Berdan's Sharpshooters Organized

To combat the superior skill of the average Southern soldier, the U.S. War Department early in the summer of 1861 authorized a New York amateur target shooter, Hiram Berdan, to enlist a regiment of skilled riflemen. The regiment was to be called the First Regiment of United States Sharpshooters, and was to be composed of the best shooters in the Northern states. To make sure they were the best, it was decreed that no man should be enlisted in Berdan’s outfit who had not proved his skill with a rifle through practical test. A recruit, before he was enlisted, had to shoot ten shots at 200 yards inside a ten-inch ring. Any style of rifle was allowed, but telescope sights could not be used. Any position was permitted, variations of the off-hand (standing) or prone positions, kneeling or squatting, except that the rifle had to be against the shoulder.

From Vermont, Company F, First United States Sharpshooters was the first company mustered into service on September 13, 1861, at Randolph. That day the company, 113 men under command of Captain Edmund Weston and Lieutenants C. W. Seaton and M. V. B. Bronson, left Vermont by train, bound for the Sharpshooter’s encampment at Weehawken Heights, near New York.

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The Gatling Gun

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Civil War Guns

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