Sharpshooters’ Training Camp

The Weehawken camp was the center of attraction for many New Yorkers, for while other regiments presented scenes in camp of either little activity or dull marching drill, the Sharpshooters constantly engaged in target practice. However, they had not yet been issued their military rifles. Weapons fired at Weehawken were a motley lot, some good, some not so good. A few were fine heavy octagon-barreled target rifles with false muzzles, so that in loading from the front the bullet would not be deformed and would be exactly centered in the bore. The false muzzle was a section of barrel which had been cut off after rifling during manufacture, and fitted with four pins to exactly match the rifling when it was re-fitted to the muzzle. Pushing a lead, patched bullet through this false muzzle sized the projectile and protected the sharp edges of the rifling from damage by wear or the cleaning or loading rod striking the edge. Then, when ready to fire, the false muzzle was removed, aim taken, and the shot fired. Doubtless the first false muzzle, patented by Clark in 1848, did not have a sight obscurer. But after Mr. Clark fired a shot with the false muzzle still installed, and saw it disappear down range, he soon discovered that the way to avoid this accident was to put a small plate or peg on the muzzle which would block the line of sights. With the muzzle attached, aim could not be taken.
A more common type of New England rifle used especially by the Vermont men was the heavy off-hand match rifle with a section of the muzzle turned round. This was to permit a brass cast bullet starter to be slipped over the muzzle. The starter, while used with the false muzzle rifles, was also often used on guns which were not designed for false muzzle pieces. With the starter in place, the riflemen would give the round knob a blow with the palm of his hand and drive the bullet down below the level of the muzzle an inch or two. Then the wooden ramrod could easily push it all the way down.

One Sharpshooter downed 50 men with this American sporting rifle now preserved in Fred Elliott collection, N.Y. rifle appears to be a light Remington Sons sporter, adapted for bullet starter, but bears mark of gunshop at Mayville, N.Y. Some Sharpshooters used own rifles.

The men of the Sharpshooter Regiment were all good shots, even down to the chaplain of the Second Regiment, the Reverend Lorenzo Barber. He was “the beau ideal of an Army chaplain . . . beating the best marksmen at the targets . . . His faith was in the ‘Sword of the Lord and of Gideon,’ but his best work was put in with a twenty-pound telescopic rifle which he used with wonderful effect.”
The original plan of arming the Sharpshooters had been to let them use exclusively target or sporting rifles. The soldiers had brought along their favorite weapons, being told that the Government would pay for them at the rate of $60 each. The Sharpshooters who chose to use issue weapons would receive the best obtainable, and they were promised breechloaders, with telescopic sights, hair triggers, “and all the requisites for the most perfect shooting that the most skillful marksman could desire.”
With their own rifles some good practice was made in camp. Men who formerly had been acknowledged good shots, steadily improved under systematic practice with a purpose. In camp outside Washington on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1861, Vermonter A1 Brown, 3rd Corporal of Company F, won the 200 yard off-hand match, and $5 for the shortest two-shot string. His two shots measured 4^XA inches, or each within 2 1/2s inches of the center. The following week a Michigan man won the match, three shots off-hand at 200 yards measuring only 6 inches.