Sharpshooter tactics

I’ve just put a new tactics section up on my web site that shows the various missions of the sharpshooters, as well as some, like “seine hauling” for prisoners, that they invented themselves. (Follow the link at the bottom to the second page.)

There are many similarities between the jobs of light infantry and light cavalry. While cavalry generally doesn’t do sniping, both groups perform scouting, screening, and picketing to protect the army, and occasionally guard missions as well. In general, infantry provided their own close-in security, while the cavalry provided more distant scouts and pickets. Thus at the beginning of the war the tendency was to split cavalry units up and use them for security duties in small groups. As the war progressed, however, both sides began to group their cavalry together for use as an independent and even as a strategic force, which left the rest of the army responsible for its own scouting and security.

The Confederates responded with their sharpshooter battalions, which gave each infantry brigade its own built-in security component. During the 1864 Valley campaign, in large part because of the low quality of the Confederate cavalry there, the sharpshooters, now grouped into demi-brigades, took over many of the far missions of the mounted arm as well, becoming in a very real sense “foot cavalry.” Early’s little army was always considerably outnumbered and greatly overmatched in cavalry, but somehow managed to fend off three excellent Union cavalry divisions in one of the most mobile campaigns of the war.

Although not armed with repeaters, the sharpshooters did wield highly effective Enfield short rifles, which considerably outranged the Spencer and Sharps carbines of their mounted opponents. They compensated for its slow rate of fire by operating in four-man sections and firing individually, with one man keeping his rifle loaded at all times. It took real skill on the part of brigade and division commanders to put the sharpshooters far enough out to be effective without letting them get far enough away to be picked off. In between major battles there was an almost continual sparring between Union cavalry and the sharpshooters.

Check out the Siege of Petersburg Online for the latest on the Petersburg Campaign!