightly more than the Enfield, the Whitworth was capable of outshooting a 50-pound target rifle and was highly coveted among the Confederates who competed in shooting matches for the honor of using it. Each Whitworth rifle, along with a bullet mould and 1,000 rounds of ammunition, cost the Confederacy $1,000 in gold.

  The Whitworth was not the only coveted English rifle. England in the 1850s was a nation obsessed with long-range shooting. The London Armoury Company produced the Kerr rifle which featured a six-groove ratchet gain twist rifling. Designed by the armoury’s superintendent, James Kerr, the twist started slowly and then at about the halfway point it reached its maximum twist which it maintained up to the muzzle. The theory was that the slower twist caused less bullet deformation. Using a powder charge from 2¾ drams (75.2 grains) to 3 drams (82.03 grains) of fine powder, the Kerr fired a .442-inch diameter bullet that weighed 530 grains and was deadly at a mile. Like the Whitworth, the Kerr fouled easily and required swabbing out after every fourth or fifth shot.

  Military firearms are designed to withstand field use. In contrast, target rifles require special attentiveness by the user to ensure their reliability. Being of a nonmilitary caliber, they likely had set triggers and special sights, if not target telescopes (as scopes were called in the 19th century), their own bullet mould with which the user would “run” or cast their bullets. They could also have patch cutters, bullet swagers to size the bullet, false muzzles to load the gun without damage to the muzzle, bullet starters to start the bullet down the muzzle and a special carrying case to house the target rifle and its accoutrements when not in use. They could also weigh substantially more than a standard soldier’s rifle musket varying from 12 pounds to over 50 lb. The heavier rifles required wagon transport and if the wagon broke (one belonging to the 1st Andrew’s Sharpshooters did), the sharpshooter was essentially unarmed. Unable to take a bayonet, they were ill suited for close-range fighting.

  Battles

  After First Manassas (July 1861), the notion that the war would be over after one quick and relatively bloodless battle was forgotten. Command of the Union army now fell to Major General George McClellan. McClellan bypassed the Confederates by having his army transported by ships to Fortress Monroe on Virginia’s Yorktown peninsula. They marched up the peninsula until they reached the Confederate fortification at Yorktown. Many in both armies were still armed with smoothbore muskets and this was especially disadvantageous to the Confederates. Eschewing the unnecessary bloodshed, McClellan laid siege instead of storming Yorktown. Here the sharpshooters proved themselves. One Union soldier found himself under fire:

  Along our line of intrenchments it was unsafe to expose the person for an instant. I had a practical illustration of this one day when in charge of a fatigue party in the trenches. I stood for a moment in “the open,” and a bullet whizzed close to my head. I failed to comprehend its significance, but when another leaden messenger seemed to pass me closer, and I heard its contact with a tree just beyond me, it dawned upon my mind that I was the target for a rebel sharpshooter. I soon spied an object beyond the chimney of a house across the field, distant about four hundred yards. I satisfied myself that a “Johnny” was behind the chimney on the roof, and then sent a message to Col. Berdan, whose sharpshooters were endeavoring to protect us from just such fellows as this one proved to be. Two of Berdan’s experts responded to my summons and they began a ceaseless vigil with the purpose of killing or disabling the daring rifleman behind the chimney. They finally prepared an effigy and advanced it to the open plot where I had been exposed, and immediately a head was revealed from behind the chimney, and a rifle bullet sped across the field. We heard its “zip” as it passed the effigy, and then we knew what before we had only surmised. The rebel behind the chimney was determined to slay anyone who came within the range of his rifle. Little suspecting that he had been detected, he again thrust his head from concealment for another shot, but before he had time to bring his rifle into position, a bullet from a Berdan sharpshooter had passed through the intervening space and we saw a human body roll down the shingled roof to the ground.

  Civil War muzzle-loading artillery required artillerymen to expose themselves to load. For a brief moment in time the rifleman could challenge and even dominate the artillery. One Union captain watched Berdan’s Sharpshooters silence the rebel artillery:

  Our guns keep up a constant shelling both day and night, which is seldom responded to by the rebels, because of the terrible Berdan sharp shooters who cover their guns to such an extent that they cannot work them. I never before saw such a set of men as these same Berdan sharp shooters. They are armed with the telescope sighted rifle peculiar to thei
r calling, some of which weigh the extraordinary heft of 57 to 60 pounds. These men speak confidently of killing, without the slightest difficulty, at a mile distant. The impression left upon the minds of the soldiers by these people is not at all a pleasant one, and as they come out each morning after breakfast strutting along, the men look in askance and rather shrink from them. As far as I am able to judge, although receiving a general order to occupy certain portions of the line, it is left discretionary with them to select their own position. So that good service is done, the method is with the individual. It has frequently occurred that one or more of them have occupied my part and I have watched their proceedings very closely. They remind one of the spider who, hour after hour, so patiently waits for the unhappy fly. These men will, after cutting crotches and resting their rifles on them, coolly take a camp stool, and adjusting the telescopic sight, wait for some poor devil to show himself, when, quick as a flash, bang goes the rifle, and the soldier has solved the Trinity. I have often looked through their sight pieces, and have been amazed at their power and the distinctness with which objects of at least a mile distant are brought under the eye of the observer.

  Richmond newspapers denounced the Yankee sharpshooters and advocated no quarter be shown to any captured sharpshooter. Eager to regain the initiative, the Confederate Congress passed legislation directing that each brigade raise a sharpshooter battalion and with the exception of the army in Northern Virginia, all Confederate armies complied. Since McClellan was threatening Richmond, there was no time to reorganize the army and even after McClellan was beaten back, the Confederates were too busy winning battles. Incessant fighting depleted their ranks and while some brigades or divisions wanted to comply, they lacked the manpower. A few brigades or divisions managed to raise their battalions but full compliance would wait for the spring of 1864 when Lee himself issued the order.