by Gary Yee
They arrived in time to see the last boatload of Confederates attempting to evacuate the island. Firing upon it, they convinced the Confederates to roll back to shore and to surrender. Among them were several blacks and it required a lot of effort by the officers to prevent their men from killing them. While elated, Gillmore still needed to capture Fort Sumter before the navy could sail in to bombard the city. Sumter held on and Dahlgren, citing the torpedoes (mines) that could be activated from Sumter, refused to sail past the fort to bombard Charleston. Dahlgren had already lost the semi-ironclad Keokuk to a mine and declined exposing his remaining vessels to harm. Defending Wagner gave the Confederates time to improve Charleston’s defenses. Gillmore for his part became fixated on his plan, wasted time and resources in a lengthy siege and was ultimately stalemated. Sumter and Charleston would not fall until 1865. Between Sherman’s army marching up from Georgia, and Gillmore landing north of Charleston at Bull’s Bay to attack it from the land, the Confederates abandoned Sumter and Charleston to the Union.
CHAPTER 5
FROM SHARPSHOOTING TO SNIPING
1866–1918
“He killed him right where he used to sit down.”
Technological Changes
DESPITE SHARPSHOOTING’S DEMONSTRATED USEFULNESS, no lessons were drawn from it as the American army resumed its former role of a frontier police force. Experience of warfare against Plains Indians mounted on swift ponies led many to believe that sharpshooting was unsuitable for the army’s challenges. Apart from in regimental histories or memoirs, sharpshooting was forgotten as the nation rebuilt and resumed the westward expansion interrupted by the war.
Metallic cartridges had been invented prior to the Civil War and were used in both the lever-action Spencer and Henry repeating rifles. The 1866 Austro-Prussian War was the last war where the minié rifle was used and both belligerents in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 had bolt-action breechloaders. By the Boer War (1899–1902), black powder was replaced with nitro-cellulose-based propellants. Besides having a near-invisible smoke signature, smokeless powder also yielded higher pressures, a flatter trajectory and higher muzzle velocities.
The development of optical devices was not stagnant and stadia lines were introduced making it easier for the user to estimate the distance. Bubble levels appeared on both scopes and optical devices, alerting the user that the rifle was canted. These novelties vanished sometime after World War I but reemerged many decades later.
The American West
In August 1874, 10th Cavalry buffalo soldiers were with General Davidson who met in council at Fort Still with Kiowa sub-chief Red Food. Some Indians used the opportunity to attack the compound. Sergeant Shropshire recalled that he:
noticed that a shot at regular intervals came from a neighboring cornfield. Under slight cover he crept up to the edge of rising ground, determined to locate the sharpshooter whose balls were coming closer with each discharge. Presently he discovered what looked like a shock of new cut corn. He watched that shock; he saw it move; there was an Indian inside it. The native had inclosed himself with green cornstalks; he was well disguised. Calling a corporal to him he pointed out the object and ordered a volley poured into the shock. The value of corning clothing fell in that vicinity. The next day the Indian’s remains were examined and his body was found to have been pierced by five bullets.
One of the first American settlers in Arizona Territory was Pete Kitchen. A teamster for Zachary Taylor during the Mexican-American War, Kitchen joined the Gold Rush and afterward settled in Arizona’s Santa Cruz Valley. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Army went east and Kitchen was left to fend for himself. He was well prepared as his five-room adobe house had walls .65 meter thick and that extended 1.3 meters above the roof. Built for defense, the wall on the roof was loopholed all the way around. Dubbed Pete’s Stronghold, it was the only safe haven for the hundred miles between Tucson and Magdalena.
Caliber refers to the bore’s inner diameter. A .50 caliber bore is ½ an inch. A .60 caliber bore is of an inch and so on. The flintlock-era Brown Bess and Charleville Musket were .72 and .69 caliber respectively. The former was almost ¾ of an inch in diameter but most certainly loaded with a slightly undersized ball. Bigger and heavier balls were notorious for crushing bone; often necessitating amputation of the damaged limb. A smaller ball will render hors de combat and enjoys the advantage of yielding more balls per pound of lead—something that budget or resource-minded individual bore in mind. A pound of lead will yield approximately thirteen .75 caliber balls, fifteen .69 caliber balls, twenty .62 caliber balls or thirty-eight .50 caliber balls, etc. Modernly, caliber also refers not only to the bullet size but the cartridge itself; the 7.62 mm NATO was the standard .30 cal cartridge used by NATO forces during the Cold War.
Apache attacks were frequent and carrying guns was normal for Kitchen and his ranch hands. As a precaution, a lookout was always posted on the roof and through practice and with the aid of marking stakes placed around the house, the occupants knew the distance to adjust their sights. One day while digging a stake hole, Kitchen was attacked by a knife-wielding Apache. Unable to reach his gun, Kitchen bludgeoned the Apache with his shovel. Another time Kitchen spotted an Apache on a hill across from the house. The Apache jumped on a rock, turned around, bent over and showed his backside. It so happened that the rock the Apache was on happened to be Kitchen’s regular target and Kitchen knew the exact hold. Grabbing up a rifle, Kitchen “killed him where he used to sit down.”
Bozeman, Montana, organized an expedition of frontiersman into Sioux Territory. Sioux Shell Necklace harassed them from 1,380 yards distance. Resting a scope-sighted .44-90 Sharps rifle on cross-sticks, Jack Bean fired back and hit Shell Necklace. At Adobe Walls, Texas, buffalo hunters fled to the trading post before an Indian attack. On the third day, Billy Dixon observed a group of Indians lined up on the edge of a bluff. Using a scope-sighted .50 caliber Sharps, Dixon fired and knocked one down at 1,538 yards distance.
The Spanish–American War
Following the destruction of the battleship Maine in February 1898, America declared war on Spain and sent an expedition to seize Cuba. The Spaniards used smokeless 7 mm Mauser rifles to snipe at them and while the Americans had no sharpshooter units, they quickly improvised. Sergeant James W. Ford came under fire from one Spaniard:
I was present with the attacking line of Troop B, Tenth Cavalry when it advanced on the Spanish fortified position of La Suasimas, Cuba, on June 24, 1898. I noticed Private William M. Bunn, Troop B, Tenth Cavalry, during the advance, whose conduct was conspicuous for coolness and gallantry, shown by the deliberate manner in which he kept firing at a Spaniard up in a tree, although the bullets were falling thick around us at that time. After one of Private Bunn’s shot, I saw the Spaniard fall out of the tree and I feel sure that Private Bunn killed him.
Another 10th Cavalry trooper recalled searching for a Spaniard:
They had been getting our officers in great shape, and we couldn’t for the life of us locate the man or men who were doing it. Finally, bang! came a bullet which struck one of my comrades near me. I decided it was about time to look after that Spaniard; so I kept a sharp lookout, and all at once saw part of a head peeping from behind a bunch of cocoanuts, drew a bead on it, and instant a Spaniard tumbled out of that tree.
Fighting alongside the 10th was Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, who also came under sharpshooter fire. Roosevelt penned:
In our front their sharp-shooters crept up before dawn and either lay in the thick jungle or climbed into some trees with dense foliage. In these places it proved almost impossible to place them, as they kept cover very carefully, and their smokeless powder betrayed not the slightest sign of their whereabouts. They caused us a great deal of annoyance and some little loss, and though our own sharp-shooters were continually taking shots at the places where they were supposed to be, and though occasionally we would play a Gatling or a Colt [machine gun] all through the top of a suspicious
tree, I but twice saw Spaniards brought down out of their perches from in front of our lines—on each occasion the fall of the Spaniard being hailed with loud cheers by our men.
To counter the Spanish sharpshooters, Roosevelt raised a detail to hunt them down:
I sent out that afternoon and next morning a detail of picked sharp-shooters to hunt them out, choosing, of course, first-class woodsmen and mountain men who were also very good shots. … They started systematically to hunt them, and showed themselves much superior at the guerillas’ own game, killing eleven, while not one of my men was scratched.
Eventually the Spaniards were pushed back into Santiago, as reported by Colonel P. M. Shockley:
In the trenches before Santiago, there was little firing at the Spaniards. The distance was accepted by most as being too great, and most of the regulars had not fired at distances greater than 600 yards. Of telescopic sights and mounts, there were none, and had they been available, the climatic conditions would have soon rendered them unserviceable. There were a few experts among the regulars. Inspector General Reader reported that: First Lieutenant Charles Muir, 2nd Infantry, is of the class of distinguished sharpshooters, known for ten years for his honorable identification with target practice. He is a man who mixes brains with gun powder and has the ability beyond that of neatly and correctly judging the effects of the wind, light and shade on a projectile, also the ability to have eye and finger muscles act simultaneously in pulling (the) trigger. While in the trenches … he saw a guard of the Spanish at a range of 1,100 yards, adjusted his sights … fired twice, called his shot instantly and each time brought down an enemy. Members of his squad, with equal success same time and range, potted a third Spaniard.
Lieutenant Henry D. Wise witnessed another amazing shot:
[D]uring the battle of July 1st, he and a sharpshooter named McIlhaney, had their attention attracted by a Spanish officer who was conspicuous because he was riding a white horse. Guessing the range, 1,100 yards, McIlhaney opened fire and hit the Spaniard. Wise says that he subsequently learned that Gen. Linares, the commander of the Santiago Spanish forces, rode a horse of that color when wounded, and believes that McIlhaney did it.
Defeated in both Cuba and at Manila Bay when Dewey’s Squadron crushed the Spanish Squadron there, the war concluded in an American victory.
The Boer War
The allure of gold caused Great Britain to invade the Boer Republic in 1899. Anxious to defend their nation, the Boers organized into commandos and struck back. Unlike other opponents faced by Queen Victoria’s armies, the Boers were marksmen and it probably didn’t hurt that they practiced on 700-yard rifle ranges. The German General Staff noted:
Accustomed to exertion and to privation, the Boer possessed all the qualities which form the foundation necessary for success in war. When fighting against numerous, brave but badly armed native population, and when hunting game, he had learned to study a country, to avail himself of its cover, in order to get within effective range of his adversary, and only to fire when success was certain, but to fly quickly from danger. … Nor did he lightly risk his life; he would quit a dangerous position without damage to his moral strength, and, instead of holding out to the last, he would occupy a new one.
Thus was strengthened the self-confidence of the individual rifleman who, in the field, remained always more a hunter than a soldier. The idea was that, in a fight, it was only necessary to defeat the adversary while securing his own safety, and that a hand-to-hand struggle at all costs was to be avoided. The tactics of a number of Boers was based solely upon the employment of individual and independent riflemen who, owing to the peculiarities of their race, were only unwilling subordinates, unless the objective were immediately plain to all eyes. Advancing at great intervals they endeavored to encircle the enemy, without exposing themselves. In the defense, which was favored by clear fields of fire and by the good cover afforded by the rolling ground and kopjes, the Boers had learned, in their struggle against the Zulus, what a terrible weapon is a rifle with sufficient ammunition in the hands of an experienced shot.
Their superiority in marksmanship was evident at Dundee in October 1899. To eject the Boers from Talana Hill that overlooked Dundee, the British assembled a force to storm it. Major General Sir W. Penn Symons dismounted and walked around to encourage his men. He was undeterred even after a staff officer was shot. He cheered his men on and stepped over a stone wall to examine the Boer positions. At that moment Symons was shot. The attack proceeded anyway and Boer Denny Reitz described the fight:
Our party under Issac Malherbe not one had been hit, but the Free State men had eight or nine dead, and fifteen or twenty wounded, the English casualties were about two hundred killed and as many injured, the disparity being due to the fact that the English soldiers were no match for us in rifle-shooting. Whatever the defects of the commando system may be (and they are many) the Boer superiority in marksmanship was as great now as it had been in 1881.
Among the British assault force was Captain Frederic M. Crum, 1/60: “It was a new kind of war. The invisible, galloping, crack-shot Boer, with the modern quick-firing long-range rifle, was thoroughly at home, and bravely defending his own home-land, with all its rocky Kopjes and Krantzes, its tricky spruits and dongas; while we, to make up for our slowness of movement, often had to make long and exhausting night marches over difficult ground.” While attempting to flank the Boers, Crum was wounded, hospitalized, and captured when the hospital fell to the Boers.
Marching out from Ladysmith, the British came upon an abandoned Boer wagon. Some soldiers went to investigate and as the war correspondent Bennett Burleigh reported: “[t]he Boers gave them a warm reception, a number of their sharpshooters being concealed behind walls and rocks; and I, too, was glad to hobble back, for at 900 yards their shooting was passably good.” At 1,200–1,600 yards distance the Gloucesters were relatively safe. However, when they advanced, they lost their colonel along with six others killed and forty wounded. Perhaps the most amazing shot fired during the siege was when a Boer proned himself and dropped a British soldier who was the middle man of three soldiers at 1,400 yards distance. Unable to break out of Ladysmith, the British resigned themselves to being besieged. Initially the Boers sniped at the British “from behind rocks a mile off” and when their confidence grew, they rashly attacked. The attack was beaten back. A relief column under General Sir Redvers Buller attempted to cross the Tugela River. Thinking the Boers had fled, he had bridged the river with pontoon boats. His 10th Brigade was allowed to cross unmolested but when the Somerset Light Infantry attempted to march in the open to cross, they were greeted with heavy rifle fire from 1,300 yards distance. They suffered 90 casualties that included four officers killed. Buller’s relief column would have to fight several battles before relieving Ladysmith.
The term sniper was coined by the British in 1773, but did not enter widespread use until the Boer War. Commander of the 10th Brigade, Major General Talbot Coke, used it in his report on their January 1900 attack on Spion Kop: “It is light now, and Boer ‘sniping’ commenced.”
Four hundred miles from Ladysmith, the Boers were laying siege to Mafeking. Commanding at Mafeking was Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who bluffed the Boer observers by having his men simulate crossing nonexistent barbwire entanglements to give the impression that the city was well fortified. Dinner plates were used for a phony minefield in front of the trenches. Since wood loopholes were rendered ineffective by the smokeless cartridge, two ½in-thick steel plates fastened together at a 45-degree angle to form a 2 feet × 2 feet shield with a 2-inch-square hole in the middle of the joint. Finally, Baden-Powell applied a careful and systematic sharpshooting against the Boers that resulted in inflicting 40 casualties a month.
To defeat the Boers, the British resorted to removing their civilians into concentration camps and built a chain of block houses connected by barbwire to isolate the Boers. Starved into submission, the Boers succumbed to British rule.
Worl
d War I
Trench warfare and machine guns characterized World War I and stagnant positional warfare allowed sniping to flourish. This allowed for the periscope rifle, a modernization of the American Civil War concept, to flourish.
Australian Ion Idriess fought in Gallipoli as well as in the Middle East and this gave him an opportunity to use a periscope rifle, which he describes:
The opposing trenches are so close that the loopholes are useless to either side. Any loophole opened in daylight means an instant stream of bullets. So Jacko [slang for Turk soldier] uses his periscope rifle and we reply with ours. A periscope is an invention of ingenious simplicity, painstakingly thought out by man so that he can shoot the otherwise invisible fellow while remaining safely invisible himself. Attached to the rifle-butt is a short framework in which two small looking-glasses are inserted, one glass at such a height that it is looking above the sandbags while your head, as you peer into the lower glass, is a foot below the sandbags. The top glass reflects to the lower glass a view of the enemy trenches out over the top of the parapet. It is a cunning idea, simple and deadly…
The German firm Leitz received an order for 10,000 periscope rifle rests from the Prussian War Ministry. These were detachable units that could be used with the ordinary service rifle. They had a separate stock that held the periscope and was clamped onto the rifle stock. The periscope stock also had a trigger that was attached to a cable that ran up and through the framework and hooked onto the rifle’s trigger. Like its British and American counterparts, this invention allowed the soldier to safely aim and fire his rifle without exposing himself. Seeking to similarly equip its army but with domestically manufactured products, the Bavarian War Ministry ordered 2,500 rests from Bogen-Lampen und Apparate-Fabrik GmbH in Nuremburg. Initially mirrors were employed by Bogen-Lampen but as they tended to fog up, sealed periscopes were used in later models. Delivery was slow and by October 1917 only 432 had been received. U-boat periscopes were a higher priority for the firm. What ended the periscope rifle were unfavorable evaluations as well as troops’ complaints about the weight and unwieldiness. No further orders were made.
