Hess� core argument that the rifle musket did not live up to either its early promise or the assessment of generations of historians who assumed it was a weapon that fundamentally changed warfare is correct.
Never mind the catty review, Civil War historians are about the most petty crowd I've seen when it comes to reviewing each other's works.
Hess points out that, contrary to popular belief, the rifle musket was so mis- and under-used in the War Between the States that they coulda done as well with smoothbores.
All well and good, but the best part about the book, is that in a chapter on sniping he also explores what the best muzzle loading rifles of that era were capable of and describes some incredible shots including an account of a Federal Officer hit at 2,250 yards by a Confederate Whitworth at Petersburg.
Anyways, over the days as I get time I'll work my way through the Chapter....
The author commences with The Civil War was the first conflict in history in which men were specifically detailed to perform the modern role of sniper....
[1862]...In the East, the Peninsula Campaign afforded opportunity for sniping to develop. The First United States Sharpshooters detailed two companies with James target rifles some 800 yards from the Confederate defenses to fire on gun crews. The contributed to the wear and tear on Confederate nerves during the month-long confrontation at Yorktown. A Confederate soldier wrote home that "the Yankees pick a fellow off if he show so much as his head."
Must have been regarded as a sort of super-weapon in its day, Wiki has it that in the 1840's or earlier Morgan James target rifles were among the very first rifles, anywhere to be equipped with telescopic sights...
While their accuracy was excellent, loading was a slow and cumbersome process. Many of these rifles used a "false muzzle," (shown top right) a protective metal cone that slipped over the muzzle to protect the lands when loading�and rendered the weapon nearly useless if lost. Though quite effective in a static situation, these [17 lb to 50 lb] rifles were unsuitable for a mobile campaign. If the tactical situation allowed the Yankees to use their scoped target rifles, however, they soon proved the worth of their weapons. South Carolina sharpshooter Berry Benson described a meeting with his friend Ben Powell, who was the battalion's Whitworth marksman. "I remember Powell coming up one day with a hole in his hat. He had been dueling with one of the enemy's sharpshooters who proved himself an excellent shot, that Powell though it prudent to retire."
I have a book around here somewhere that deals with the history of sniping that has some really good pictures of the Civil War rifles that were used. "The Complete Book of US Sniping" by Senich IIRC.
Them old guns are too cool and that's a fact. Amazes me what they are still capable of doing and the relative measure of performance compared to modern arms. Yeah, they have been surpassed, but not to the degree most think.
I would have to do some archive research so don't quote me for reference, but my recollection has a record sting measure at 220 yards of something in the range of 4.something inches for 20 shots.
The .50 cal D.H. Hilliard rifle has 16x glass. He was a Cornish, New Hampshire resident who lived from 1805-1877. I am not certain of the date of build for that particular piece but it appears to be a transition rifle between PRB rifles and the bullet guns popular in the last several decades of the 19th century. It has a 16" twist but a mould and form dies that construct a 490 grain picket style bullet.
Of course I'm going to make a longer conical for it, fill it full of BP and let it kick the snot out of me. Weighs only 16#. More advanced bullet guns sometimes weighed as much as 60+ pounds, shot 1300 grain bullets over 200-300 grains of powder. Them lads were serious...
Question for you smoke eaters. How does one keep from blowing nipples out of the threads with that much powder? Eventually one has to give way and you lose an eyebrow or nose.
It went past crew served I think. The gun referred to was built by a fellow named Billinghurst during the heyday of the National Rifle Club. He had a lad hired as gun handler. Primary duties related to transport between vehicle and line and then the juggling act between loading and shooting etc. I misspoke on one point, that particular gun used a 1800 grain bullet as I recall. It was .69 caliber on the bore.
Crow, I haven't blooded any of these beasts, probably won't unless we get invaded by armed Yankees again. They are a lot like having 25 wives I imagine.
Anyone having interest in deeper investigation on the topic of muzzle loader shooting sports needs a copy of Ned Roberts' book, "The Muzzle-Loading Cap Lock Rifle" by Stackpole Books. Available from Amazon. It is a remarkable trove of historical information/photos and tech from that era.
I have a book around here somewhere that deals with the history of sniping that has some really good pictures of the Civil War rifles that were used. "The Complete Book of US Sniping" by Senich IIRC.
Looks like he's got a helluva taper in the scope mounts....
Ya, the elevation screw is the rear mount, and in use they put their eye in contact with the back end of that brass scope, bruised the heck out of 'em or so says that James Rifle link I posted.
BW, I don't know source other than the link, but I can assure you that nobody eyeballed up to one of those scope eyepieces with intent to shoot. Least ways, not after the first time. Despite their weight they do have punch on both ends.
The Hilliard rifle I own does have fairly short eye relief by today's standards and a shortish LOP as well, but there is no necessity to crowd the scope whatsoever. Guess on my part but eye relief for that one is about 2.5".
LOP is about 12.5" and I installed a nested extension secured by a leather boot to address that. I guess the citizens were shorter then, or at least the fella that had it made, dunno.
Another piece habitating in south Florida at present. Built by HV Perry; .56 caliber, around 45 pounds and fueled by 200 grains of BP. 1,300 grain 2 piece bullet for serious work, and a 900 grain cast for plinking.\
For scale in this photo is a Peter Reinhard picket rifle resting in the shadow. 8.5 pounds, .38 bore, 33" twist.
BW, I don't know source other than the link, but I can assure you that nobody eyeballed up to one of those scope eyepieces with intent to shoot.
Correction noted Sir, and I cannot quickly refind that link either. But for the general edification of us regular folks here's a pretty good scope history from the Berdan Sharpshooters' page...
While researching the subject, I discovered that the first documented telescopic rifle sight was invented between 1835 and 1840 by John R. Chapman, he was an English civil engineer, and as an engineer he was very familiar with a surveyors transit and therefore was very familiar with it�s fine cross-hairs, precision lenses and good definition of distant objects. He was also an expert rifleman and familiar with rifle sights of that time. It is believed that Chapman designed the first practical telescopic rifle sight and that he and Morgan James worked together to produce a telescopic sight that came to be known as the Chapman-James telescopic rifle sight.
Chapman did not patent his telescopic sight, but authorized Morgan James to manufacture and sell his telescopic sight.
Morgan James of Utica NY was a well-known gun maker who produced very accurate muzzle-loading rifles, he was considered to have made some of the most accurate muzzle-loading rifles in the world. When he started producing telescopic sights for his rifles they were considered to be among the most accurate rifles made....
The Morgan James sights were considered to be the best telescopic sights available until 1855 when William Malcolm, of Syracuse NY designed and produced a telescopic sight.
Malcolm established the first rifle telescope manufacturing business in this country in 1855, he produced the best telescopic rifle sight up to that time and it was considered superior to any other telescopic sights made for many years. Malcolm did not copy the Chapman-James design; while working for a telescope maker he had learned optical principles, how to make lenses, the importance of precise lens adjustment and to fabricate the metal tubes to hold lenses.
Malcolm also was the first to use achromatic lenses, which are a combination of lenses that limit color refraction in an optical piece. Achromatic lenses gave a much better definition of the target, a flatter field of view and a clear definition at the edge of any object. He also made the windage and elevation adjustments more precise than the Chapman-James sight. All of these design improvements were due to his telescope making experience.
The telescopic rifle sights he produced were between 3X and 20X power and considered to be the best available at that time; they had lenses ground for the �normal eye� or were custom ground for the person purchasing the telescopic sight. They were not adjustable and therefore the telescopic sight could generally only be used by the person for whom it was made unless your eyesight was �normal�. I�m not sure what �normal� was at that time, I assume he calibrated the sight to someone he used for that purpose or perhaps to his own eye. I haven�t found a description of what Malcolm considered �normal�.
Non-achromatic lenses have a "halo" of rainbow colors around the edges of the view field and therefore are not as clear, but that is what other telescopic sight makers used at that time.
Another telescopic sight maker was L.M. Amidon of Vermont, a jeweler and expert rifleman, he also designed and produced telescopic sights before and during the war, although none of his telescopic sights had achromatic lenses, they were still considered very good scopes for their time.
Fascinating indeed. I marvel that these things were made before the advent of precision measuring instruments such as dial calipers (1876 as I recall, in France). They are, nonetheless remarkably precise and consistent in geometry. The Reinhard Picket rifle was built in 1876. Groove dimensions are consistent to .001" as to depth and width variation cannot be identified.
The barrel in the Perry rifle has 18 grooves that are gently radiused, giving the appearance of waves when looking down the wrong end. Oh, they are also something akin to microgrooves, depth in the range of less than .003" as I recall. Most if not all used paper strip patches in the day and that in itself is another book or two of debate, dogma and ultimately success for most. Sperm oil is/was a popular lube.
You can see the relieved face of the false muzzle here in an X pattern. The strips are laid in the recesses, bullet pressed in slightly and then a bullet starter nests on the round form of the FM. Whack with the palm, it all goes down the pipe and time for the ramrod. False muzzles are properly constructed by cutting off a piece of the drilled barrel, reattaching with pins and then rifling the entire assembly as a unit. Following that, a very light taper (front to rear) is honed in the FM to aid in bullet seating.
I remember a television show about the civil war that dealt with a fellow who had set up for a long-range sniper shot at an opposing officer as he shaved in the morning. The shooter had studied the camp from afar and determined that the officer shaved (outdoors) at the same time and place each morning. It seems like the shooter actually set up a bench of sorts for his shot. The thing that I remember most is that after firing, he kept watching through his scope as other men passed back and forth in front of his target while the bullet was traveling.
There is the famous story of the Yankee general who was standing up and admonished by his staff to take cover. He responded with something to the effect of, "Relax boys. They couldn't hit an elephant fr....."
If any of you are ever near Gettysburg, PA, there is a very good display of Civil War sniper rifles in the main museum on the battlefield. Or at least there was when I was there the last time about 7 years ago (displays change over time).
If any of you are ever near Gettysburg, PA, there is a very good display of Civil War sniper rifles in the main museum on the battlefield. Or at least there was when I was there the last time about 7 years ago (displays change over time).
Which brings up the Devil's Den Sniper, that Confederate soldier who was picking off artillery crews 600 yards away on Little Round Top.
Unfortunately Photobucket appears to be on the fritz at this moment in time or else I'd post my pics taken from both ends of those shots as well as the iconic Brady photograph itself which most would recognize.
Conventional wisdom and indeed the Park Service itself still has it that the body was dragged to that place in the Devil's Den, the stone barricade rebuilt, and a Springfield rifle-musket leaned in place as a prop.
On his website the artist James C. Groves builds a convincing case that the dead man in the photo WAS the actual sniper, even if the stone barricade and Springfield were done to stage the photo.
An excellent several-page synopsis can be found here....
"Among the interesting incidents that occurred on Little Round Top was the summary way in which a sharpshooter was disposed of in rear of Devil's Den. He had concealed himself behind a stone wall between two boulders and for a long time we were annoyed by shots from that direction, one of which actually combed my hair over my left ear and passed through the shoulder of a man a little taller than myself who was standing behind me for a cover. At last we were able to locate the spot, by the use of a field glass, from whence the shots came by little puffs of smoke that preceded the whizzing of the bullets that passed by our heads. We then loaded one of our guns with a percussion shell, taking careful and accurate aim. When the shot was fired the shell struck and exploded on the face of one of the boulders. We supposed the shot had frightened him away, as we were no longer troubled with shots from that location.
When the battle was ended we rode over to the Devil's Den and found behind the wall a dead Confederate soldier lying upon his back and, so far as we could see, did not have a mark upon his body, and from that fact became convinced that he was killed by the concussion of the shell when it exploded on the face of the boulder."
I have seen the fractures on the face of the boulder made by that shell in the account, and believe Groves makes a convincing case. He even identifies the possible rifle originally used by the sniper, on display in the Gettysburg museum, identifiable by its repaired scope, a section of riflescope laying next to the body in the photo.
Mostly I'm just glad this invaluable Groves site is still up, its been at least ten years I think since I found it.
God's truth, I wasn't born too soon. The Civil War was an affair I never longed to partake in. It wasn't long before I was born that family with memories of the affair were still present. Dad's family was from Dover, TN, that being one of US Grants first big splashes. Pun intended. His boys laid siege to Ft. Donaldson and had a perfectly awkward time of it, what with looking up at the fort from their ironclads etc.
The tales were not widely told by the old folks, but there remained a distinctly favorable undertone about all things Yankee. More than a few of them served Gen. Lee and more than a few died. Little Roundtop and Gettysburg was not part of their experience but Lord knows those were some brutal times.
There's two famous California Joes, both well along in life before they received national attention. The second was the long-haired and bearded eccentric scout associated with Custer and the Indian Wars.
The first was Truman Head, fifty-two years of age in 1861, originally from New York State, late of California. The Gold Rush was what had brung him to California, before that at different times and places he had been a fur trapper and a market hunter.
Head came East to join up when the war over secession broke out, and through his demonstrable skill with a rifle was accepted into Hiram Berdan's US Sharpshooters.
Early in the war the Sharpshooters were equipped with Colt's revolving rifles, and wouldn't get Sharps rifles until May of '62. In fact it might have been Head's own Sharps that prompted that decision.
Of course this weren't the later cartridge Sharps of Plains fame, this was the Sharps of 1858,.54 cal., falling block, loaded from the breech with conical bullet and powder usually in a paper cartridge sheared open by the breech block as it came back up, capped with a percussion cap under the hammer. Not as powerful as later Sharps, slower bullet with a trajectory to match. But consistent, and an experienced hand could fire nine rounds per minute.
The following mixed quotes from Wiki and the book...
The first widely distributed stories about him began to circulate during the siege of Yorktown, Virginia � a battle in which more than one publication credited him with �the first Rebel slain� in the siege. A large cannon (a 32 pounder) had been brought to the field of battle by the Rebels, and "California Joe" and some comrades were ordered to silence it. They found positions between the lines, and when morning came, Joe watched as the gun crew began to prepare the weapon for loading. As a cannonier cautiously approached with a swab-rammer to clean the barrel, the marksman touched his trigger, and the first victim of Yorktown fell. The swab remained in the barrel, and for the remainder of the day Joe and his companions picked off any rebel who attempted to remove the swab.[6] Another tale describes how �a small mounted party, led by an officer wearing a white shirt� ventured outside the rebel fortifications. Joe commented that he was �best at a white mark.� He quickly aimed and fired, and the man in the saddle fell to the ground, apparently dead
The stories that circulated about Joe were not hyperbole. Sneden documented an incident in which a Confederate sharpshooter lodged himself in the chimney of a house and hit several Federals 500 yards away. Joe established himself in an advantageous spot and fired three rounds, being able to see where they hit on the bricks.
On the fourth try, he hit the Rebel. Several days later, when the Federals advanced skirmishers to the house, they pried the body out of the chimney and discovered it was a Native American who had been shot "between the eyes... and the back of his skull was all blown out...".
Actually, Indians had had a reputation for uncommon skill with rifles for at least a century before the War Between the States, a thing generally ignored in pop history.
Truman Head wrote Lincoln requesting a discharge on account of failing eyesight and poor health and was released from service in 1862. My own suspicion is that Head, who never did warm to military discipline, had grown weary of the whole business.
Failing health or not, "California Joe" lived for another twenty-six years out in San Francisco, where upon his death at around eighty years of age they put up a monument in his memory.
BW, thanks for shining a bit of light on our heritage. Never heard that telling and as time passes I find more and more I didn't know about the past, and wondering less and less about how far we have progressed. Not real far in my opinion, both as to technology and social manner.
There's a fellow out in Wyoming named Kenny Wasserberger aka, The Lunger, who is a bit of a master with old arms. Some time ago he hosted a shoot called the Wasserberger Mile. Rules were simple as I recall. Period guns w/BP, any sight, target being a 48" bull at 1 mile. In a fresh Wyoming breeze. He shot it with a vernier sight.
The videos below are diabled for showing other than on YouTube, so here's the links. They are only about 30-40 seconds long.
...and just a quick recap of American rifles. We owe much to Europe, particularly Germany, for rifle development. No accident that our own iconic longrifle was first the product of the German settlements in Pennsylvania. Among reenactors/enthusiasts the search for early longrifles is akin to the search for the Holy Grail, but suffice to say the type was certainly in existence by around 1745.
The big puzzle with the longrifle is, why were they so long? The standard theories have been longer sighting plane, longer bores to burn poor quality powder etc. The problem with that is, pretty much multiple examples over the centuries in different places have shown that for rifle-caliber muzzleloading weapons, a barrel around a yard long or less is plenty long for optimum accuracy/velocity.
The current thinking is, the longrifle evolved the way it did to serve the preferences of the first main customer base at the time - Indians.
...a case of form over function, the rifle resembling in form the previous smoothbore trade gun (and if ya ever get a chance to heft a quality reproduction of said early smoothbore trade guns they are a revelation; a sleder 5ft+ long weapon only around 7 lbs in weight).
For an example of a longrifle I got a pic of my own; plain and unadorned, typical of the South in the early 19th Century, the sort of arm common in 1830's Texas.
In common with rifles of the day, these fired a round ball above a cloth patch, the oiled patch engaging the rifling. A soft lead round ball kills very well in relation to velocity, but has a poor ballistic coefficient, such that the maximum useful range was around 400 yards.
Longrifles commonly ran to smaller calibers .40 - .50 but larger calibers actually weren't all that uncommon either.
Speaking in generalities; pretty much all 18th Century weapons had the barrel attached to the stock by metal pins passing through the forearm and engaging a loop on the underside of the barrel. If ya look here on my rifle you can see where one is near the ramrod thimble...
These can be problematic to drive out such that the barrel is generally left in the stock for cleaning. Such weapons also tended to have a full stock.
IIRC by the late Eighteenth Century finer English weapons began to use wedges to hold the barrel to the stock, these wedges easily driven out to remove the barrel. Along with wedges one often sees half stocked weapons. At this point I'm going to jump to the iconic Harper's Ferry Rifle Model 1803, cutting edge technology at the time...
Half-stock, single barrel wedge, .53 cal patched round ball, barrel around a yard long (dependent upon variant).
From here of course its a short jump to the classic half-stock Plains Rifle, as epitomized by the Hawken. 'Cept its important to note that the classic percussion half-stock Plains rifle was mostly a creature of the late 1840's and 1850's, after the prime years of the Mountain Man were over. Most of those guys in the 1830's/40's were carrying full-stock rifles generally resembling longrifles in form, with pinned barrels.
And as a side note, by the 1840's Hawken era the hooked breech had become common on those longarms equipped with wedges, a hooked breech means the barrel could be easily lifted out for cleaning once the wedges were driven out, a hooked lug on the barrel engaging a mount that stayed on the stock.
Gotta run but I'll close with the last of the classic patched round ball rifles; the "Mississippi" Rifle of 1841. Actually I believe its proper title should be "US. Contract Rifle of 1841", replacing the previous flintlock version of 1822. The term "Mississippi" came from Jeff Davis arming his troops with it in the Mexican War. Never mind the looks, internally this thing was a round ball rifle with simple notch and blade fixed sights like civilian rifles of the era. Really, it was about like a Plains rifle in military garb, a direct descendant of the Harper's Ferry 1803, removable barrel bands holding the barrel rather than wedges...
Complicating things is the fact that most Mississippis were later bored out to .58 caliber to accept a minie bullet and modified so as to mount a bayonet and often equipped with a better rear sight adjustable for elevation .
Mississippis were produced in large numbers, equipping many state arsenals between the Mexican and Civil Wars. Down here in Texas the Mississippi Rifle in its original round-ball, fixed sight incarnation was a major arm in the hands of Texas Rangers and their Indian allies and really oughtta be as iconic in its way as the revolver or '73 Winchester.
And back to the main discussion, I came across reference on the 'net to the original .54 cal. Mississippi arming at least one Confederate Sharpshooter unit for the entirety of the War Between the States. While knocking some guy off at 300-400 yards is nothing to sneeze at, I doubt these guys were making the spectacularly way out there shots that are the topic of this thread.
One thing notable about shooting in the pre-chronograph era is that powder charges and velocities tended to be on the modest side, relative to what we would want today, even for black powder. Fortunately the soft lead round ball has always performed better than the numbers say it should, maybe starting with the fact that a big round hole punched in most any living critter is likely to cause it serious problems.
Seems like folks loaded to a level that worked and used that, for the sake of preserving powder. Even today round-ball proponents will tell ya round balls don't kill by velocity. What is really interesting is that round ball rifles produced today are mostly slow-twist; maybe one turn in sixty, that giving the best accuracy at the 1,000+ fps muzzle velocities we normally shoot nowadays.
Turns out most Hawkens, IIRC the 1803 Harper's Ferry, and the Mississippi rifle all had twists of around one in forty-eight. Lots of production muzzle loaders come with that nowadays, but as an "all-around" twist, less than ideal for round balls but fast enough to stabilize conical bullets too.
Since they weren't shooting conicals tho out of the rifles I mentioned, the general conclusion is that common velocities were commonly considerably lower back then. Accounts from Kentucky in the Rev. War era have the Shawnees shooting even lighter loads, such that they could readily be told by sound and that the balls bounced off rather than embedded in the logs of a besieged fort. Nobody volunteered to stand in front of these balls however and I ain't come across an account of an insufficient degree of lethality on that account.
The Sharps Rifles in the hands of Berdan's Sharpshooters, sniping weapons if you will, were also shooting mild loads by today's standards....
...a 350 grain conical bullet (not a real long conical, a .52 cal round ball weighs around 220 grains) over 64 grains of (FFg?) powder. In later Sharps parlance this would be a .52-64, not a real hot cartridge.
Maybe folks here can correct me, but I'm gonna ballpark a muzzle velocity of around 1,100 fps with a conical not a whole lot more efficient that a round ball.
Still, from the link, ol' Hiram Berdan (who knew his way around rifles) had 1,000 yard sights installed, and double set triggers.
The guys shooting these things had to be able to put 10 rounds in 10 inches standing offhand, and ten rounds in ten inches at 200 from any position (from the link). IIRC I do have an account from that book I'll post of guys with these rifles shooting at targets more than 1,000 yards away but the chief impact of these rifles seems to have been accurate, rapid fire at moderate distances from a prone position or from behind cover.
At the Battle of Gettysburg most everybody knows about the actions of Day 2 around Little Round Top and Joshua Chaimberlain's epic stand with the 20th Maine, an action so close it came down to a final bayonet charge to turn the Confederate attack.
Less widely known is the fact that there were 14 (or 15 depending on the source) 1st US Sharpshooters behind the pile of rocks (still there) maybe 60 or 70 yards of off Chaimberlain's left flank...
[Chaimberlain] deployed Company B, recruited from Piscataquis County and commanded by level-headed Captain Walter G. Morrill of Williamsburg, forward to the regiment�s left front flank as skirmishers. Company B, with its 44 men, was subsequently cut off by a flanking attack by the enemy...
Also helping to defend Little Round Top were Major Homer R. Stoughton�s 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, armed with .52-caliber breechloading rifles. These sharpshooters� skirmishing abilities were unequaled in the Union Army, and a 14-man squad was attached to Company B. The men took up a position in a ravine east of Little Round Top....
...During the [20th Maine's bayonet] charge, a second enemy line of the 15th and 47th Alabama tried to make a stand near a stone wall. For a moment it looked as though the Confederates might succeed in halting the Unionists and breaking their momentum. But, using the classic element of surprise, Captain Morrill�s Company B rose up from behind a stone wall and fired a volley into the Confederates� rear, breaking the will of the enemy troops. Confederate reports showed that the Union company had been magnified into two regiments. According to Confederate Colonel Oates, it was the surprise fire of Company B that caused the disastrous panic in his soldiers.
A trained man with a Sharps could fire nine rounds a minute, even if they managed only five, fourteen skilled marksmen could fire 35 aimed rounds in the first 30 seconds, that added to the opening volley of the 44 Regulars present. No wonder the Confederates broke, anybody would have.
More from "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat"....
...this time pertaining to Federal sharpshooters (turns out "sniping" weren't widely applied for the topic until WWI) by a Confederate veteran recalling (I'll get to the Confederates later when moving on to the Whitworth)....
A man of Pickett's Division wrote an article for the Baltimore Herald in 1886.... "I've seen them pick a man off who was a mile away. They could hit so far you couldn't hear the report of the gun. You wouldn't have any idea that anybody was in sight of you, and all of a sudden, with everything as silent as the grave and not a sound of a gun, here would come skipping along one of those "forced balls" and cut a hole clear through you."
"Forced balls" likely referring to the tight fit of the projectile when loading. The description of what it was like to face sniper fire applying in spades to those Union men within range of Confederate Whitworths. So much so that in the trenches at Petersburg in the final winter of the war, Union officers were actually told to remove those features on their uniforms that marked them as an officer, a radical departure from the mindset at the start of the conflict, where an officer was expected to cooly expose himself to enemy fire in order to inspire his men.
On the Union side, the Sharps rifles do not seem to have acquired the enduring cachet for long-range deadliness that attaches to the Whitworth. Indeed the US Sharpshooters were often deployed as skirmishers rather than true snipers. The book does devote a whole chapter to skirmishing; bodies of men making carefully aimed shots from cover at men on the opposing side, similarly deployed. And these actions do blur the line of what constituted sniping per se, artillery crew and officers, for example, becoming favored targets of skirmishers whenever they came within range.
The Sharps rifle, an accurate breech-loading arm that could be reloaded while lying prone, was of course eminently suited to the task of skirmishing.
Employed in a true sniping role, it was limited somewhat by trajectory of the relatively mild load and 1,000 yard sights (and the fact that a rifle could be "limited" by 1,000 yard sights illustrates the level of proficiency sharpshooters on both sides had attained).
From the book, pushing the envelope of the Sharps, in a situation that recalls directing artillery fire in later wars...
The First United States Sharpshooters detailed snipers to contend with the enemy at Spotsylvania. A Confederate signal party... perched in a tree some 1,500 yards from the snipers' position. Because the Sharps rifles... had sights that went only to 1,000 yards the men had to improvise "by cutting and fitting sticks to increase the elevation".
They could not see the Rebels, only their flag flying from the treetop. With a Federal staff officer also up in a tree to observe the effect, the Sharpshooters began to test their innovation. The observer guessed they were firing too low when the Confederates looked down, so the snipers cut new sticks and overshot their mark. By again cutting sticks, they were finally able to find the true range and soon forced the Rebels out of their tree."
So goes the account, but one wonders how they used "sticks" as sights as opposed to perhaps a rest, or just simply changed their hold over the target.
And another account of the superior range of a Sharps over a regular Springfield.
Some Federals voluntarily performed the role of sniper at Cold Harbor. Pvt. Franklin M. Goff of the Fourteenth Connecticut initially tried a Springfield rifle musket, "using an ordinary charge of powder" but could not reach two Confederates [snipers] estimated to be 800 yards behind the Rebel line. He borrowed a Sharps rifle and hit both men.
We are all familiar with the photos of bloated corpses, but in life all the rank and file on both sides are thin as rails. This here is a Union soldier...
..and one of the better period civilian photos I've seen; family members occupying the Miller Farmhouse...
If any of you are ever near Gettysburg, PA, there is a very good display of Civil War sniper rifles in the main museum on the battlefield. Or at least there was when I was there the last time about 7 years ago (displays change over time).
Whitworth was already known for inventing Engineer's Blue, which was useful for machining perfectly plane surfaces, and several precision planers. Hence, he determined that instead of a round rifled barrel, he was going to manufacture one using several plane surfaces. The reason for this was because he could machine plane surfaces much more precisely and thereby increase the tightness of fit of the bullet. The bullet could be made of harder lead material as it did not need to deform to engage the rifling. In the process, Whitworth elongated the bullet (at that point, Minie balls were still more round than tapered) and made it more like the modern bullets of today. He also discovered that with each variation of bore, the charge and size of the bullet had to be modified as well and determined that 0.450 inch diameter was the optimum for the amount of gunpowder and weight of lead that he was restricted to (the restriction was that the weight of gunpowder could not exceed 70 grains and the weight of the bullet could not exceed 530 grains)...
....The Whitworth rifle is also a muzzle-loader with a percussion lock firing mechanism. Like the Enfield 1839, this model also has a 39 inch long barrel, but it has a smaller bore of 0.451 inches, since Whitworth's experiments proved that this was the best caliber for the gunpowder amount and bullet weight requirements. The rifling is much tighter, being one turn in 20 inches, which means the bullet makes almost 2 turns by the time it comes out of the barrel. The cross section of the barrel is hexagonal instead of circular and the smallest diameter is 0.451 inches and the widest diameter is 0.490 inches. The bullet itself is smaller in width and is also hexagonal shaped in cross-section. However, it is much longer than the Enfield bullet, with the length to width ratio being 3 : 1. The bullet can be dropped into the barrel much easier than the Enfield bullet. Since expansion of the bullet is not critical to engage the rifling, it is possible to use bullets made of harder materials, e.g. tin-lead alloys or hardened steel! An expanding bullet made of soft pure lead may also be used as well.
It was argued that the tighter rifling of the Whitworth rifle (1 in 20 inches) reduced the velocity of the bullet, but a test conducted in 1857 at Government School of Musketry at Hythe showed that the Whitworth rifle penetrated fifteen elm planks to the Enfield's six, with the same amount of gunpowder in each. A hardened bullet on the Whitworth penetrated 35 planks, whereas the Enfield, which could only shoot soft lead bullets, only managed to penetrate 12 planks. The rifles were also put to accuracy tests by taking ten shots each at targets at various ranges.
From a rest, 4.4" at 500 yards, 12" at 800 yards. 11 feet 5 inches at 1,800 yards.
The 500 yard target, bold rectangles are 1 foot square. Not too shabby IMHO.
In 1873 the U.S army once again upgraded its rifle and cartridge design. The 1873 Springfield rifle saw minor improvements over the 1868 factory new breechloader. At this time, a new cartridge was adopted, the .45-70 U.S Government. The .45-70 fired a .45 caliber 405 grain projectile over 70 grains of black powder for a muzzle velocity of roughly 1200fps. The official military designation of the new cartridge was the .45-70-405. Caliber was .458” (11.6mm) and rifling consisted of 1 turn in 20”..... A later, more ballistically efficient load was adopted in 1879, designated the .45-70-500 (500 grain bullet).
The most famous single incident of sniping in the whole war; the morning of May 6th, 1864, outside of Spotsylvania, Va. Near the onset of Grant's horrendously bloody final campaign in the East that would finally break the Army of Northern Virginia by attrition eleven months later.
To put the events of his death in context, Major General John Sedgwick, then fifty-one years old, was no stranger to combat nor to hardships in the field. Neither was it mere coincidence that he would become the highest ranking Union casualty in that war.
In this photo taken three months before his death, Sedgwick is the genial man in the bowler-type hat facing the camera....
Prior to the 1860's Sedgwick had served in combat in both the Seminole and Mexican Wars. In the previous decade he had been sent to to Utah to quell the trouble with the Mormons, and had campaigned against the Cheyennes in Colorado. The picture that emerges is of a genially good natured and competent man with a reputation for looking out for the welfare of his men.
Neither should it be supposed he was any stranger to the dangers posed by Rebel marksmen, three years earlier he had been wounded twice during McClellan's failed Peninsula campaign. The following year he had been hit three times, in the wrist, leg and shoulder, when ordered to make a frontal assault on Stonewall Jackson's men at Antietam. His division sustaining nearly 50% casualties in that single action.
If nothing else, his prior combat record indicates that Sedgwick was very much aware of the hazards Rebel sharpshooters posed when he spoke those infamous last words, and willfully exposed himself to Rebel fire as an example to his men.
It would be difficult to find a more popular and well-regarded man on either side during that whole conflict. His own troops called him "Uncle John", and even that late in the war no less personages than Robert E. Lee and JEB Stuart expressed regret upon hearing of his demise. Stuart had served under Sedgwick before the war and spoke words to the effect that Sedgwick was a man he would have given his only blanket and shared his last biscuit with. Grant and his generals were literally moved to tears when hearing of his loss, Grant commenting that the loss of Sedgwick was equivalent to losing a whole division.
Despite his earlier wounds, Sedgwick customarily led from the front or nearly so. THe night before his death, he and his staff had slept out on the ground near the line and like his men, had no provisions to eat that morning. The account of his death was written after the war by one General Martin T. McMahon, twenty years Sedgwick's junior, who was standing next to him when he was hit. McMahon's account gives us a vivid picture of what it was like to be on te receiving end of sniper fire during that war.
About an hour before, I had remarked to the general, pointing to the two pieces in a half-jesting manner, which he well understood, "General, do you see that section of artillery? Well, you are not to go near it today." He answered good-naturedly, "McMahon, I would like to know who commands this corps, you or I? " I said, playfully, "Sometimes I am in doubt myself"; but added, " Seriously, General, I beg of you not to go to that angle; every officer who has shown himself there has been hit, both yesterday and to-day." He answered quietly, " Well, I don't know that there is any reason for my going there."
When afterward we walked out to the position indicated, this conversation had entirely escaped the memory of both. I gave the necessary order to move the troops to the right, and as they rose to execute the movement the enemy opened a sprinkling fire, partly from sharp-shooters. As the bullets whistled by, some of the men dodged. The general said laughingly, " What! what! men, dodging this way for single bullets! What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
A few seconds after, a man who had been separated from his regiment passed directly in front of the general, and at the same moment a sharp-shooter's bullet passed with a long shrill whistle very close, and the soldier, who was then just in front of the general, dodged to the ground. The general touched him gently with his foot, and said, " Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way," and repeated the remark, " They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." The man rose and saluted and said good-naturedly, " General, I dodged a shell once, and if I hadn't, it would have taken my head off. I believe in dodging." The general laughed and replied, "All right, my man; go to your place."
For a third time the same shrill whistle, closing with a dull, heavy stroke, interrupted our talk; when, as I was about to resume, the general's face turned slowly to me, the blood spurting from his left cheek under the eye im a steady stream. He fell in my direction ; I was so close to him that my effort to support him failed, and I fell with him.
Colonel Charles H. Tompkins, chief of the artillery, standing a few feet away, heard my exclamation as the general fell, and, turning, shouted to his brigade-surgeon, Dr. Ohlenschlager. Major Charles A. Whittier, Major T. W. Hyde; and Lieutenant Colonel Kent, who had been grouped near by, surrounded the general as he lay. A smile remained upon his lips but he did not speak.
The doctor poured water from a canteen over the general's face. The blood still poured upward in a little fountain. The men in the long line of rifle-pits, retaining their places from force of discipline, were all kneeling with heads raised and faces turned toward the scene; for the news had already passed along the line.
As best as can be determined, the range had been around 550 yards. Hit below the eye by a bullet that apparently pierced a carotid artery, Sedgwick's demise was likely mercifully swift.
Sedgwick was so well regarded that at least one man present actually preserved a sprig of vegetation that had been splattered with Sedgwick's blood, and in post war years kept the relic on the mantle in the living room of his house.
The spot where Sedgwick was hit was first marked with a boulder ten years later by a Union veteran, and actual monument being erected at that spot nearly a quarter century after the fact by men that had served under him.
Modern "Slug Guns" off of X-Sticks are not unlike the sniper firearms of old.
That said one should witness the impact of a slug gun shooter interrupted at the important stage of measuring and pouring of up powder.
Double charge at that level may not harm the the well made gun of modern manufacture, but will move the shooter faster than his hat and get the attention of all shooters on the line.
I'm not sure anyone knows for sure who killed Major General John Sedgwick. IIRC around 250 Whitworths were slipped past the Federal blockade part way through the war, and several made their way into service with the Army of Northern Virginia.
McMahon's account does suggest more than one Confederate Sharpshooter, successive bullets passing by seemingly too rapid for one guy carefully reloading at the other end.
One Confederate Sharpshooter present was Benjamin Marcus Powell, of unknown degree of kin to our own Lt. Pat.
Not infrequently Powell would have a duel with a Yankee sharpshooter; usually Powell got the best of it. But one morning he came to us with a bullet hole through his hat. A Yankee sharpshooter had done it.
"Well Ben," we asked, "did you get him?"
"No, I didn't" said Ben very frankly, "he kept picking closer and closer to me, and when he put the bullit through my hat, I quit."
And on the killing of a Yankee Officer....
On this 9th of May, Ben came in about noon, and walking up to me, he said:
"Sergeant, I got a big Yankee officer this morning."
"How do you know it was an officer?" I asked.
"I could tell by the way they behaved; they were all mounted; it was something over half a mile; I could see them good through the telescope; I could tell by the way they acted which was the head man; so I raised my sights and took the chance; and, sir, he tumbled right off his horse. The others dismounted and carried him away. I could see it all good through the glass."
"Oh Ben," I said, "you shot some cavalryman, and you think it was an officer."
"No, sir, he was an officer, and a big one too. I could tell."
That night the enemy's pickets called over to ours:
"Johnny, one of your sharpshooters killed General Sedgwick today."
So we knew that Ben did what he said.
All these recollections some years after the fact.
Browsing around, there was a staff officer shot off a horse at that same place the day before, one of the casualties McMahon referred to when he warned General Sedgwick, seems more likely that was the guy Powell actually shot.
Also present at Spotsylvania; Berry Benson, Confederate Sharpshooter extraordinaire...
Larger than life, with a life story that reads like fiction. I dunno how many Confederates successfully escaped from Hellmira, but Benson was one. Heck, he escaped Federal prisons TWICE.
He seen it all from Fort Sumpter to Appomattox, and as a Sharpshooter/Skirmisher he was known to scout the Union lines alone.
Poet, philanthropist, code-breaker, and social activist, Benson raised ten children after the war, five of his own and five orphans adopted from France during the Great War.
Dang, another book I gotta buy, "Memoirs of a Confederate Scout"....
If any of you are ever near Gettysburg, PA, there is a very good display of Civil War sniper rifles in the main museum on the battlefield. Or at least there was when I was there the last time about 7 years ago (displays change over time).
It was there in 85 so I'd assume it still is.
They have a new museum there now. I did'nt see any sniper type rifles there. I think the old museum was better.
BW, if'n you ain't careful this will wind up a sticky somewhere.
Much as I appreciate the magic of a well placed round ball, I'd not be too quick to dismiss advantage of the conical. Doesn't take a lot of bullet to run circles around a patched ball. First thing is accuracy and second the momentum.
The old sportsters familiar with slug guns and their mercurial ways were prone to making their own luck. Matches to 1000 yards or so were fairly common after the Civil War. They didn't miss often.
Much as I appreciate the magic of a well placed round ball, I'd not be too quick to dismiss advantage of the conical. Doesn't take a lot of bullet to run circles around a patched ball. First thing is accuracy and second the momentum.
Sir, the only conical I have questioned is this... the 1859 Sharps round; a 350 grain .52 conical over 64 grains of powder, said powder contained in a linen "case" that was sheared open when the sharp-edged breech block was raised upon closing the action.
Said conical giving about a mere 70 grain advantage in mass over a lead ball of like diameter. Surely better than a round ball, but not in the same class as THIS, the 530 grain, .45 cal Whitworth slug...
And Sir Joseph Whitworth himself, who achieved tolerances on flat planes of steel down to ONE MILLIONTH OF AN INCH...
Kudos to the Brits for recognizing his genius and conferring a knighthood upon him.
Anyhow, turns out the big Officer that Benjamin Powell knocked off a horse at 850+ yards with a Whitworth that same morning Sedgwick got shot was more'n likely General William Hopkins Morris of the 6th New York Heavy Artillery...
..same morning, same area of the Union line. General Morris survived the wound and lived for another thirty-six years, but it took him out of active service. He did go on to prosper and raise a son. He lived in Cold Spring NY, across the Hudson from West Point and not too far from where my sister lives.
Said conical giving about a mere 70 grain advantage in mass over a lead ball of like diameter. Surely better than a round ball, but not in the same class as THIS, the 530 grain, .45 cal Whitworth slug...
Will save discussion on those points for a different time and place re: round ball/Sharps cartridge numbers.
Were you standing at attention when you called me sir?
Were you standing at attention when you called me sir?
I called you Sir?
Dammit! If'n I ain't paying attention Texan creeps in....
What a Whitworth sounds like, this from McMahon's account at Spotsylvania.....
"A few seconds after, a man who had been separated from his regiment passed directly in front of the general, and at the same moment a sharp-shooter's bullet passed with a long shrill whistle very close....
From the video embedded in that last Whitworth link:
The sound of a Whitworth bullet passing at 1,000 yards, starts at the 2:45 minute mark...
It was a puzzle to me why this sudden explosion of rifle technology in the decades prior to the War Between the States, specifically the advances in regards to bullet and rifling design that extended the lethal range of the rifleman to such a degree.
I dug up my copy of Ned H. Robert's classic "The Muzzle-Loading Caplock Rifle" (1940). For those of us out of the loop Ned Roberts was a firearms prodigy whose life spanned the firearms era from the age of blackpowder and the round ball clear through the modern smokeless era, the ".257 Roberts", dating from the early '20's, being one of the early Wildcat cartridges, said cartridge still in production today.
Mr. Roberts first firearm was a .30 caliber caplock muzzleloader, round ball, with which he was painstakingly taught how to shoot and mold bullets for it by his Uncle Alvaro. Uncle Alvaro had actually served as a US Sharpshooter on the Union side, and the rifle was a battlefield pickup, found next to the body of a dead southern child, a boy, who had carried it into battle. Said boy apparently having been the scion of a family of some means to have been armed with such a fine weapon.
As an aside, Roberts relates how his Uncle was greatly disappointed by the results of the famous inaugural 1874 Creedmore match on Long Island between a hastily-assembled American squad and the World Champion Irish team.
THe source of Uncle Alvaro's disappointment was that the Irish team had been using muzzle loaders whereas the US side was using the then-new breechloading Sharps and Remingtons. Uncle Alavaro had been certain that muzzleloaders were innately more accurate than breechloaders.
Actually, to hear Roberts tell it, Alvaro was right. The match, held at 900 and 1,000 yards, came down to mere points, and the Irish team would have won by a single point had not one of their members accidentally shot a round (a bullseye BTW) into the wrong target.
Interestingly, one of the American team was loading his Sharps through the muzzle (into a primed case???) for reasons that have been lost, and the breechloaders required much more extensive cleaning between rounds to maintain accuracy than did the muzzleloaders.
But I digress....
According to Roberts, the reason why rifle technology began to suddenly advance by leaps and bounds after around 1840 were advances in metallurgy and manufacturing. Prior to that date gun barrels were hand made, of strips of iron hammered in a spiral to make a tube, said strips then welded together. These barrels simply would not last long when subjected to the pressures of heavy conical bullets spun at fast twists over heavy powder charges.
What became generally available after 1840 was "cast steel", barrel blanks formed by extrusion.
Roberts places the widespread adoption of conical "bullet" per se over round balls in America as occurring around 1835, and states that the bullet resembled an acorn in form but which gave little improvement over the round ball in the rifles of the time, as opposed to the following decade, when cast steel faster-twist barrels became widespread and bullet design advanced accordingly.
Sorta similar, the original .44 Colt Walker and Dragoon revolvers were monsters on account of the steel technology available at the time dictated they they be so, and even then Walkers for one often blew up in service.
It was the invention of "silver steel", a stronger composition, in the '50's that allowed Colt to build the .44 1860 Army on the old .36 1851 Navy frame.
Back to "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat". The other side of the coin...
There were many soldiers, of both North and South, who were far from crack shots - many who were inept soldiers more dangerous to their comrades than to the enemy, though through little fault of their own.
John G. Phillips of the Seventy-seventh Illinois was one such man. Described as "half-witted", he had no clue as to how to handle his musket safely. As the regiment advanced across ground entangled with vines and timber at the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, Phillips trailed behind, overexcited and carrying a loaded gun.
He tripped and the mucket went off, the bullet narrowly missing his comrades to the front. Phillips reloaded and continued, the same thing happened. Now the men had had enough. They told the Captain to send Phillips to the rear or they would shoot him, "for if they had to be shot they wanted it to be by the enemy and not by that d----d fool."
The Captain obliged by sending Phillips to the rear to help in the field hospital."
I'm gonna digress here a little, and discuss the Zouaves. My first muzzleloader years ago was the then ubiquitous "Zouave Rifle", an Italian two-band (ie. shorter) repro of the 1863 Remington contract rifle, now considered hopelessly "farb" as it was produced in small numbers, and apparently never made it to combat.
Turns out the French were the be-all and end-all of military tactics in the first half of the Nineteenth Century (or so were popularly regarded, especially by our own Secretary of War Jeff Davis). The original French Zouave experience was concurrent with the rise of the rifle-musket.
From "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat"...
All of Europe accepted the Napoleonic model of war making after 1815 and tried with varying degrees of success to maintain it....
The French, once again, took the lead in developing new ideas to supplement the Napoleonic system after 1815. By the 1830's they began to offer specialized training to meet the threat posed by Algerian fighters who resisted French occupation of North Africa.
The enemy was highly mobile, taking good cover in rugged terrain and able to damage French units even with relatively primitive weapons. The French created "tiraillieur" ("sharpshooter") units, gave them intense target practice and physical training, and encouraged them to fight as line infantry or skirmishers when needed. Their members wore distinctive baggy pants and and colorful uniforms....
The tirallieurs did well when sent to North Africa in 1838. Zouave units, composed of native troops, adopted their training regimen. The tiraillieurs were later called Chasseurs a pied (literally "hunters on foot"...)....
The Algerian experience taught the French that aimed individual fire was better than volleys...
And their rifles....
The French began the process of trying to find a faster, easier way to load the rifle. Inspired by the difficulties of confronting native troops in North Africa, Capt. Gustave Henry Delvigne changed the configuration of the bore to ensure faster loading by 1834. He created a chamber at the base of the [bore] that was smaller in caliber than the rest of the bore so the powder could snugly fill it....
The year before Delvigne perfected his improvement (1835), two French artillery officers perfected the cylindical-conoidal bullet. It was the basic shape of most Civil War rifle ordinance, a lead plug with an enlongated side and a flat base. Another officer, Capt. Thouvenin, developed a "stem rifle" that used this type of ball by 1842. Thouvenin's device consisted of a steel pin 1 1/2 inches long at the base of the weapon's tube. The loose powder settled around it, and the bullet had a wooden sabot at its base that stuck on the pin to hold it in place until firing. The weapon had an effective range of 600 yards and was used for ten years.
But the basic problem... was that the soldier had to ram the charge home in a careful, uniform way to seat the bullet properly...
Capt. Claude Etienne Minie solved that problem by creating a hollow on the bottom... and letting the gases produced by the powder explosion to expand the sides to fit the rifling... The Minie rifle... began to be used in 1846...
The Zouave themselves, dressed loosely like North African Moslems, were all the rage in the 1850's and several civilian units were formed in the US, though noted over here more for drill and agility rather than marksmanship. Both sides had 'em at the start of the war and the Union side had 'em throughout the war, though they were deployed like regular infantry, the role of the originals in North Africa being largely unknown or ignored by the respective Union and Confederate militiary establishments at the time. The chief impression that comes down is that their colorful uniforms made 'em easier to hit.
Louisiana Zouaves 1861 (The famous Louisiana Tigers ???)
...and Pennsylvania Zouaves 1864
Jeff Davis was our Secretary of War in the 1850's, and a proponent of the rifle since at least the Mexican War, was responsible for our own adoption of rifled muskets using minie balls in the '50's.
Point of interest, he also created our first cavalry unit specifically intended for Frontier Service, the 2nd US Cavalry (headed by Robert E. Lee, and staffed with a number of officers that would later become famous in the war), based upon French cavalry units in North Africa.
His importation of camels to Texas for military service during that same time period actually worked very well, but never caught on.
Been googling around for the French ancestor to all these 1850's/1860's minie rifles, the two band (33" barrel) 1860 Enfield P60 being the actual favored arm of Confederate Sharpshooters (Whitworths was scarce).
Here's the French 1851), near as I can tell the first purpose built military arm using the Minie. A poor pic from Wiki but show what appears to be the distinctively French back-action lock...
Information is sparse but it appears to have been a .70 cal..
But a much better link to that rifle's immediate forbearer. The 1846 Carabine a Tige....
Caliber unknown, could have been a .69 or .70, here at the close of the smoothbore musket era .69 had been the standard French Charleville musket caliber since 1717. Notable for the absence of removable barrel bands, that too being French innovation since 1726.
Military establishments tend to be conservative. Though the percussion cap in a reasonably final copper cap/mercury fulminate form had been around for nearly twenty years, the big push to convert existing musket stocks both in Europe and in the US did not occur until around 1840.
In my experience, a well set-up flintlock is about as reliable and nearly as quick as a percussion cap arm for a first shot. Again IME where the advantage of a caplock becomes apparent is when you have to rapid-fire twenty times in a row (as occurs nowadays in battle reenactment).
The arrival of the Minie technology at the end of the same decade left the United States and the European powers holding large quantities of suddenly obsolete smoothbores.
One solution was to just rifle the barrels. This here is the British Musket - Pattern 1842, .75 cal. Essentially a percussion version of the venerable Brown Bess (Brown Besses had been undergoing conversion to percussion since 1838 but a catastrophic 1842 fire in the Tower of London armory destroyed virtually all existing stocks).
Even smoothbore a Browm Bess weren't no slouch in the wallop department, dispensing a 600 grain round ball. After conversion, the rifled Minie version however dispensed a whopping 810 grain Minie bullet.
Musta been a hoot to shoot
If'n I were a wealthier man I might even have one of these bad boys built to order
In use, that slug over 70 grains of powder was found to be too severe in recoil even by British Army standards, that and the fact that the ammo for it was more than one third as heavy again to haul around in bulk when on campaign. For the purpose-built Enfield rifle muskets of the 1850's, caliber was reduced to a mere .577 firing a 530 grain Minie.
Over this side of the pond we were stuck with the 1842 .69 cal. Springfield Musket along with existing stocks of the earlier 1816 flinter version (this musket series itself being essentially knockoffs of the French Charlevilles). Not a few of these early Springfields, flintlock and percussion alike, made it in smoothbore form into the War Between the States, some percussion for the duration.
Many however, were rifled to fire a 750 grain Minie
In Texas history the rifled version of the 1842 has a less than auspicious reputation, mostly on account of it was issued in the 1850's to INFANTRY regiments assigned to Frontier forts for protection against Comanches and other mounted Indians.
The intended modus operandi of these units was to load the men up in wagons to pursue the tribes. Needless to say, these guys achieved a less than stellar record in that role. I dunno that they ever intercepted a single Indian.
That coupled with the fact that marksmanship training and distance estimation using these low velocity, heavy slugs and their resulting rainbow trajectory was rudimentary to non-existent.
A pity, because from what I gather the modern Italian reproductions of these things apparently shoot quite well, and have become popular in shoots where the object is to knock over wooden stakes and break pine boards from some considerable distance away.
'Nother gun I might buy if'n I was wealthier and more idle.
A tale of two rifle-muskets, getting screwed by a Government, and of advancing manufacturing technology vs. hidebound tradition.
In 1855, at the start of the Crimean War, the British Military establishment found themselves hopelessly short of Enfield rifles. In part because most British manufacturers of the same were still making them almost entirely by hand. Besides being slow this meant that parts were not readily interchangeable.
Needing new rifles fast, they turned to a seemingly unlikely source, the Vermont Company of Robbins and Lawrence, then on the cutting edge of manufacturing technology.....
When the industrial revolution began in the 1840's, machining finally reached a point where a completely "gauged" rifle could be built. Many of these advances took place in New England. During the 1850's, Robbins and Lawrence was one of only a few private arms makers in the world who could produce a military rifle with interchangeable parts.
The British were so impressed with R&L's production of the US Model 1841 Mississippi Rifle for the US government that they hired them to set up the tooling at their own national arsenal at Enfield for production of the new Pattern 1853.
When war broke out in the Crimea shortly afterwards, R&L was an ideal choice for such as a military contractor. Back here in America, the thought of an initial 25,000 unit order with more orders to come must have been too big of a carrot dangling over their nose for Robbins and Lawrence to pass up. Since hindsight has 20/20 vision, we can look back and know it did so without weighing the risks. For starters, building a gun with interchangeable parts wasn't an inexpensive proposition. R&L had to borrow and invest a great deal of money in tooling capable of producing the Enfield Rifle with interchangeable parts.
This meant it would have to make A LOT of guns to pay off its notes before it ever saw a profit. Manufacturing 101, right? But this was the British government and the gains must have outweighed the perceived risks. At first, everything went great. Some of their new "Windsor" P53's had already been completed and shipped across the pond to Great Britain.
With 1/3 to 1/2 of the production completed, things changed dramatically in 1856 when the Crimean War came to an abrupt end. The British government, no longer needing more rifles...especially from a foreign contractor, canceled the Robbins and Lawrence contract right in the middle of the production. This spelled disaster for the American firm...
1858, Robbins and Lawrence goes under. Enter Sam Colt....
...And that leaves the fantastic Robbins and Lawrence tooling for the P1853 Enfield which is quite a story by itself. The tooling sold for pennies on the dollar to LG&Y and to an enterprising businessman named Sam Colt in Hartford, CT.
Sam Colt must have been one hell of a poker player because he tucked away the tooling just as if it were an ace up his sleeve waiting for the right hand of cards in a poker game. That right moment would soon arrive a couple years later when the American Civil War broke out in 1861. This time, it was the US government faced with an almost identical situation to the one Great Britain had six years earlier with its war in the Crimea. There weren't enough arms, new or in surplus, to supply the US army. To augment their woes, the destruction of the National Armory at Harpers Ferry by the Confederate army in April, 1861, left the US government with one remaining armory, the Springfield Armory located in Massachusetts...effectively cutting their production in half.
The government was forced to turn to overseas imports from Britain and continental Europe and the help from private contractors scattered throughout the Northeast to build its newest model, the US Model 1861 Rifled Musket.
Sam Colt, finally pulled the ace from his sleeve and inserted into the hand he was now ready to play. Colt quickly offered his services to build the new rifle and the US Ordnance Department awarded him a substantial contract for the US Model 1861 Rifled-Musket...or so they thought! What the gov't didn't know was that they would be receiving something quite different from Colt and LG&Y! Instead of manufacturing the US Model 1861 as agreed upon, Sam Colt had different plans. He simply took the old tooling he had purchased from the Robbins and Lawrence bankruptcy sale and began producing Enfield rifles with a few aesthetic changes to make the gun appear like it was the US Model 1861.
The gun that all the rest were copied from... the Enfield Pattern 1853...
Our own Springfields two ('55) eight('61} and eleven years {63} later were close enough that Sam Colt could build P53 Enfields and pass 'em off as Springfields. The P53 itself was a second-generation endeavor; the P51 having been .70 cal, like the French Minie Rifles.
Of course the "P53" designation doesn't mean they were produced in '53, the shortage of these weapons in '54 at the outbreak of the Crimean War leading the Brits to contract out clear to Vermont for these rifles.
Some interesting things happened in England in the '50's. Shooting had become a popular pastime of an increasing well-to-do middle class, and the evident unpreparedness of the Empire for home defense when the Crimean War broke out led to the creation of the "Volunteer Force".
A measure was passed in 1859 authorizing the the creation of a paramilitary "Volunteer Force" to be used primarily for home defense in the event of an invasion.
Members were required to furnish their own uniforms and their own weapons... officially Enfield P53's. So popular did this movement become that by 1862, when it was found necessary to organize and standardize the many units that had arisen, there were more than 134,000 armed members in the rifle corps.
No coincidence that in 1858 a National Rifle Association was founded in England (now called the National Rifle Association of the U.K.), which certainly must have inspired in a large part our own, twelve years later.
It would be a mistake to equate the situation in England in the 1850's to anything like our own. Despite the numbers eventually enrolled, this pastime was way out of reach of yer average Working Class Brit, and a clear class-consciousness must have applied.
Neither was there in England even back then much available space, access to game nor free lands for shooting on the scale available here in the 'States.
What these guys did though was compete with their rifles, a lot, at long ranges. Recall that Enfields in England, at least early in the decade were still largely hand-made. What became apparent too was the advantages of longer .45 caliber bullets akin to the Whitworth for accurate long range shooting.
The result was the widespread appearance of drop-in replaceable barrels, in .45 cal, designed to fit a P53. Sorta like a prehistoric incarnation of what we have over here today with the many permutations of the AR-15.
Reforms initiated in 1862, after standardized Enfield production had increased by leaps and bounds, dictated that Rifle Volunteers must equip themselves with actual Enfields built to spec and not the custom-made renditions thereof. As a result at least some of these now non-regulation rifles were put up for sale.
Coming as it did in '62, when Confederate representatives in the UK were avidly buying up arms, no surprise that some of these Enfield-based British target rifles, like the .45 cal. Kerr rifle and possibly some other .45 cal. Volunteer rifles equipped with Whitney-style hexagonal rifling, ended up over here, where they did some notably long range execution.
Meanwhile shorter "two band" variants of the P53 were developed, all with 33" barrels, intended for artillery, cavalry and naval use. So favored by the Confederates that JEB Stuart himself requested his men be issued Enfield P56 cavalry carbines when they became available.
By the two-band P60 version the former three-groove 1 in 78" rifling had been modified to a five-groove 1 in 48" twist, giving superior accuracy. It was these P60's that became the most common arm among the Confederate Sharpshooter Battalion.
There doesn't seem to have been a 33" two-band Springfield equivalent, tho' the Remington 1863 Contract Rifle (repros of this popularly marketed as "Zouave Rifles") was likely designed with the Enfield originals in mind.
Few if any '63 Remingtons are believed to have made it into combat, the slack in part being taken up by the variety of various breech loading carbine designs of this period.
Be interesting to know the rifling specified in the original '63 Remington contract.
A MUST-HAVE book for anyone interested in this sort of thing is the aforementioned "Shock Troops of the Confederacy: The Sharpshooter Battalions of the Army of Northern Virginia"
More than just about the ANV, though that in itself would be interesting enough, Ray (the author) puts it in the context of other advances in precision combat riflery around the world, before an after.
Sorta like Spitfires and Hurricanes in WWII, the Whitworth was the star of course, but well-handled Enfields did most of the killing, and 500 yards is STILL way the heck out there, especially with open sights, such opportunities at those ranges not being the norm for battlefields anyway, then or now.
In terms of general-issue rifle-muskets the average Enfield had it all over our own Springfields for long-range precision work, a fact that soon became general knowledge on both sides, tho of course at most actual battle ranges both got the job done.
The irony here is that all this practical lethality, in terms of a readily-portable, rugged arm that could actually withstand hard use on campaign and be carried around a field of battle by one guy (as opposed to our 40lb false-muzzle target rifles), all of this was developed and perfected by the British during the 1850's in the context of the Crimean War and the effect of all those at-home Volunteer organizations with the means and the desire to purchase precision Enfield P53 knock-offs.
It would be like if the Brits today were carrying into battle enhanced AR-15's, said AR-15's having been developed by American marksmen for practical rifle competitions over here.
Anyways, more quotes to come, but a single vignette here from "Shock Troops", involving a Confederate Whitworth rifle, occurring some time in January 1864; Georgia cavalry picket J.W. Minnich encounters "...a tall bewiskered Alabamian or Mississippian" in a barn near Dandridge, Tennessee...
...Minnich tagged along on a sniping expedition, and presently the two spied a cavalryman in the distance. Together they estimated the range to be about eight hundred yards, which Minnich thought was too long a shot for his Enfield [Birdwatcher note: in contrast many other cavalry carbines and musketoons, the five-groove progressive-rifled versions of the Enfield cavalry carbine were no slouches when it came to accuracy].
The Sharpshooter adjusted his sights, then "raised his rifle slowly and deliberately 'off hand' as if aiming for some inanimate target and pulled the trigger." Minnich thought "it was one of the prettiest shots I have ever seen." But the lucky horseman moved forward just as the bullet reached him, and the shot struck his mount's rump.
I was surprised to come across reference to the Army of Northern Virginia shooting off an average of 37,000 rounds PER DAY during the months-long standoff around Petersburg Va during the last winter/spring of the war. Translates to around a million rounds a month.
A cartridge at that time consisted of a 530 grain .577 Minie over 65 grains of powder, the whole wrapped and tied off in a paper shell. A million of these translates to about 40 tons of lead and an a ton (2,000 lbs) of black powder, plus untold hundreds and thousands of man-hours needed to assemble them.
Not bad for a Confederacy on its last legs, and a small insight into the scale of the logistics necessary to support both sides during that war.
The Union side purchased about seven hundred million such cartridges during the five years of war.
For the Confederacy we only have figures for a single 12 month period: Thirty six million rounds purchased between September '62 and September '63.
I took delivery of Berry Benson's Civil War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter. Benson had a remarkable career in and after that war, and actually was sent to and escape Hellmira, the Union prison in Elmira NY. Only critique I have of the book is we get it through the filter of his grandson's wife, who first typed the manuscript after WWII from Benson's own written accounts. Heavily sanitized it seems, with little mention of the unpleasant despite the excrutiating physical ordeals Beson must have faced at different times and places.
Anyways, a passage describing Yankee vs. Southerner caught my eye, this from where Benson was in the early stages of Union captivity, being moved from the front, describing Yankee camp life....
Being marched thro' the camps I was continually hailed on all sides with "Hello, Johnny!", Johnny Reb being a national name they had given us. In being first thrown among them, I was surprised at the immense amount of cursing and blackguarding I heard going on everywhere.
There was nothing like it going on in our camps. I heard oaths that I had never before heard in my life and a man would, in mere sport, call a man the vilest names - a style of language that would have brought a fight on his hands in Confederate camps, fifty times a day.
The downside of Confederate politeness might have been a sort of hidebound reluctance at all levels to remove incompetents from command, especially in the western theater, coupled with a reluctance to promote those of obvious talent, such as Cleburne and Forrest.
Unfortunate for the Confederacy that this happened in the western theater where the likes of a General Grant soon became their principal opponent. Also unfortunate that in the west the Union fielded troops from the until-recently frontier Midwest.
Those boys were shooters, as good if not better than the Confederates themselves.
I'm gonna quote some more from Hess's The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat (2008) pertaining to the notable proficiency with rifles among the Mid-Western troops in the Union Army of the Tennessee.
According to Hess, accurate rifle fire by Union troops played a prominent role in many of the victories of that army, all the way from Fort Donelson through Sherman's March to the Sea. In contrast, there are many cases of soldiers in the Union Army of the Potomac back East who had scarcely used a firearm before seeing battle.
From the exception proving the rule department, at Gettysburg we have three instances where well-handled breech loading or repeating arms proved critical in determining the outcome.
Opening Day - Assorted cavalry carbines and Spencers in the hands of Buford's skirmishers stalling the initial Confederate advance on Gettysburg. Day Two - Fifteen Berdan Sharpshooters with Sharps rifles pouring fire into the Confederate flank and rear at Little Round Top and Day Three - Michigan Cavalry skirmishers with Spencers slowing Stuart's attempted strike at the Union rear in conjunction with Pickett's Charge.
Notable tho' that Berdan's outfit was composed of hand-picked marksmen, many from the West and that the Michigan Cavalry WERE from the Midwest.
p.54 The Chief of Ordinance later reported that four out of every five repeaters issued to the Union Army went to western troops, demonstrating the immense interest in the most advanced guns felt by young men from that region....
Many soldier did spend their own money to purchase the latest in killing tools, and most of them seem to have been Westerners... Whole regiments were armed with repeaters solely at the mens' expense... The men paid over three months salary, about $50 apiece, for the guns.....
Altogether, three Illinois regiments were armed with the Henry and five used the Spenser...
The most famous Union Army unit to use repeaters was Wilder's Lighting Brigade... Wilder was given command of a brigade of Indiana and Illinois regiments attached to the Army of the Cumberland. He received permission to convert his men to mounted infantry early in 1863 and spearheaded efforts to purchase Spencer repeaters for the whole brigade... Wilder raised a loan from bankers in his hometown of Greensburg, Indiana in exchange for nothing more than his personal note as collateral....
On the Confederate side, there was interest in repeaters but very little opportunity to use them. The South made none of its own, and about the only time a Rebel saw a repeater was in the hands of a Union captor or lying on the battlefield, dropped by a Union casualty.
The [Confederate] Army of the Tennessee reported having 49,193 guns in the middle of the Atlanta Campaign. Only 58 of them were Spenser rifles, all in the hands of troops riding with the cavalry.
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