Sharpshooters: Marksmen Through The Ages

by Gary Yee

  After Second Manassas (August 1862), Lee decided to carry the war to the North and hoped to capture Maryland. Unfortunately for Lee, his invasion plan was found in an abandoned Confederate camp and delivered to McClellan. McClellan marched to destroy Lee and after a holding action at South Mountain, McClellan found Lee waiting for him at Antietam. During Sumner’s II Corps attack John Sedgwick’s 2nd Division was flanked by that of Lafayette McLaw’s. Fighting alongside the 15th Massachusetts was the 1st Andrew’s Sharpshooters. They were doing quite well until McLaw’s counterattack:

  The coolness and desperation with which the brigade fought could not be surpassed, and perhaps never was on this continent. Captain Saunders’ company of sharpshooters, attached to the Fifteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, together with the left wing of that regiment, silenced one of the enemy’s batteries, and kept it so, driving the cannoneers from it every time they attempted to load, and for ten minutes fought the enemy in large numbers at a range of from 15 to 20 yards, each party sheltering themselves behind fences, large rocks, and straw-stacks.

  The Andrew Sharp Shooters suffered 26 casualties, including Captain Saunders and a lieutenant. They were overrun by the Confederates, and the survivors made their way back as best they could.

  McClellan’s failure to follow up and destroy Lee resulted in Lincoln’s replacing McClellan with Ambrose Burnside. Burnside proposed stealing a march on Lee and marching down to Fredericksburg where he would cross the Rappahannock via pontoon bridge. Afterward his army would capture Richmond before Lee realized Burnside was gone. Burnside did steal a march but upon reaching the bank opposite of Fredericksburg, discovered that the pontoon train had not arrived from Washington. While Burnside waited, Lee rushed his army to Fredericksburg. Upon their arrival, they occupied Marye’s Heights, just beyond town. An open field would have to be crossed by the Union soldiers to defeat Lee. Unsure of where Burnside would cross, Lee sent Jackson’s I Corps south to block any Union attempt to cross at a lower point.

  The pontoons finally arrived and the Union began building their bridge at night. Observing them along the waterfront was Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade. They wanted the Union to be halfway across and committed to finishing it before firing. Longstreet describes what followed:

  The Federals came down to the river’s edge and began the construction of their bridges, when Barksdale opened fire with such effect that they were forced to retire. Again and again they made efforts to cross, but each time they were met and repulsed by the well-directed bullets of the Mississippians. This contest lasted until 1 o’clock when the Federals, with angry desperation, turned their whole available force of artillery on the little city, and sent down from the heights a perfect storm of shot and shell, crushing the houses with a cyclone of fiery metals. From our position on the heights we saw the batteries hurling an avalanche upon the town whose only offense was that it was near its edge in a snug retreat nestled three thousand Confederate hornets that were stinging the Army of Potomac into a frenzy. … It was terrific, the pandemonium which that little squad of Confederates had provoked. The town caught fire in several places, shells crashed and burst, and solid shot rained like hail. But, in the midst of all this fury, the little brigade of Mississippians clung to their work …

  Undaunted by the bombardment, Barksdale offered Lee that “if he wants a bridge of dead Yankees, he can furnish him with one.”

  Four Union regiments conducted an amphibious assault across the Rappahannock. Intense street fighting ensued before Barksdale was ordered to abandon Fredericksburg. Burnside spent the remainder of the day crossing the Rappahannock and the next day in organizing the assault. It ended in failure. While sharpshooting did not win the battle for the Confederacy, it made victory possible. Barksdale’s delaying action allowed Jackson to march up to protect Lee’s right flank and stop Burnside’s attack.

  Following Fredericksburg, Joe Hooker assumed command of the Union army and divided his army. Leaving a smaller force at Fredericksburg, Hooker marched upriver and after crossing, swept down towards Lee’s flank. Falling short of attacking Lee, Hooker halted at Chancellorsville. Learning that he had been flanked, Lee left a small force at Fredericksburg and marched north. Instead of attacking immediately upon meeting Hooker, Lee again divided his army; sending Jackson into the Wilderness to flank Hooker while Lee pinned him down. Mistaking Jackson’s movement for a retreat, Hooker ignored the sightings. When Jackson’s attack was sprung, it rolled up Hooker’s line and only stopped because of nightfall.

  Trying to stem the Confederate assault was General Amiel Whipple, 2nd Division, III Corps, who was singled out and shot: “Whipple was shot by a reb sharpshooter Monday morning. He was but a few rods from our Gen. and staff. I heard the ball pass close over me that struck him.” Fighting concentrated between Hazel Grove and Fairview Knoll where the Confederate gunners on the latter pounded the Union line on the former. While the artillery dueled, Confederate battery commander Captain Greenlee Davidson was hit by a Federal sharpshooter. Lieutenant Camberlayne of the Richmond Howitzers reported: “I was on my horse beside Davidson when he was killed by a minie fired 800 yards off.” The Union line broke and was forced to retreat under harassing fire of the Confederate sharpshooters:

  … it soon became apparent that the enemy, far back in the woods—the margin of which our pickets firmly held—had gotten our range exactly, and from the tree tops at nearly a mile distant, their sharp shooters constantly picked off our men. Indeed the firing became so severe that we were obliged to keep below the breastworks for safety, and yet we could not see from whence the shots came. About 11 A.M., whilst momentarily standing in an exposed place talking to Lieutenant Thomas, he was struck in the shoulder by a bullet, which having traveled such a long distance was spent and did not penetrate his clothing, but just gave him a severe blow and then fell at our feet. Upon examining the missile we found it to be of the peculiar elongated pattern used in the Berdan rifle and most likely was fired from one of those terrible globe sighted weapons captured from our people.

  To stop the harassment by Confederate sharpshooters, the commander of Union III Corps, Dan Sickles, called upon Berdan’s Sharpshooters:

  [T]here were from each Co., by order of Gen. Sickles, selected from the 1st, to go beyond our picket lines, and ascertain, if possible, where the shots came from. But to proceed beyond the picket line, it required some caution and creeping, to get within sight of where the shot came from, but we became satisfied that it was a stray shot, fired from a target rifle at our pickets, who were on the rise of ground, and some of the shots came into camp. The party returned at dark, one at a time, one only being wounded, having exchanged several shots with the rebel sharp shooters, but not being able to reach the said target rifle, which kept up an occasional fire all day, wounding several men in camp.

  The next morning, our regiment went out on picket in the vicinity of the target rifle. We started at three and advanced about one fourth a mile, and in addition to that, advanced four picked men in front of all others. Soon after daylight, there was a squad of rebs, fourteen in number, came creeping up to a clump of oaks, which they were permitted to gain without opposition, and then commenced an exchange of shots, which lasted for about two hours, resulting in one of the four on the extreme front pickets getting a ball through his leg, and others through their clothes, and the silencing of the reb sharp shooters, and recovering of fourteen rifles, one a Smith and Wesson rifle [actually a Wesson rifle], with a telescope sight, and the others sporting rifles….

  Hooker retreated and command of the army now fell on Major General George Gordon Meade. With Vicksburg besieged, Confederate President Jefferson Davis asked Lee to detach a corps to relieve Vicksburg. Lee countered with a proposal to invade Pennsylvania to draw Grant away. Davis approved and Lee launched his second invasion of the North. Learning of Lee’s movement, Meade rushed north where they collided at Gettysburg.

  On the third day of battle, skirmishing resumed after the failure
of Pickett’s charge. Sergeant Austin Stearns, 13th Massachusetts, recalled how one comrade outwitted his Confederate counterpart:

  [Charles W.] Comstock of [Company] K, during the days of fighting, was out on the skirmish line. The officer in charge of them cautioned him when he went out, telling him that there had been several men shot at the post he was going to. Comstock went out, keeping himself well covered behind the banks of earth. Firing was the amusement of both sides. Directly in Comstock’s front was a reb who annoyed him much, for everytime he fired, Johnny Reb’s head would peep up and he would fire at him. Comstock, finding out the trick of the Johnnie, though he would play one on him worth two of the one he was playing: so, taking a gun that had been left there by some one who had been wounded, he loaded it, and putting it over the bank along side of his own, pulled the trigger. Bang went the gun, Comstock having his eye along the barrel of his own, up came Johnnies head to take a look, when bang went the gun, and his head came up no more in sight.

  Defeated, Lee retreated to Virginia and to Lincoln’s chagrin, Meade failed to pursue and destroy Lee. Meade attempted to attack late in 1863 but the Confederate defenses at Mine Run were too strong and the attack was cancelled. In one skirmish, through a misunderstanding of tactical employment or a confusion of orders, a company of fifty sharpshooters armed with telescope rifles was ordered to charge the Confederates! Despite their clumsy and heavy rifles not being adapted for bayonets, they charged and drove away the Confederate pickets. Soon afterward both armies settled in their winter quarters.

  In March 1864 Lincoln appointed Grant as General-in-Chief, in command of all Union armies. Grant came east to accompany Meade’s army and in 1864, the two armies fought in the Wilderness, then Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna, and Cold Harbor before settling down into a siege around Petersburg. The siege lasted nine months until April when the Battle of Five Forks blew the Confederate flank open. An all-out assault the next day sent Lee’s army reeling west. Richmond was evacuated and a few days later on April 9, Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

  The Heartland

  Only one Union sharpshooter regiment fought in the Midwest. Raised on the orders of Department Head Major General John Charles Fremont, no evidence has been found showing they fired a qualification score like their Army of the Potomac counterparts. Dubbed Birge’s Western Sharpshooters, they were originally enlisted as the 14th Missouri Volunteer Infantry and were later changed to the 66th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Two things distinguished them from line infantry and one was many of the men were equipped with sporting rifles supplied by Horace Dimick. The other distinction was that, per the New York Times, they wore “gray suits, and felt hats plumed with squirrel-tails dyed black …” As the war progressed many bought lever-action Henry rifles out of their own pockets and wore the normal blue frock coat and foraging caps.

  Their division commander, Major General Lew Wallace, described them at Fort Donelson:

  A little before dawn Birge’s sharp-shooters were astir. Theirs was a peculiar service. In action each was perfectly independent. They never maneuvered as a corps. When the time came they were asked, “Canteen full?” “Biscuits for all day?” Then their only order, “All right, hunt your holes, boys.” Thereupon they dispersed, and, like Indians, sought cover to please themselves behind rocks and stumps, or in hollows. Sometimes they dug holes; sometimes they climbed trees. Once in a good location, they remained there all day. At night they would crawl out and report in camp.

  Sharpshooters of 18th Corps

  When the sharpshooters retired for the day, regular infantrymen kept up a continual fire during the night. This deprived the Confederates of sleep and wore on their nerves. In the morning the sharpshooters returned to continue the firing.

  As mentioned, trees were dangerous posts since the sharpshooter perched in the tree once exposed was subjected to counterfire with no chance of safely descending quickly. “A sharpshooter, about three fourths of a mile off on the Federal side, had climbed midway a large tree and was picking off Porter’s gunners. A six pounder was aimed at him and he fell to the ground dead.”

  After the battle of Chickamauga, the defeated Union Army retreated behind the Tennessee River at Chattanooga. The road that supplied it ran along the banks of the river and naturally the Confederates took interest in the road. While they were unable to capture it, they took positions on the overlooking Raccoon Mountain. From it they stopped the wagon trains by killing the mules. One Confederate describes it:

  We had brought our Whitworth rifles from Virginia with us. These were placed down the River on our extreme left to shoot down the front teams, which after being done, the road was entirely blocked and we then proceeded in a leisurely manner to use our English rifles (Enfields). The road was too narrow between the bluff and the River for the teams to turn around or escape in any manner, and were compelled to stand until all were shot down. I saw one of the Whitworth rifles, an English globe sight carrying a large ball, a few of which ran the blockade, in the hands of one of our sharpshooters, kill two mules at one shot—the heavy missile passing through their necks.

  The denial of the road meant that the supplies had to travel a longer mountainous route. Relief finally came when men were floated past the blockade and landed on the Confederate side. They drove away the Confederates and supplies could flow unimpeded into Chattanooga. Union reinforcements also arrived and defeated the Confederates who had been weakened after Longstreet’s corps was detached to Eastern Tennessee.

  Longstreet arrived at Knoxsville on November 17 and found the Union army strengthening the fortifications there. His sharpshooters occupied Bleak House, the Armstrong family mansion. From its tower on the third floor, and at 750–800 yards distance, Benjamin’s artillery and lines could be seen. Standing in front of the battery was Union Brigadier General William Sanders who was mortally wounded by the sharpshooters. In retaliation a 20-pound Parrott shell tore into the tower killing one sharpshooter and wounding five others.

  Longstreet’s attack failed. Strung-out telegraph wire tripped the Confederates as they advanced. When they reached the fort’s ditch they found it was deeper than anticipated and worse, water had been poured down the embankment the day before and had frozen overnight, making it icy. Lacking fascines or ladders, it was difficult to climb and those who stood on the shoulders of their comrades were shot in the head as they appeared over the parapet. The defenders also rolled lit artillery shells into the ditch, killing many Confederates. Over 1,000 Confederates were captured and Longstreet retreated into Virginia.

  Henry rifle.

  After Longstreet marched north to Knoxville, the Union broke out of Chattanooga and forced the Army of Tennessee south past Dalton, Resaca, Dallas, and finally to Marietta where one Confederate, Virginius Hutchen, was ordered to the skirmish line. “My time has nearly come,” announced Hutchen to his comrades. His position in the line was not enviable as there were several dead Confederates there. Turning over the bodies, he saw that each man had a hole in his forehead. Hutchen asked other soldiers where they had fallen and was directed to a tree that had a pile of stones alongside it. Crawling up to the rocks, he placed his hat on a stick and was rewarded with a bullet that pierced the crown. The bait had been taken. Hutchen repeated this trick three more times until he detected the smoke from the discharge. Hutchen then dispatched the Yankee sharpshooter.

  Eventually the Confederates were pushed down to Atlanta. On the outskirts of Atlanta the soldiers of the 123rd New York Volunteer Infantry came under long-range fire:

  At the top of this rise was the enemy picket line, where there were located several houses occupied by sharpshooters who could fire on us from the trees. We had a good view of the enemy’s fortifications; where the road passed through their line they had a large redoubt with heavy guns. They could see our works through the openings in the woods and we furnished a good target. Their sharpshooters had long range English rifles that would carry about a mile and made it hot for us. The troo
ps we relieved lost several men and the conditions were no better for our men. As soon as a man showed himself during daylight a bullet would come. … It was nerve wracking to know you could not stand erect without hearing a bullet hiss close to your head.

  Brigadier General William Sanders, killed by sharpshooters at Knoxville.

  Under this condition the men were ordered to conduct a review before their corps commander, General Hooker:

  We were ordered into the works at two o’clock for inspection. General Hooker, his staff and escort were to ride back of our works to view our fortifications and the troops of the 20th Corps. …Before he reached our position the General was notified of the danger and was requested to pass us in our rear, but having started to review us from the front he would not turn back. When they came to the place they were in sight of the sharpshooters, they started firing and continued to blaze away as long as the party was in sight. The General was in the lead but did not hasten the pace of his horse. … The General’s orderly, riding almost at his side, was severely wounded, several of his escorts were wounded, and some horses were disabled. The General was very angry and as soon as he went to the rear gave orders to drive out the sharpshooters.

  The 13th New Jersey charged at a double quick and drove back the rebel pickets. They then burned the two houses used by the sharpshooters and returned with thirty-three prisoners. Hooker was satisfied and rode away but “[t]he Johnnies were soon back in their rifle pits saucy as ever.”

  Eventually Atlanta was abandoned and, hoping to draw Sherman away from it¸ the Confederates marched north. Sherman occupied Atlanta instead and razed it. Ignoring the Confederates (who would be defeated at Nashville), Sherman cut himself off from his lines of communication and struck out for Savannah. His army would not stop until they marched through the Carolinas and into Washington, D.C.