The Sharps in Combat

Single-shot rifles they were, but their breech-loading system gave them greater firepower than the rifle muskets and smoothbores of the Confederate troops. At the battle of Malvern Hill, Berdan’s men, armed with their new 100 Sharps rifles, gave a good show, described by Stevens:

“At about half past two the Confederate artillery fire eased up, and suddenly bursting from the edge of the forest a heavy line of skirmishers came at a run, heedless of the Yankee troops on their front. Company F’s bugler was ordered to sound the ‘commence firing’ signal.
. . the Sharpshooters sent across the field and into the line of the oncoming Rebels a storm of lead from their breech-loading rifles that soon checked their advance and sent them back to the cover of the woods in great confusion and with serious loss.”

The Sharpshooters were forced to retire when the Confederates charged again and again, although more and more gray dead remained behind on the field. But the Sharpshooters held their ground, “and by the greater accuracy of their fire, combined with the advantage of greater rapidity given by breechloaders over muzzle-loaders, kept the Rebels well under cover.”
Then the Sharpshooters got the chance to show what aimed fire could do. They repeated the target made at Hythe in 1856, but this time it was not a painted light battery but a real artillery unit they fired on, the famous Richmond Howitzers. This unit was a dandy troop, its members being sons of some of the most distinguished men of the city, and literally the flower of Southern chivalry. “Suddenly there burst out of the dense foliage

Whitworth sniper rifle in Battle Abbey museum, Richmond, has been much altered to sporting stock but retains original side-mounted scope sight. Leaf sight is unusual Minie type found on some Whitworths in conjunction with vernier screw adjustment for fine shifting of aim at long ranges.

four magnificent gray horses, and behind them, whirled along like a child’s toy, the gun. Another and another followed, sweeping out into the plain. As the head of the column turned to the right to go into battery, every rifle within range was brought to bear, and horses and men began to fall rapidly. Still they pressed on, and when there were no longer horses to haul the guns, the gunners sought to put their pieces into battery by hand; nothing, however, could stand before that terrible storm of lead, and after ten minutes of gallant effort the few survivors, leaving their guns in the open field, took shelter in the friendly woods.”
‘"We went in a battery and came out a wreck,” said one of that gallant band which escaped decimation. “We stayed ten minutes by the watch and came out with one gun, ten men, and two horses, without firing a shot.” That was not the first nor the last time that individual aimed rifle fire was to prove superior to heavier equipment, in that and later Wars.