by Gary Yee
Mississippi
Sharpshooting played a neglected role in the area around the Mississippi River. Confederate General Richard Taylor observed:
It is curious to recall the ideas prevailing in the first years of the war about gunboats. To the wide-spread terror inspired by them may be ascribed to the loss of Fort Donelson and New Orleans. … It was popularly believed that the destructive power of these monsters were not to be resisted. Time proved that the lighter class of boats, called “tinclads,” were helpless against field guns, while the heavy iron-clads could be driven off by riflemen protected by the timber and levels along the streams. To fire ten-inch guns at skirmishers, widely dispersed and under cover, was very like snipe-shooting with twelve-pounders; and in narrow waters gunboats required troops on shore for their protection.
Such was the case when smaller Confederate gunboats, Josiah H. Bell and Uncle Ben closed within rifle range of larger Union boats, Morning Light and Velocity, and captured them.
During one of the Vicksburg campaigns, while Admiral Porter’s squadron was steaming up Steele’s Bayou, it was caught at close quarters by the Confederates and almost everyone was driven below to the safety of the casemate. Describing their accuracy is Admiral Porter:
I made the signal to retreat. … But just as I gave the order, half a dozen rifle bullets came on board, and one of them struck the first lieutenant, Mr. Wells, in the head while I was talking to him and giving him an order. He fell, apparently dead, at my feet. I called an officer to remove him, and he fell dead, as I supposed, on the other’s body. Then an old quartermaster came, dragging a large quarter-inch iron plate along the deck, and stuck it up against a hog post. “There, sir” he said, “stand behind that; they’ve fired at you long enough,” and I was wise enough to take that old fellow’s advice. Poor old man! He was shot in the head as he turned to get behind his cotton bale.
The Confederates trapped Porter in narrow waters with a sunken coal barge and fallen trees. Whenever a gunport was opened, rifle fire poured in. Only Sherman’s timely arrival prevented Porter from scuttling his squadron. Porter’s memoirs are silent about it but Sherman’s wasn’t:
I inquired of Admiral Porter what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to get out of that scrape as quickly as possible. … He informed me at one time things looked so critical that he had made up his mind to blow up the gunboats, and to escape with his men through the swamp to the Mississippi River. There being no longer any sharp-shooters to bother the sailors, they made good progress.
Had Porter scuttled his squadron, Grant may never have captured Vicksburg and would have been shelved as another failed general.
Grant finally hit upon a plan to capture Vicksburg. Porter landed Grant’s army on the opposite bank of the Mississippi. From there they marched below Vicksburg where they again met with Porter whose squadron ran the gauntlet of fire as they passed Vicksburg. Porter then transported Grant’s men back to the eastern shore of the Mississippi at Bruinsburg. After driving off the defending Confederates at Bruinsburg, Grant’s army marched on Port Gibson where they defeated the Confederates posted to block them. They next marched on Jackson and drove any relief force back before swinging back west and defeating another Confederate force at Champion’s Hill and finally, at the Big Black River. In two weeks Grant’s army fought five battles before trapping the Confederates at Vicksburg. His coup de main failed to capture the city on May 19 and after an artillery bombardment to destroy the cotton bale breastworks that sheltered the Confederate infantry, Grant attacked again on May 21. That too failed and Grant settled down for a siege. Confederate Captain Bell describes his briefing at the Louisiana Redan:
he carried me to the right side of the fort and, pointing to a solitary pine tree on a knoll probably five hundred yards away and with some forty feet to the first limb, informed me that every morning a Yankee sharpshooter would climb up in the forks of the tree, that he had killed one of his men and wounded several in the fort, that he had tried to dislodge him, but had not. Wishing me a pleasant(?) time, he marched his men out, and I took command. Next morning our adjutant, John Dupuy, and I were making an inspection of the fort, when our friend in the tree promptly gave us to understand that he was ready for business by sending several bullets near our heads. I called several of my best shots over and had them try their hands on him, but all failed to hit him, he made it dangerous for a man to cross the fort for several days. Finally a little fellow named White came up and proposed to go out at night, crawl close up to the tree before day, hide under the treetops that had been felled to impede the Yankees in charging, and, as soon as it was light enough to shoot, pick off the Yankee in the tree. I told him that it was a desperate risk, as he would be several hundred yards inside the Yankee lines, but he only laughed and said he was a desperate man. I consented, and he left the fort about 3 a.m. At daylight, with a number of our men, I was watching the tree and had about concluded White had failed, when I saw a puff of smoke rise from the brush about fifty yards from the tree. The report of the rifle had not reached me when I saw the body of a man tumble like a squirrel out of the fork some fifty feet from the ground. All was quiet for some ten minutes, when we saw a squad of Yankees move toward the tree. They found their man dead all right, but seemed to be puzzled as to who killed him. We opened fire on them and they picked him up and left. When White returned to the fort that night, he reported that the man had climbed the tree before daylight, but it was too dark for him to see the sights on his gun, so he had to wait. After shooting he ran some distance and hid in a ravine, where he remained concealed in the brush all day. He saw the Yankees looking for him, and several times they were close to his hiding place.
While conditions improved, danger was always present. “One morning Gen. Green, with two of his staff, came into our fort to inspect the position of the enemy in our front.” When it became evident that General Green was going to expose himself, Captain Bell warned him off. “I warned him not to look through the portholes until we fired a few shots to keep the Yankees down.” Green brushed off Captain Bell’s advice and replied, “A bullet has not been moulded that will kill me.” Bell described the predictable result. “He failed to heed the warning, and at the second porthole through which he looked was shot and instantly killed. He was a gallant soldier and a gentleman.” Green’s loss was felt after his brigade was paroled and many never returned. Captain Bell continues his narrative:
On the afternoon of July 3, about four o’clock, an orderly handed me a paper containing the information that Vicksburg would be surrendered the next morning, July 4, at ten o’clock. I gave Dupuy the order to read to the men, and I watched the effect. Some seemed relieved, some shed tears, and others swore. After the order was read, young White, who had shot the Yankee out of the tree, came to me and said: “Well, Captain, the time has come when I must tell you who I am.” He then informed me that he had first enlisted in Gen. Grant’s regiment in Missouri, but afterwards concluded that he was on the wrong side, he had deserted and joined our battalion. Grant’s old regiment happened at that time to be in front of us, and if he surrendered death would be certain. He had heard of the man who had brought up the gun caps, and he proposed, if I would give him a paper showing that he had not deserted from us, to leave the city the same way. I gave him the paper, and that night some of the boys helped him build his raft and sent him adrift. I never expected to see him again, for the river was filled below with Yankee boats of every description, but one of the first men to report at parole camp in Hempstead County, Ark., was little Tom White. We surrendered next day and were kindly treated by the Yankees.
The only Tom White found in Grant’s 21st Illinois Infantry was mustered in on February 4, 1864 and mustered out on December 16, 1865. It is likely that the person involved was George W. White of Co. D who “deserted to the enemy” on October 8, 1861. Postwar many former Confederates feared retaliation and it was not unknown for individuals to change their name to protect their identity.
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br /> Vicksburg fell on July 4, 1863 and Port Hudson remained the only obstruction on the Mississippi. Nathaniel Banks had been besieging it and it became a site for intense sharpshooting. Captain John W. De Forest, 12th Connecticut, wrote:
From a distance of nearly half a mile the Rebel sharpshooters drew a bead on us with a precision which deserved the highest commendation of their officers, but which made us curse the day they were born. One incident proves, I think, that they were able to hit an object farther off than they could distinguish its nature. A rubber blanket, hung over the stump of a sapling five feet high, which stood in the centre of our bivouac, was pierced by a bullet from this quarter. A minute later a second bullet passed directly over the object and lodged in the tree behind it. … Evidently the invisible marksman, eight hundred yards away, had mistaken it for a Yankee. Several men were hit upon this same hillock, or immediately in rear of it; and I for one never crossed it without wondering whether I should get safely to the other side… We lost eight or ten men during that first day, partly from not knowing these dangerous localities, and partly from excess of zeal. Our fellows attempted to advance the position, leaped the knoll without orders, and took to the trees on the outer slope, and were only driven back after sharp fighting.
Captain De Forest continued his narrative:
On duty days we popped away at the enemy, or worked at strengthening our natural rampart. We laid a line of logs along the crest of the knoll, cut notches in them, and then put on another tier of logs, thus providing ourselves with portholes. With the patience of cats watching for mice, the men would peer for hours through the portholes, waiting a chance to shoot a Rebel; and the faintest show of the crown of a hat above the fortification, undistinguishable to that inexperienced eye, would draw a bullet. By dint of continual practice many of our fellows became admirable marksmen. During one of the truces the Confederates called to us, “Aha, you have got some sharpshooters over there!” After the surrender an officer of the Second Alabama told me that most of their casualties were cases of shots between the brim of the hat and the top of the head; and that having once held up a hoe handle to test our marksmanship, it was struck by no less than three bullets in as many minutes…
The garrison gave us full as good as we sent. Several of our men were shot in the face through the portholes as they were taking aim. One of these unfortunates, I remember, drew his rifle back, set the butt on the ground, leaned the muzzle against the parapet, turned around, and fell lifeless. He had fired at the moment he was hit, and two or three eye-witnesses asserted that his bullet shivered the edge of the opposite porthole, so that in all probability he and his antagonist died together. It must be remembered that these openings were but just large enough to protrude the barrel of a musket and take sight along it.
Port Hudson surrendered on July 9 and opened the Mississippi for the Union. The strangling of the Confederacy was realizing fruition.
Battery Wagner
In the wake of the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Union Major General Quincy Gillmore wanted to add Charleston to the growing laurels of victory and take his place alongside Meade and Grant as a national hero. Since David Hunter’s June 1862 attempt to capture Charleston and Du Pont’s monitor attack had failed, no progress had been made against the hotbed of secession. Enter the conqueror of Fort Pulaski, Quincy Gillmore, who proposed a plan to capture it. Summoned to Washington, Gillmore outlined his four-part plan to capture Charleston. Gillmore pointed out that guarding Charleston Bay was Fort Sumter and if Fort Sumter fell, then Charleston would follow. First he would land men at the southern end of Morris Island. Second he would capture Battery Wagner and Battery Gregg, which guarded Fort Sumter’s vulnerable southern wall. Third, he would capture Sumter itself and last, have the navy sail in and bombard or cower Charleston into submission. His plan was approved and Gillmore relieved David Hunter.
Gillmore’s men landed on July 10 and easily drove the Confederates away from their rifle pits. Wagner’s garrison was too small to counterattack but reinforcements were rushed to bolster it. They came in handy the next day when Gillmore attempted to capture Wagner by coup de main.
A more carefully planned assault was needed and Gillmore began emplacing artillery that could shell the fort. His attack was launched on July 18 and was led by the 54th Massachusetts. It failed with heavy casualties and Gillmore resorted to a siege. Observing that Gillmore forsook blood for shovels and sweat, the Confederates brought English-made scoped Whitworth rifles to the island. Lieutenant W. D. Woodbery led a detail of twenty-one men who trained on nearby Sullivan Island. Their presence was noted almost immediately when Union sappers were struck at 1,300 yards distance. With Woodbery’s Whitworth-armed sharpshooters present, only light work could be performed somewhat safely during the day and any heavy work would have to wait for night. Long summer days meant progress slowed considerably.
Because the Whitworth fired a smaller diameter projectile than the standard .578 minié ball, its superior ballistic coefficient gave it greater range and penetrative power. The 6-inch-thick rope mantlets that had once protected the Union artillerymen were easily pierced by the Whitworth. This necessitated Gillmore’s engineers to fashion boiler plates around the embrasures.
Since Union pickets were unequal to the task of neutralizing Woodbery’s sharpshooters, better marksmen were needed than the pickets who had been relied upon to sharpshoot. Tests were held and the top fifty marksmen identified. They were detailed to an ad hoc sharpshooter company led by Captain Richard Ela and Lieutenant Albert Clay Jewett, 3rd New Hampshire. To select the gun for the ad hoc company, various rifles that were available on the island were tested and the most accurate one was the humble Springfield rifle musket. Placed in a separate camp, the men trained and when ready, took to the trenches with Captain Ela leading half one day and Lieutenant Jewett the other half the next. Each man carried 100 rounds of ammunition and his rations when he positioned himself in the advanced trenches. At day’s end when they returned to camp, both rations and ammunition were exhausted.
While the Springfield is accurate out to 500 yards, the Whitworth far exceeded it, so the Union sharpshooters were disadvantaged until the distance was closed. To accommodate their sharpshooters, Union sappers left 2-inch loopholes between sandbags “at the proper distances” as they built the siege works. Like the Confederates, the men learned to darken the holes so as to keep their opponents from guessing whether a loophole was being used or not. Stepping up to a lighted loophole told the other side to fire a shot.
As the Union sappers worked their way forward, Woodbery’s men were relieved by another ad hoc sharpshooter detail led by Lieutenant John E. Dugger, 8th North Carolina. Like Ela’s men, for the duration of the siege, Woodbery and Dugger would rotate their sharpshooters on Morris Island, resting somewhere for a few days before returning to duty.
Even with the Union sharpshooters, the Confederate threat was not neutralized and one Union captain had all the fingers of his right hand cut off while installing a gabion. Another Whitworth sharpshooter twice shot the telegraph line that connected the front trench with Gillmore’s headquarters. The Union suffered losses daily because of sharpshooting and to suppress the sharpshooters, Gillmore had his artillery bombard Wagner. Barrages became so heavy that most Confederates remained sheltered in the bombproof [shelter] and the only men who didn’t were the Whitworth sharpshooters.
Confederate sharpshooting became so intense that a frustrated Gillmore pleaded with the blockading squadron’s Admiral Dahlgren to have his monitors’ guns bear on Battery Wagner to suppress them. When they tried, a saucy Confederate even shot at the gunports of the Union monitors as they rotated their turrets to fire. Gillmore finally resorted to a massive bombardment under which his engineers could work.
One particular Confederate sharpshooter earned the enmity of his Union counterparts and both Union Brigadier General George H. Gordon and Lieutenant Albert Clay Jewett mentioned him in their memoirs. Jewett wrote:
while connected with the sharpshooters, I had many and various experiences and among them will mention a few. Not the least in interest were the exploits of one of the Confederates, a remarkable marksman, located somewhere about Fort Wagner. For some reason this man went by the name of the “n*****” sharpshooter. It may be he was one, but I always suspected that he might be a dark skinned southerner or perhaps a mulatto. This man was more to be dreaded than almost everything else opposed to us, for his aim seemed as unerring as fate, anywhere within the range of his rifle. His arm must have been some kind of heavy sporting rifle, as it was of quite large caliber and of astonishing range. He could hit the arms of cannoneers a half a mile or more distant if they exposed them in loading their pieces, and if any poor soldier revealed himself at any exposed point, certain death was his portion if the “n*****” was on duty.
The Confederates were not immune from sharpshooting and one Confederate picket received a ball down his barrel—the Yankee who fired it was that good! Despite their best efforts, Ela’s men were incapable of silencing the Confederates. Another solution was tried and Gillmore brought in the extremely accurate Parrot guns that shelled and destroyed many of the sandbags behind which the Confederate sharpshooters had shielded themselves. The destruction of the sandbags was highly demoralizing too. As the Union lines approached closer, double barrel shotguns were retrieved from the Charleston Armory and issued to the sharpshooters. One was used once to kill one Yankee who got too close.
After fifty-five days, the sappers reached Wagner’s moat. Gillmore’s men were now positioned to storm Wagner in one rush and the date was set for September 7. When the first Union soldiers scaled Wagner’s walls, they expected to be slaughtered like their brethren had been on July 18. Instead of carnage, they found Wagner had been abandoned only moments before. While evacuating Wagner, the Confederates had attempted to blow it up but the fuse failed. The Union soldiers rushed to Battery Gregg, which they also found abandoned.