Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Understanding The Civil War More Clearly

Over on Seminary RIdge of course one finds all the Confederate markers and monuments, yet back in the woods it may come as a surprise to find these, not much further along from the much more recent Longstreet statue.

Markers for the Third Maine, a regular infantry unit, and the 1st US Sharpshooters who were not regular infantry. By then the Sharpshooters were armed with breech loading Sharps rifles, a percussion arm accepting paper cartridges. The Sharpshooters were picked marksmen who could fire nine rounds a minute.

It was Dan Sickles who had deployed these men out ahead of the Union line to find out what was occurring to his front.













I haven't seen a detailed accountof the action, but these guys had to be pushed out by Alabama troops IIRC, incrementally impeding the Confederate advance in that battle decided by so many close calls and almosts.

More to the point, in the confusion of battle and retreat, at least fifteen Sharpshooters ended up cut off from the left flank of the Union line at Little Round Top, these men deployed themselves on the hillside of Big Round Top and in a pile of boulders between the two, all of them in a position to fire into the flank and rear of the Confederates famously assaulting Chamberlaine's 20th Maine.

Even if we back off to an estimate of six rounds per minute, per man, that translates to ninety aimed rounds per minute, from hand picked marksmen, into the flank and rear of the attacking Confederates at Little Round Top. I have often wondered if this is why those attacks faltered so suddenly.

Finally Day 3, repeating rifles again, this time in the hands of Michigan cavalry pickets deployed in the path of JEB Stuart's cavalry which was attempting to get around the Union right flank to attack the rear of the Union line in concert with Pickett's charge.

THese few men put up such a stubborn defense and high volume of fire, that Stuart was already late even before he was hit head-on by the magnificent lunatic George Armstrong Custer.

Birdwatcher