Best sharpshooting tactics.

[gary]

By the 1850s, almost all European nations had a rifle school to teach marksmanship. The predominant two were the French school at Vicennes and the British School of Musketry at the Hythe. Cadmus Wilcox translated the French manual and U. S. Army Capt. Henry Heth based his methodology on the Hythe. Wilcox's was published in the antebellum era and Heth's was plagiarized and stolen by another officer and published pre-war.

@Stone in the wall. If you want a simple overall view get my 160 page paperback from Amazon: Sharpshooters: Marksmen Through the Ages. Robert Cooper, the co-author of the Rifle Green series on the Rifle Brigade liked it. The paperback is a condensation of my earlier work, Sharpshooters (1750-1900): The Men, Their Guns, Their Story. The former goes more into WW I and WW II and has a lot of information many other authors haven't found. The latter (over 800 pages) is similar to many modern books on sniping; except it is in reverse. There are 13 chapters on the blackpowder sharpshooter and only one on WW I onwards (modern books have 1-2 chapters on the blackpowder sharpshooter and the rest of the book on sniping).

 

[Saphroneth]

Incidentally, here's another example of one of the places where British Style Sharpshooting would have radically affected the outcome of a battle. Such is the nature of the difference that almost any battle can be picked, but here I'm going to use one of the most famous - Pickett's Charge.

If we assume first that Pickett's men are the ones with British Style Sharpshooting training, then as soon as they reach the final ridge before their target (which is about five hundred yards away) they stop advancing and spread out into skirmish order. Well over half of them can hit moderately sized targets at this range and some of them can hit individual men, but they don't start out targeting the men - they go for the artillery. Area fire against artillery at this range from British sharpshooter types is effective, and the artillery's pretty quickly defeated - against a skirmish order line it just can't put out casualties fast enough.
Once the artillery is dealt with, the force splits. Most of them continue ahead in a line, but some remain on the low ridge and fire over the assault force (this is a real tactic suggested before the Civil War by British officers), thus keeping any reserve artillery from coming into play and keeping the heads down of the Federal riflemen.
By the time the main assault force reaches ~300 yards, the Federals are already in big trouble - but at 300 yards the entire attacking force opens fire in a big way, and continues doing so until the Union defensive force has been driven back. There is no need for the attacking force to even enter musket range until it's done the job.


If we instead assume that the defenders are the ones with British Style Sharpshooting, they can take Pickett's men under fire from as soon as they cross the selfsame ridge. This fire is about twice a minute, and it's also deadly accurate - British hit rates in action were about one in eighteen.
Doesn't sound like much? Well, Pickett's Charge was conducted by around 10,000 men actually attacking a position manned by about 6,500 defenders. In the time taken for a man to walk-march from 500 yards to 100 (which is about 7-8 minutes) 6,500 defenders can each inflict roughly one casualty.
This means Pickett's charge has taken fifty percent casualties before it's even been able to reach its own normal open-fire range, and probably never reaches it at all.

 

[major bill]

FYI The Detroit newspapers have been indexed and show the following articles about Michigan sharpshooter..

66 articles about the 1st Michigan Sharpshooter
49 article's about 1st U.S. Sharpshooters
14 articles about Co. B, 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters.

I should also point out That the Adrian Michigan newspaper was a daily newspaper and publish a series of letters sent by a member of the 1st U.S. Sharpshooters.

 

[gary]

Major Bill - are they available online? Got a link if so?

 

[major bill]

I have not seen them on line and the Adrian newspapers are only at a couple libraries. If you are interested in a particular subject I can get it and send it to you. The State of Michigan Achieves, which keeps a copy of all Michigan newspapers, is about one mile away and I can copy them digitally and send it by email at no cost to me.

This is how Helen H. Ellis indexed the Detroit newspapers.

The numbers such as F331 refer you to a newspaper. Ellis had wrote up every article she found in a particular newspaper. AT990 appears to show a letter printed in the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune on July 2, 1864 P.M. edition. You then use the micro film to read the article. It does take a bit of time to put on the micro film rolls and such. But I can copy and email right from the library at no cost.

 

[major bill]

Right now I can not remember who it was that sent letters to the Adrian newspaper, but the newspaper printed several long letters from a member of the sharpshooters.

 

[gary]

Could you please?

 

[major bill]

I will try to see what the Adrian newspaper letter look like sometime this week or next week. I go to the History Center and work as a docent in the Museum one or twice a week and will walk across the building to the library and at least look at some of the letters in the Adrian newspaper. if I remember right a sergeant wrote them and the letters are interesting but have more to do with camp life and with battles.

 

[Stone in the wall]

By the 1850s, almost all European nations had a rifle school to teach marksmanship. The predominant two were the French school at Vicennes and the British School of Musketry at the Hythe. Cadmus Wilcox translated the French manual and U. S. Army Capt. Henry Heth based his methodology on the Hythe. Wilcox's was published in the antebellum era and Heth's was plagiarized and stolen by another officer and published pre-war.

@Stone in the wall. If you want a simple overall view get my 160 page paperback from Amazon: Sharpshooters: Marksmen Through the Ages. Robert Cooper, the co-author of the Rifle Green series on the Rifle Brigade liked it. The paperback is a condensation of my earlier work, Sharpshooters (1750-1900): The Men, Their Guns, Their Story. The former goes more into WW I and WW II and has a lot of information many other authors haven't found. The latter (over 800 pages) is similar to many modern books on sniping; except it is in reverse. There are 13 chapters on the blackpowder sharpshooter and only one on WW I onwards (modern books have 1-2 chapters on the blackpowder sharpshooter and the rest of the book on sniping).

Thanks another book sold. That should be great I'm more into the percussion stuff anyway but I like my 45-70's too