Hence the Wilderness, a alrge portion of the Atlanta campaign. Competent CS commanders minimized the effectiveness of US Arty by utilizing terrain. This was common not uncommon. Hence where you see CS defeats when they failed to utilize terrain to minimize US Arty superiority and which also tended to negate the rifled musket potential.
Or the terrain mostly did not exist in the East. Let's look at the important battles in the eastern theatre and see how many times there was good terrain for long range fire:
Bull Run (both)
Generally good visibility.
Peninsular Campaign
Depends on the particular battle. Defenders at Yorktown could have benefitted from long range rifle fire as they could cover the river more easily by fire.
Valley Campaign
Well farmed land, so good visibility.
Seven Days
Large clear areas at most battles.
Antietam
Again, large clear areas.
Fredricksburg
Large clear area around the town and south around Prospect Hill, plus the town was within long musket range of Marye's Heights.
Chancellosrville
Depends where the fighting's taking place, though there's certainly areas with open unwooded terrain on the eastern end of the battlefield.
Gettysburg
Seminary Ridge, Cemetery Hill, Pickett's Charge.
Overland
Hard to tell, though long range anti-battery fire would presumably be helpful and the trenches were within rifle range of one another at several points. Wilderness is certainly not good rifle terrain.
As we can see, the early battles fought in open terrain could have produced considerable dividends. This shouldn't be surprising as many of them were fought in farmed areas.
Springfield pattern M1861 = manufactured at Springfield, Savage, Trenton etc. All interchangeable. British not interchangeable of the same pattern of arm up through WW1 at least if not later.
Though the vast majority were Springfield manufactured, which meant they were mostly the same place anyway.
It can be argued by the fall of 1863 US troops were largely using Springfield arms of one make or model ie M1855-M1863 and the CS wasn't winning battles anymore. How much of that can be attributed to better more robust arms getting into the hands of the troops? Well there is still not a single case of US troops being given the chance to turn in their Enfields for Springfields and refusing. There are notable examples of US troops opting to hold onto older US made rifled arms instead of converting to newer Enfield. There are also cases of CS troops scouring the fields and eagerly trading in their own Enfields for captured Springfields you can come up for your own reasons on that. The CS manufactured Richmond Rifle Musket was viewed every bit as good as the Springfield by the US and CS with good reasoning, many parts were interchangeable with captured Springfield pattern arms easing maintenance somewhat. Though once the CS stopped holding battlefields that became less of an advantage.
All that means is that Americans liked American weapons, it doesn't tell us which was actually better.
As for the US starting to win battles by late 1863, surely this is because of the increasingly massive
manpower preponderance - there's little or no statistical difference between units armed with the different types of weapons, unless they're completely unworkable like the Corn Exchange Regiment at Shepherdstown.
And I wouldn't be surprised if the Richmond was basically the same as the Springfield, because that's fundamentally what it was (being made with British-expertise rolled Virginia iron from Patrick County on the machines looted from Harpers Ferry).
Professionals study logistics, amateurs study battles. If you don't need that longer range; it's like a vernier rear sight on a Sharps that you only ever use out to 200 yards...
Yes, I'm sure they do. But to some extent this is a circular argument - they didn't use the long range because they couldn't, so therefore it wouldn't have helped and they didn't need it.
I'd say the ability of a rifle battalion to shake out into skirmish order and snipe out a gun battery at a range of half a mile for trifling casualties is valuable, to say nothing of the ability to hide at the far end of the cleared zone in front of enemy defences and shoot out anyone who poked their head up or tried to serve a gun. It completely unhinges the major advantage the defensive had at this time.
As I keep coming back to, Pickett's Charge is just one example of where that longer range would have been invaluable for either side.
It isn't the weapon that makes a Sharpshooter, it is the soldier.
Which is why I've been arguing that the soldiers - in the entire army, including the line troops - should have been trained to shoot straight. That's what the British did, and combined with the Enfield it meant their line troops could outfight enemy specialist sharpshooters (British line troops had been trained to skirmish for years).
IMO much of the P53 love is because it was & is viewed as a CS weapon by many.
Don't think so, I'm mainly focusing on what the British could do with it - from defeating enemy charges at half a mile of range, to sniping out gun batteries - and what other formations with rifle-muskets or long range rifles could do on other days and battlefields.
US Sharpshooters utilized the M1861 series arms, Spencer Rifle, M1841, Sharps and Enfield. There can be no doubt the US soldier consistently out skirmished his CS opponent in the Atlanta campaign with no dedicated Sharpshooter Battalions of the sort utilized by the ANV.
But examine Liberty Gap.
On June 24, at Liberty Gap, Tennessee, one of Cleburne's brigades held off three Union brigades with withering long-range small-arms fire... Although Cleburne's sharpshooters, armed with deadly long-range British Whitworth rifles, played their part, much of the 'terrible' effect was wreaked by Cleburne's ordinary infantrymen, properly trained in the use of the rifle-musket.
(Civil War Firearms)
As a testament to the fighting ability of Liddell's Brigade, one of the Union generals fighting for Liberty Gap thought they were fighting "the whole of Cleburne's Division," and a Union colonel thought that the Federals were "stubbornly opposed by a much larger force than ours." Another Union colonel said, "When we were within one-half or three-fourths of a mile of the enemy, the effect of their sharpshooters was terrible." The commander of the Union division, Brigadier General Richard W. Johnson, reported, "The affair at Liberty Gap will always be considered a skirmish, but few skirmishes ever equalled it in severity." The Federal casualties at the gap were 267.
Michael R. King, dissertation
Liddell's casualties at the Gap were 120 (25 dead, 77 wounded, and 18 missing) and he had a 3:1 numerical disadvantage, withdrawing only when he ran out of ammunition.