Best sharpshooting tactics.

[major bill]

The use of sharpshooting marksmen in war was well established by the time of the Civil War. I am not sure the United States was at the forefront of this style of military tactic. It was not too difficult to obtains long range weapons, at least in limited quantities, but developing proper tactical uses for the thus armed soldiers is another subject.

Many of the senior officers on both side had not been exposed to the proper use of sharpshooting units and had mostly seen individual use of this kind of soldier. So which side was the best able to develop useable sharpshooting tactics?

To me both sides could have used sharpshooting tactics more efficiently. This kind of units could have been used to screen movement by keeping the enemy at a distance. Flanks could have been secured using this kind of unit in that the enemy can not get close enough to find the flanks of an army. It would also seem likely sharpshooting units would be useful as rear guards. Again keeping the enemy in the dark about friendly troop location.

Both sides could have established more sharpshooting unit. It would have taken some time to develop proper tactics to use them. this could have possibly happen but the leaders of neither side was able to fully understand the proper use of sharpshooting units and thus did not see the usefulness of this kind of unit.

 

[redbob]

Sharpshooters were often seen by commanders as not proper military protocol because of the "uncivilized" way in which they operated and often sharpshooters would be with skirmishers who would enable them to get closer to the enemy while offering some level of protection. Patrick Cleburne (who was himself an excellent shot) was perhaps one of the earliest advocates of trained sharpshooter units and the sharpshooters under him were perhaps some of the best in the Confederate Army. One of the best books on the subject of Civil War Sharpshooters is Sharpshooting in the Civil War by Major John L. Plaster, USAR (ret).

 

[AUG]

This is an interesting topic. Sharpshooter units mainly fought as skirmishers in battle. When they were positioned on the picket line across a static front like that often seen during the Overland or Atlanta campaigns or during a siege was when they acted more so like modern snipers.

When fighting as a unit in battle they could be put to a number of uses. Not only as a screening force, covering flanks and acting as a rear guard, but also suppressing enemy artillery, scouting out the advance, clearing away enemy pickets or opposing skirmishers in an attack, and harassing the enemy's main line of battle. Essentially it was the same thing regular skirmishers could do, but the supposed advantage was that a sharpshooter unit was a (sometimes) trained, hand-picked body of men that could readily be called upon rather than individual companies having to be pulled from regiments.

Some sharpshooter units were made up of hand-picked men and trained in marksmanship and others were not. There were a few scattered sharpshooter units organized during the first half of the war and a lot of those consisted of men just pulled from existing units without having to pass any marksmanship test. For example, Micah Jenkins' Palmetto Sharpshooters was a large regiment organized from a few disbanded units and originally intended for special use, but it ended up being throw into line and used as a regular infantry regiment. On the other hand, Berdan's U.S. Sharpshooters were hand-picked based on their marksmanship skills and often fought as skirmishers or snipers to good effect.

It wasn't til 1863-64 when the ANV started making better use of sharpshooter battalions. In 1863 Robert E. Rodes first organized a sharpshooter battalion in every brigade of his division with the help of Major Eugene Blackford, which could all be organized into a sort of demi-brigade under Blackford's command. That idea was later taken up by almost the entire army, and by 1864 there was a battalion of sharpshooters in almost every brigade. Each one consisted of hand-picked men and was extensively trained in markshmanship and range estimation, as well as skirmish drill. No other army in the war put that much effort into an organized corps of sharpshooters. The book Shock Troops of the Confederacy by Fred L. Ray covers that in detail.

 

[AUG]

The second battle of Reams' Station at Petersburg is a good example of how sharpshooter units could be used effectively on the offensive. In A.P. Hill's attack on Hancock's II Corps, Confederate sharpshooter battalions were positioned a ways in front of the advancing brigades, clearing away Federal pickets and effectively pinning down their main line of battle and shooting down artillery crews at long range. That took some pressure off the attacking Confederate brigades, which were able to break through Hancock's line. Brig. Gen. Samuel McGowan later referred to it as "the sharpshooters' fight."

 

[Republican Blues]

DOnt confuse Sharpshooter with Sniper... not necessarily interchangeable.. @AUG351 got it right.. they were mostly skirmishers

 

[ikesdad]

Another plug for Ray's book. Much detail there on how they were used and they were certainly used as rear guard during the Gettysburg retreat. Rodes seemed to have a grasp on how to deploy them.

 

[gary]

First, we should acknowledge there are two types of sharpshooters. The first is the specialized skirmisher whose method of combat would be recognized by men of the 95th Rifle Brigade or 5/60 Royal Americans. The second is the target rifle equipped soldier who fights independently and chooses his own ground. Most officers did not distinguish between them and did not know how to use them.

The Union took the initiative to raise sharpshooter units from the beginning with units like First United States Sharp Shooters, Second United States Sharp Shooters, First and Second Company Andrew Sharp Shooters, Brady's Michigan Sharpshooters (within the 16th Michigan Infantry) and in a very loose sense, Birge's Western Sharp Shooters (14th Missouri and later rebranded as 66th Illinois) as well as the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves/42nd Pennsylvnia Infantry/Bucktails. Of these units, only two companies and part of a third of the 1 USSS as well as the two Andrew Sharp Shooter companies and a few of Brady Michigan sharp shooters had target telescope rifle. Most of these rifles would be gone by 1863. The First Andrew Sharp Shooters were disarmed almost at gunpoint and reluctantly took up Sharps rifles. The Second Andrew Sharp Shooters had their knapsacks with the specialized equipment for target telescope rifles stolen, thereby rendering their guns useless until those accoutrements were replaced (this had to be done by a gunsmith).Their success resulted in the Confederate Adjutant General issuing a order (pursuant to law enacted by the Confederate Congress in April 1862) instructing every brigade to raise a battalion of sharpshooters.

Mind you, the Confederate law and A.G.'s order only said, "Select Men" without specifying how to select them. Some people like Eugene Blackford carefully selected aspirants and this was soon emulated by Wooford. Jackson's corps in the valley transferred two companies of infantry and voila! they were sharpshooters with no special shooting instruction. Ditto with the 30th Battalion Virginia Artillery when they had no guns (artillery) and so were converted en masse into a sharpshooter battalion. My own research shows that the ANV didn't fully raise sharpshooter battalions until the Winter of 1864 (Feb. to April). Even then, not all units that were or fought alongside the ANV raised SS then. Remember Longstreet's Corps had been detached and only arrived just in time to fight at the Wilderness. Some units from Beauregard's Department were not under Lee's order to raise sharpshooter battalions.

Patrick Cleburne in the AoT was more selective and his men were trained according to the British Musketry Manual. About the only other Confederate general who could distinguish between sharpshooters was Hagood whose experience comes from the Siege of Battery Wagner on Morris Island.

By the time the Confederate sharpshooters were reaching their zenith, the Berdan's Sharp Shooters were mere skeletons of their former self. The other units were equally bad off. The effectiveness of the Confederate sharpshooter battalions caused some division commanders in the Army of the Potomac to raise their own ad-hoc sharpshooter units. One Union general even knew to separate the skirmisher sharpshooter from the target rifle sharpshooter. By that time though it was late in 1864.

Sadly, after the war, no manual or treatise was written on sharpshooting and the lessons learned were forgotten. The U. S. Army returned to being a frontier police force and sharpshooting was thought to be irrelevant against the fast moving Plains Indians. However, this is not unique for the American military. The First Pennsylvania rifle regiment was the first unit raised by Continental Congress and was allowed to disband after one year of service. Morgan's rifle battalion was raised in its place but that too was whittled down when detached men were return to their parent regiments. Another small battalion was raise by Major Parr, but that never fought in any major battle. After the Treaty of Paris, the U. S. Army had no rifle units.

It wasn't until the Rifle Regiment was created that army had a rifle armed unit. There were up to four rifle regiments during the War of 1812, but all were disbanded shortly after the war ended. In the antebellum era, the only rifle units were the mounted dragoons. Capt. Henry Heth was one of the few officers to provide marksmanship instructions to his company.

Fast forward to the Spanish American War. Americans had no sharpshooters and improvised by calling upon known marksmen to hunt down the Spanish sharpshooters who had climbed trees and shot down Red Cross men and surgeons.

To make a long story short, WW I, WW II, Korea and Vietnam all saw the temporary raising of snipers but always disbanded them after the conflict ended. It wasn't until the late '70s when snipers became part of the permanent TOE.

All this is discussed in my first book on sharpshooters. A very condensed version of this is found in my second book (Sharpshooters: Marksmen Through the Ages).

 

[gary]

If you have time, go here for tidbits on sharpshooting:

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-bedtime-stories-or-sharpshooter-tales.36853/

 

[AUG]

As to Cleburne and his sharpshooters, my understanding is that he formed a small, division-level contingent of sharpshooters armed with Whitworth rifles that acted more so like modern day snipers. There's also a good account in the Confederate Veteran (Here) by Lt. Isaac N. Shannon, who served in a special company of sharpshooters under Lt. John M. Ozanne in Cheatham's Division.

Remember Longstreet's Corps had been detached and only arrived just in time to fight at the Wilderness.

In Longstreet's Corps, besides the 3rd Battalion Georgia S.S. in Wofford's Brigade, the 3rd South Carolina Battalion in Kershaw's was later utilized as the brigade sharpshooter battalion. In D. Augustus Dickert's history of Kershaw's Brigade he says two companies of selected men from across the brigade were added to the 3rd South Carolina Battalion and was organized to serve as brigade sharpshooters. Dickert doesn't say exactly when but apparently that was in 1864.

Other than those two I'm not aware of any other sharpshooter battalions in Longstreet's First Corps; they were mainly organized throughout the Second and Third Corps. There were plans to organize a battalion of sharpshooters in the Texas Brigade in 1863 under Bvt. Major Isaac N. M. Turner of the 5th Texas, but ironically he was killed by a sharpshooter at Suffolk and the battalion was never organized.

 

[gary]

I mentioned Wofford in my original statement and I know William Wofford's was organized in 1863. Like Rodes', it was professionally raised (select men who had marksmanship skills and demonstrated bravery). I also know about Kershaw's (got the book too), but my point is that not every brigade in Longstreet's corps necessarily complied and if they did, there is no evidence that they had the time to undergo the training described by Dunlop in Lee's Sharpshooters or Forefront of Battle. Even later volunteers in the other units did not have the opportunity to train in marksmanship like the those that were raised in Feb-April 1864.

BTW, I disagree with Ray with respects to the Confederates influencing the German infiltration tactics in WW I. The Germans stumbled upon a French manual on that very subject and used it to raise their stosstruppen. It also ignores the German jager tradition from which the British 5/60 (largely composed of Germans) and 95 of the Peninsular Campaign (Napoleonic War) were patterened after and from which the WW I Germans could draw upon. Trench raids go back to the days of Vauban.

Since you mentioned Suffolk, one of the most interesting account of a black sharpshooter comes from the so called Siege of Suffolk. One Union soldier wrote home that one could see him clearly enough but with optical devices one could see his afro hair.

 

[major bill]

Would not the officers and NCOs in charge of sharpshooters need to be trained in special tactics as well? It would seem like effective use of sharpshooters would require leaders who knew the proper way to train and lead them.

 

[AUG]

I mentioned Wofford in my original statement and I know William Wofford's was organized in 1863. Like Rodes', it was professionally raised (select men who had marksmanship skills and demonstrated bravery). I also know about Kershaw's (got the book too), but my point is that not every brigade in Longstreet's corps necessarily complied and if they did, there is no evidence that they had the time to undergo the training described by Dunlop in Lee's Sharpshooters or Forefront of Battle. Even later volunteers in the other units did not have the opportunity to train in marksmanship like the those that were raised in Feb-April 1864.

Understood, I just wanted to add that about Longstreet's Corps. But even if they were not organized in his corps to the same degree as they were in the Second and Third Corps, still, no other army in the war formed a system of sharpshooters to that extent.

Would not the officers and NCOs in charge of sharpshooters need to be trained in special tactics as well? It would seem like effective use of sharpshooters would require leaders who knew the proper way to train and lead them.

@gary might know more on this, but my understanding is that - at least when it comes to the sharpshooter battalions organized in the ANV - officers were also hand-picked and/or promoted up from the ranks in accordance to their experience, leadership skills, etc. Some junior-grade officers might've already specialized in skirmish drill with their former company.

In Capt. John E. Laughton's article on Mahone's Brigade sharpshooters (which I've posted Here) he says the following:

The officers and men were to be detailed from their regular companies for this permanent organization, and to be selected with a view of their special fitness for such service, the qualifications being that the men should be veterans of established reputation for faithful and reliable dependence while in action; capable of enduring the extra hardships expected to be entailed, and also a proper use of the rifle; the officers to be of experience and ability, and having the implicit confidence of their men.


And this letter by William T. Wofford concerning the organization of his sharpshooter battalion was posted in another thread:

Hdqutrs Brigade
April 28, 1863

Maj.
Enclosed you will find a Report of the strength of each Company from which I propose to make transfers for my proposed Battalion of Sharpshooters. The Companies are to number fifty men each, as my observation has led me to believe that a larger number could not be handled as rapididly[sic] as skirmishers as small ones, and this I conceive to be very important. In preparing to organize this Battalion, I selected from among the Lieutenants in the Brigade in proportion of one from each Regt & Battalion (except the 16th Ga from which I chose two) the names of six who were distinguished for good conduct in Battle and general qualifications as officers and directed them to raise by Volunteering from Companies whose strength was above the minimum number fifty three men and then I selected from each Company of fifty, three men to be recommended as Lieutenants from among the most distinguished in Battle and general good conduct.
Very Respectfully your
obedient servant
Wm T Wofford
Brig Genl

To Maj J M Goggins
A A Genl

 

[Stone in the wall]

I liked what AUG351 said about sniper vs. sharpshooter. Amazing fact, over 153 years later still #18th longest sniper shot list was by unkown confederate who fired killing shot from his Whitworth 1,390 yards from Fort Sumpter to Morris Island Dec 5 1864

 

[gary]

My research shows two soldiers were wounded on Morris Island by Confederate sharpshooters using Whitworth rifles at Fort Sumter. One is from the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (but the regimental history is silent as to the matter). There may have been a mile long hit at Washington, DC but it's hard to confirm (we do know it was a Whitworth bolt and that the Whitworth could hit a 2 foot tall by 32 foot across target at 1880 yards).

As to tactics, some sharpshooters who played sniper did take pains to conceal themselves (camouflage). Lt. Foster at Vicksburg even dug a hole in the ground and left a small hole for a firing port (the first sniper hide). Some worked in pairs with one being used as a bait (held hat on stick or fired first to draw fire) so his comrade could shoot the opponent. Both sides made open ended boxes around which they piled sandbags for loopholes. The Confederates did one better and cut the box at 45 degrees at both ends, such that they would be shooting oblique to their target and because of the sandbags, were safe from direct counterfire.

 

[Stone in the wall]

Thanks that was interesting about the tactics. That shot was listed as a confirmed kill and that's what I went by.

 

[Saphroneth]

The nation at the forefront of sharpshooting was the British Empire, which taught every single regular infantryman in their entire army to do it and were essentially obsessed*. Their training method was considered by experts to take on the order of a few weeks to produce a fine rifleman, and the way they did it was completely scaleable - their specialized training school at Hythe trained teachers, and those teachers then taught the battalions. The curriculum varied from precise range estimation to adjusting sights and allowing for shots between the settings on the sights, to pressing the trigger instead of pulling, to breathing properly, to the ways in which shots could be made more consistent, and it worked very well indeed -in no small part due to keeping score and posting the results publicly, resulting in vigourous competition.

The adjustment they made to their tactics was chiefly to deploy forward a skirmisher screen to take advantage of their drastically extended range. This skirmish screen was composed of two-man elements, one man firing while the other reloaded.
Third-class shots, the worse in the army, could hit realistic targets at a range of 300 yards more than half the time; first-class shots (of which some elite regiments were composed of more than half) could do the same out to 900 yards**. As a result of this, the skirmish screen of a British formation would compose a full third of an infantry formation (battalion, brigade or division) and would be on the order of five hundred yards ahead of the supports (which was another third, deployed in line; the final third were ployed in columns another few hundred yards back for quick reaction.) Their tactics also emphasized that rotation should be possible - the wings of a formation assigned to skirmish, support and reserve rotated regularly, there was no permanent assignment to the skirmish line or off it.
The frontage of a battalion in skirmish line was on the very rough order of a mile, if stretched (though this would correspond to a brigade frontage of a mile as the skirmish line was 1/3 of the total force). Firing was expected to begin at several hundred yards by the skirmish line once the enemy was identified, and their hit rate in action was good enough that a formation in skirmish line at 600-800 yards could outshoot an enemy grand battery, and did at Inkerman. This also led to the British using regular artillery composed entirely of rifles, as smoothbore artillery didn't have the range for effective action against a similar enemy.


It is no coincidence that Cleburne had a copy of the Hythe Musketry manual and produced some of the most effective infantry at range in North America; it was the British school at Hythe which focused on the idea that every man could be a sharpshooter.



*there are Parliamentary records in April 1862 pointing out that the Irish Constabulary had been taught to hit bulls-eyes at 1,000 yards, which was felt to be a bit excessive!
** 900 yards showed 25% hit rates in the year they changed the test to make it harder, and the average First Class shot could do that at that time.

 

[Saphroneth]

It's an interesting what-if scenario to contemplate, if the Union (specifically McClellan, he was the one who had the means, motive and opportunity) had noticed the performance of British riflemen in the Crimea. There weren't enough rifles imported by even mid-1862 to arm everyone with them, but it would have been quite possible to designate one regiment per brigade as the "rifle regiment" and give them Hythe training, which would have given the Union's army in the Peninsular Campaign a much-expanded sharpshooter complement (about 15,000 strong once all the troops had arrived, very roughly) and a capability the CSA could not match. For one it would allow the suppression of the enemy in the Red and White Redoubts much more effectively.

 

[1NCCAV]

If we accept that sharpshooting tactics were light infantry skirmishing tactics with precision marksmanship, then I believe we have to acknowledge various colonial ranger units as the innovators in North America. That might not seem logical at first because colonial ranger units were musket armed light infantry and not riflemen. But colonial ranger units used camouflage, cover and concealment, buddy teams, and fought in open order.

The addition of precision marksmanship to light infantry skirmishing tactics began to appear in the American Revolution with units like Daniel Morgan's Riflemen and the German Jagers. But the basic tactics were being used a few decades ahead of rifle employment in units commanded by Robert Rogers, John Gorham, and Benjamin Church.

That the British were the first to teach a systematic approach to marksmanship I don't doubt. Earlier rifle units like those commanded by Morgan probably selected self taught men who had grown up with the rifle on the frontier. I suspect the German Jagers were the same. Like colonial rangers, the jagers deserve more credit than they get for the development of light infantry skirmishing tactics:

http://www.jaegerkorps.org/home.html

 

[Saphroneth]

That the British were the first to teach a systematic approach to marksmanship I don't doubt.

Oh, I'm not saying they were the first to teach a systematic approach (though they might have been, the Rifles in the Napoleonic Wars certainly had a form of regularized training).
I said they were the world leaders at the time, and that's not because their training was especially good (it was, mind) but because they extended it downwards to their entire army and were rigourous about it - indeed, they'd made the decision to rifle-train the entire army even before the whole army had rifles, and the results in the Crimea were devastating.

The only other nation to do that in the early 1860s in anything like the same way was Prussia, which had universal range estimation and sharpshooting with the Dreyse as part of the training regimen for their soldiers after military reforms in this period. This is why they won the Six Weeks' War - their rifles were actually considerably shorter ranged than Austrian Lorenz rifles, but they were used much better. (Prussia v Britain in this period is an interesting proposition, as the British have much longer ranged weapons and better artillery but their infantry rate of fire is a lot poorer.)

In the late 1860s the French also did so (when they reformed their tactics in 1866 after the Six Weeks War showed their assault-focused tactics were the wrong approach) and the result was that French riflemen were also scary-good in the exchanges of fire during the Franco-Prussian War. As such, by the early 1870s several Great Power national armies were composed entirely of rifle-trained individuals, though the Prussian infantry was held back by the poor quality of their rifle in producing shots on target at long range.


Indications are, however, that the British did retain an edge in accuracy for the entire rest of the 19th century. Plenty of indications are there, including Isandlwana (where the number of expended cartridges and the number of injured/killed Zulu indicates a whole-battle hit rate of one in ten, which is one of the best I've ever seen).

 

[Stone in the wall]

This is a great forum, I know so little about sharpshooter's but your all teaching me a lot. Anybody recommend a good book or two? Was a Kerr rifle the same as a 45cal volunteer?