A History of Berdan’s Sharpshooters

Perhaps two of the most nationally famous volunteer regiments of the war, the 1st and 2nd United States Sharpshooters were, for the time, two very unique organizations. In the spring of 1861 wealthy inventor and skilled target shooter Hiram Berdan set into motion the recruiting of a regiment of dedicated marksman for the U.S. Army. He proposed that they would be armed with long-range weapons and fight in open order as skirmishers, eschewing the shoulder-to-shoulder closed ranks of the infantry, and pick off enemy officers and artillerists. The breech-loading New Model of 1859 Sharps Rifle with special double triggers were also promised as an enlistment incentive. An associate of Berdan’s named Caspar Trepp, a Swiss national and veteran of Garibaldi’s early campaigns and the Crimean War, contributed greatly to fleshing out the idea and image of the U.S. Sharpshooters. Berdan took to advertising his regiment in east coast newspapers while Trepp reached out to the large Swiss and German communities of New York City to gain early recruits.

The newly-minted Colonel Berdan appointed several more associates and acquaintances all across the country to recruit men for his regiment but only after the would-be sharpshooters passed a stringent shooting test: “No man would be enlisted who could not put ten bullets, in succession, within five inches from the center [of the target] at a distance of six hundred feet at a rest or three hundred feet off-hand.” The recruits would use their own personal longarm with open sights, reloading as quickly as possible, and were disqualified if they did not meet the average of 50 inches from the bullseye, the “string of 50.”

The recruiting drive was successful likely beyond Berdan’s own expectations. Printed word of this fascinating “almost new” branch of service had spread across the loyal United States and as far west as California. Berdan had garnered an abundance of qualified marksmen from nearly every northern state, so many that a second regiment was approved by the War Department. In the 1st Regiment U.S. Sharpshooters the men hailed from New York, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The 2nd Regiment men came from Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Additional men from Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, and Massachusetts had enlisted intending to join Berdan’s Sharpshooters but were ultimately retained by their home states to fill local recruiting quotas.

With a unique body of men on hand for service they now required military uniforms, equipment, and weapons. Fitting their designation as rifleman, and harkening to the appearance of similar branches of service in Switzerland and Prussia, dark green uniform coats and caps were immediately adopted, as were tall russet leather leggings and hair-on calfskin knapsacks of Prussian design. All other equipment were standard regulation as issued by the U.S. Army. Many new recruits lugged their personal target shooting rifles with them while they awaited the promised “Berdan contract” Sharps rifles. They would be disappointed, however, as Berdan had promised the rifles without first securing approval from the Ordnance and War Departments. Colt Revolving Rifles were temporarily issued in place of the Sharps rifles, an arm that the men despised for it’s supposed unreliability, until the latter arrived to both regiments in the spring of 1862.

Training in marksmanship, skirmish drill, and all the regular duties a soldier would carry out took place first in Weehawken, New Jersey, and later at the more established Camp of Instruction in Washington, D.C.. The sharpshooters would remain there for roughly five months learning how to become soldiers but were hamstrung by delays in being armed. Once they departed for combat the 1st U.S.S.S. saw their first heavy combat at the siege of Yorktown in 1862; they would go on to participate in nearly every battle and siege that the Army of the Potomac was engaged in until being disbanded in the autumn of 1864. The 2nd U.S.S.S. was first engaged at Rappahannock Station, Va. in August 1862 under General Pope but later joined with it’s sister regiment and took part in similar engagements and beyond, finally disbanding in February 1865. Losses of killed, mortally wounded, or died of disease amounted to a total of 282 officers and enlisted men in the 1st Regiment and 250 in the 2nd.