Inside the Crosshairs

by Col. Michael Lee Lanning

  While armies on the Continent and in America were perfecting the use of the flintlock rifle, two European inventors were designing changes that would place dependable rifles in the hands of every infantryman. In 1807, the Reverend Alexander Forsyth of Scotland secured a patent for a percussion firing system that used the strike of a cock upon a plunger to explode a bit of detonating powder. Because the Forsyth lock proved reliable in all types of weather, gun makers around the globe copied and improved the system. By 1820 American gunsmiths had refined the ignition system by using fulminate of mercury in a one-eighth-inch copper cap inside the mechanism to stabilize the firing process of the main charge.

  After extensive tests, the British army adopted the percussion system in 1839, and the United States followed with its Model 1842 percussion musket three years later. Other armies also adopted the percussion system because of its reliability and its design, which allowed both flintlock muskets and rifles to readily be converted. By 1850 flintlocks were relics in armies and among sports shooters.

  The advances in ignition systems came simultaneously with innovations in munitions. In 1848, French Captain Claude E. Minié created a cylindrical lead bullet with a conical head and an iron cupped base to replace the round shot that had been used for the first 500 years of firearms. Grooves around the base of the bullet expanded to tightly fit into the rifling and to scrape out powder residue as the bullet exited the barrel. The “minié ball,” only fractionally smaller than the barrel, loaded easily yet produced more power and accuracy. Its first wide-scale use was in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856, where it proved its worth on the battlefield.

  The percussion system, the minié ball, and improved powder were common in the “first modern war,” the American Civil War. The .58-caliber U.S. Model 1855 rifled musket and its subsequent modifications in 1861 and 1863 became the standard individual weapons of both sides in the Civil War,b although both the North and the South imported British Enfields of similar design. Soldiers then carried weapons capable of a sustained rate of fire of three rounds per minute with reasonable accuracy at up to 500 meters and outside ranges in excess of 1,000 meters.

  Regardless of improved accuracy and range, small arms proved no better than the soldier pulling the trigger. Some men were better shots than others, and commanders on both sides, knowing marksmen could be better employed than just as regular infantrymen, formed special units of sharpshooters.

  Shortly after the fall of Fort Sumter, Union Colonel Hiram Berdan, a New York City engineer and weapons inventor with a competition shooting background, lobbied for and received permission to form regiments of outstanding marksmen. In the summer of 1861 he recruited volunteers for the 1st and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters Regiments, often called “Berdan’s Sharpshooters,” although he actually commanded only the 1st Regiment; Colonel Henry A. Post commanded the 2nd Regiment.

  A recruiting poster dated August 19, 1861, appealed to “Sharpshooters” and announced, “Your Country Calls!! Will You Respond?” The poster proclaimed that the regiment was “destined to be the most important and popular in the service” but warned that all who reported to Bellow Falls, Vermont, would not be accepted: “No person will be enlisted who cannot when firing at the distance of 200 yards, at a rest, put ten consecutive shots in a target, the average distance not to exceed five inches from the center of the bull’s eye to the center of the ball.”

  Recruited from throughout the Union, but organized into subordinate companies by state of origin to maintain cohesiveness, soldiers in both regiments initially provided their own rifles. Senior U.S. Army officers recommended that Springfields replace the private weapons, but Berdan requisitioned the Sharps Model 1859, which he received only after President Lincoln approved the request as a result of viewing a spectacular shooting exhibition by the colonel, for his sharpshooters.c

  Accurate at up to 600 yards, the percussion-fired .52-caliber Sharps rifle contained a breech block loading device that allowed the sharpshooter to reload in the prone position, thus limiting his exposure to enemy fire. By pushing forward a lever that doubled as a trigger guard, the shooter could lower the breech block to gain access to the chamber for loading a paper or linen cartridge. The closing of the breech cut the end of the cartridge to aid in ignition. A trained soldier could reload and fire up to ten rounds per minute with the Sharps, three times the firepower of men armed with Springfields or other muzzle loaders.

  Although Berdan proved an excellent organizer and trainer of sharpshooters, his combat leadership abilities fell short of his shooting prowess. Fortunately, the companies of both sharpshooter regiments were usually detached to divisions and Berdan’s shortcomings did not endanger his marksmen or the commands they supported.

  The 1st and 2nd Sharpshooter Regiments saw action in most of the war’s major battles, including the Peninsula, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Used mostly as skirmishers, similar to the British 95th Regiment in the Crimea, the sharpshooters also became proficient in hitting enemy artillery crews and senior officers. Several accounts credit the two sharpshooter units with inflicting more casualties on the enemy than any other regiment in the Union army and with killing at least six Confederate generals.

  While the 1st and 2nd Regiments primarily used the Sharps rifle with a post front sight and a folding-leaf adjustable rear sight, they also employed a few special weapons designed strictly for them. Gun maker Morgan James produced several dozen rifles for the sharpshooters complete with telescopic sights that ran the length of their barrels.d The rifle’s weight of more than thirty pounds and its sensitive scope limited its widespread use.

  Southern commanders organized their sharpshooters much differently, but the rebel marksmen experienced the same success as the Union shooters. Instead of forming dedicated regiments, the Confederates allowed their sharpshooters, selected from unit competitions, to operate semi-independently in acquiring targets. Rarely joining skirmish lines, these marksmen, like their Union counterparts, focused on artillery crews and senior officers.

  Confederate sharpshooters carried either personal weapons or issue Springfield and Enfield rifles. Although the typical Rebel rifleman did not have the advantage of the breech-loading Sharps, a few of them received the most accurate and deadly rifles yet used in battle.

  In early 1863 Confederate agents in England purchased twelve Whitworth rifles and blockade-runners delivered them. Six were issued to the Army of Northern Virginia; the other six went to the Confederate units in the West. Two riflemen in each Confederate corps earned possession of the English rifles through shooting contests.

  Using the .45-caliber Whitworths with the fourteen-and-one-half-inch-long telescopic sight that mounted on the left side of the stock, Confederate sharpshooters were soon hitting targets at ranges of up to 1,000 meters. In July 1863, the Confederates procured eighteen additional Whitworths, and the following February purchased twenty more. During the war’s final months, the Confederacy secured another twenty-two Whitworths.

  Only the most proficient marksmen had the opportunity to shoot the Whitworths because of their prohibitive price. Each Whitworth cost the Confederate States $500, payable not in Confederate script but in gold. In contrast, producing a Springfield or purchasing an Enfield cost less than $40.

  Despite their small numbers, Whitworth-armed Rebel sharpshooters made their mark during the war. At Chickamauga, Georgia, on September 19, 1863, a Whitworth sharpshooter mortally wounded Union General William H. Lytle of Ohio. The following May 9, another Whitworth sharpshooter engaged Union General John Sedgwick at the Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia, where Sedgwick and a group of subordinates were reconning the area for their artillery positions. Spotting Confederate riflemen more then 800 meters across an open plain, Sedgwick’s men took cover while the general criticized their caution, saying, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance,” At that instant a Whitworth bullet slammed into his head. Sedgwick’s death delayed the Union offensive and contributed to the eventual Rebel
victory in that battle.

  Confederate agents in England also procured .44-caliber muzzle-loading Kerr rifles in limited quantities. The exact number is unknown, but it is likely that fewer Kerrs than Whitworths made their way to the Civil War.

  Rebel sharpshooters acted more independently than their Union counterparts, but marksmen of both sides generally concentrated on similar targets. Officers remained a priority, but artillery units also drew the attention of marksmen. The range of most of the period’s artillery allowed batteries to set up beyond the normal range of infantrymen and fire their lethal cannons from positions of reasonable safety. Sharpshooters of both sides quickly ended this artillery advantage and frequently interrupted or delayed their fire. In a few instances, a lone marksman rendered an entire artillery battery useless by killing its leaders and preventing crewmen from exposing themselves to serve their cannons.

  Throughout the war, Union and Confederate commanders sought effective countersharpshooter methods. The most common was simply to deploy sharpshooters against sharpshooters. Artillery units initiated a type of countersharpshooter technique that would remain a tactic in future wars: when artillery crews came under sharpshooter fire, their observers, who had previously only adjusted cannon fire, attempted to identify the enemy shooter so that the entire battery could fire at the location. While such an expenditure of ammunition against a single rifleman might not have been economical, it did tend to decrease the number of sharpshooters targeting the artillery.

  By the conclusion of the American Civil War, sharpshooters were a fixture on the battlefield. Both Union and Confederate soldiers learned that being visible was being vulnerable. While Americans did not originate the concept, their sharpshooters in both blue and gray did, however, refine sharpshooting into an art form that would forever influence individual marksmanship on the battlefield.

  *Advances in artillery weapons paralleled those of muskets and rifles so that by the seventeenth century artillery shared equal status with the infantry and cavalry on the battlefield.

  †Precise credit for individual shots in the Revolutionary War was as difficult to accurately confirm as it would be in future conflicts. None of the limited accounts of the time about the battle mention Murphy as the person who fired the shot that killed Frazer. However, Murphy claimed the kill, and several of his fellow riflemen confirmed that it was his shot that brought down the general.

  ‡The literal translation of jaeger is “hunter.”

  §Guillemard certainly deserves credit for the shot that killed Lord Nelson. However, it is interesting to note that, with the ships locked together, the French marksman’s range to target was at most forty to fifty feet.

  ‖The marksmanship of the Kentucky riflemen on Lake Erie and at New Orleans virtually renamed the weapon; no longer called the “Pennsylvania rifle,” it was now the “Kentucky rifle.”

  aUnfortunately, the casualties on both sides were for naught. The United States and Great Britain had signed the Treaty of Ghent to end the war on December 24, 1814, but slow communications did not bring the news to New Orleans until after the battle.

  bThe Confederacy stockpiled many U.S. weapons prior to its secession and captured more in the early months of the war. Confederates also took over the gun-making machinery at Harpers Ferry and moved it to Fayetteville. North Carolina, where James H. Button, the former master armorer at the Federal gun works, became the superintendent of Confederate armories. The only way the Southern-made weapons differed from the North’s rifled muskets was the “CSA” (rather than “USA”) stamp on the rifles’ lock plates.

  cThe word sharpshooter did not evolve from the Sharps rifle. The first written reference to a sharpshooter appears in an 1802 English dictionary description of Austrian infantry. By the height of the Napoleonic Wars, a decade later, the term “sharpshooter” had become common in most armies. By the time of the American Civil War, its use was so prevalent that Berdan’s Union regiments readily adopted the description.

  dTelescopic sights were first made in England about 1640 and in Germany almost immediately thereafter. Their first use in extended combat, however, did not occur until both sides employed scopes with two or three times amplification power in the American Civil War.

  CHAPTER 4

  Snipers Come of Age: The World Wars and Beyond

  AT the end of the Civil War, America possessed the largest number of military weapons in its history. Regular-issue Springfields as well as Sharps and special rifles imported and then surrendered by the South filled armories across the country.

  Eliminating sharpshooter regiments and special marksmen went hand in hand with “mothballing” the arms of the war. Although marksmanship training for all infantrymen remained an important part of the postwar soldier’s life, some of the conflict’s innovations caused concerns over the future of firepower—individual and otherwise. Breech loaders and the newly introduced repeating rifles so enhanced the rate of infantry and calvary fire that logistics officers worried about their ability to meet ammunition requirements.

  Some field commanders even concluded that volume of fire could negate the need for individual accuracy. In a letter to the president of the New Haven Arms Company dated March 15, 1865, Major Joel W. Cloudman of the 1st District of Columbia Cavalry praised the firepower and efficiency of the .44-caliber Model 1860 Henry Repeating Rifle. According to Cloudman, “I often heard the enemy discuss its merits. They all feared it more than any arm in our service and have heard them say, ‘Give us anything but your damned Yankee rifle that can be loaded on Sunday and fired all week.’ ”

  The increased rate of fire and general distaste for marksmen who fired from relative safety at specifically designated targets might have ended the U.S. Army sharpshooter program, but they did not deter the continued evolution of ammunition, arms, and optics. The years just prior to and following the Civil War brought a parade of armament advances.

  Self-contained metal cartridges, first patented by New York City inventor Walter Hunt in 1848, shortened loading time and added to the barrel gas seal that produced greater bullet velocity. Edward Maynard improved the cartridge design in 1856, and in the same year Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson introduced advances in primers.

  The problems with metallic cartridge reliability and costs that limited their use in the Civil War were resolved during the decade following the conflict. By 1870 the U.S. Army and other armies had adopted center-fire brass cartridges, modifying old weapons or designing new ones to accommodate the improved ammunition.

  Alfred Nobel of Sweden and other manufacturers introduced in the 1880s smokeless powder made from nitrated cellulose that eliminated the giveaway cloud of white smoke that had compromised the positions of Civil War sharpshooters. It also eliminated much of the smoke that had previously covered battlefields.

  Gun makers next decreased caliber size and added steel, copper, and alloy jackets to lead projectiles to increase their velocity and heat resistance. By the 1890s various models of bolt-action, clip-fed rifles firing .30-caliber metal-jacketed bullets propelled by smokeless powder were available. Telescopic sight technology developed three-power scopes with a larger field of vision. Except for the introduction of automatic assault weapons, the basic infantry and sharpshooter weapons and ammunition for the twentieth century had been perfected by the end of the nineteenth.

  The U.S. Army was slow to adopt many of those innovations because it spent the two decades following the Civil War mired in the Indian Wars in the West. Because of limited military funding, cavalry and infantry units fighting the Indians carried Sharps or Springfields. In several battles, the Native Americans, some of whom had repeating rifles, were better armed than the soldiers.

  During the Indian Wars, the U.S. Army did not conduct specific sharpshooter training, nor did it issue special marksman weapons. Limited military budgets often failed even to provide sufficient training ammunition for the infantry and cavalry.

  Superior shooting in the West came not from the r
anks of the soldiers but from frontiersmen and buffalo hunters. On June 27, 1874, several hundred Comanche Indians attacked about thirty buffalo hunters and merchants at an isolated trading post known as Adobe Wells in the Texas Panhandle. After the hunters drove them away with long-range, .50-caliber Sharps fire, the Indians referred to the Sharps as “the gun that shoots today and kills tomorrow.”

  The Battle of Adobe Wells produced the best-known single shot of the long conflict between whites and Indians. Early on the morning after the initial fight, a dozen or more Indians appeared on a ridge distant from the trading post. Buffalo hunter and sometime-army-scout Billy Dixon took careful aim with his Sharps .50 and fired. One Indian fell from his horse and the others hastily retreated. Estimates about the range of the shot vary from 1,200 to 1,600 yards.* Years later, Dixon remarked about his shot, “I was admittedly a good marksman, yet this was what might be called a ‘scratch’ shot.”

  There were other extraordinary marksmen around the world. As armaments improved so did the skills of the shooters, and superior mastery of hitting distant and difficult targets garnered a new name. Although various definitions would define and redefine the term many times in the future, from the late 1800s to the present day, the soldier or Marine armed with special weapons and trained to deliver single well-aimed shots to kill enemy troops would be known as a “sniper.”

  The term probably originated with the British army in India, where officers hunted snipes, a slender-billed bird related to the woodcock. Snipes, fleet of foot and wing, were difficult targets, and shooters proficient at hitting them became known as “snipers.” The British then began referring to well-aimed shots both toward and from the enemy as snipes, and those who fired the rounds as snipers.

  The earliest confirmed written reference to snipers is in a 1773 letter from India by a British officer. Another letter from India, this one dated 1782, states, “The individual will be popped at or sniped as they call it from time to time.” Still another correspondent in India wrote in 1824 that “several sepoys were killed and wounded by the enemy’s snipers who generally stalk the sentries from behind stones.” By the time of the Boer War, at the end of the nineteenth century, sniper had become the preferred term for long-range shooters throughout the British Empire.