As one might suspect, Berdan’s men were coveted targets for the enemy. On one occasion when a member of the 1st U.S.S.S. was killed in an advanced rifle pit, some Confederates managed to get to his body. After confiscating his extremely accurate weapon, they left the Yankees a note indicating that they hoped to get more of these guns in the future. That same incident also made the Southern papers, which boasted that a “McClellan Sharpshooter had been picked off by a Kentucky hunter.”

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Civil War Times magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

While they were in front of Yorktown, Berdan’s men talked about one particular Confederate marksman more than any other—a black sharpshooter. It seems he occupied a hollow tree more than 1,000 yards in front of their line. Apparently armed with a telescopic rifle, he kept the pickets pinned down with effective fire.

Colonel Berdan received a request to deal with this deadly threat. A member of the 1st U.S.S.S. described how he and a comrade dispatched the enemy marksman:

One of our men in Company G, named Brown, has a small telescopic rifle, weighing only 32½ pounds. He and I were detailed for special duty, this sad duty being to kill a Rebel sharpshooter—a big negro—who had been picking off our men. We waited a long time for a sight at him but he did not show himself. It was getting towards night, when a puff of smoke was seen to rise from a tree near the fort, and a bullet came whistling past our heads. We now arranged our plans. By the aid of a glass I could see his black “mug” peeping from behind a tree. I elevated my sight and fired. It must have come close, for he sprang out. As he did so Brown fired, and “my joker” fell, with a bullet through him. Brown had his sight elevated for fifteen hundred yards!

Using a hollow tree for concealment was just one of the innovative tactics sharpshooters used in confronting each other. When one of Berdan’s men was mortally wounded, the colonel began surveying the enemy line and noticed on a low mound “a long way off” what appeared to be a crow coming into view periodically. Carefully examining the object with a field glass, Berdan watched as the “bird” would periodically appear and disappear. Pointing out the location to Lieutenant William Elmendorf, of Company B, Berdan ordered the lieutenant to take six men to put some holes through the object. Elmendorf’s party advanced under cover of darkness, dug a rifle pit and prepared for sunrise. When the crow emerged the next morning, a sharpshooter sent a bullet just under it, and “what was inside of it, must have stopped a bullet, as it was the last seen of it.”

As the siege at Yorktown progressed, the dangers for the sharpshooters increased because the Federal trenches were continually closing in on the Southerners’ works. Berdan’s men were even nearer the enemy—toward the end of the siege the advanced rifle pits were within 50 yards. Especially because of their close proximity, Berdan’s men were told not to draw fire unnecessarily. “Don’t shoot unless the Rebels open the ball” were the instructions given, but as one sharpshooter noted, the enemy initiated the contest “everyday.” He was also careful to follow his other instructions: “Whenever you see a head, hit it.”

Once General McClellan’s line of entrenchments had closed on the earthworks at Yorktown, the Confederates realized they needed to abandon their defenses. On the morning of May 4, detecting that the enemy works were empty, a commander of a nearby Union regiment requested the honor of entering the defenses. Brigadier General Charles Jameson gave the honor to six sharpshooters, however, saying, “The Sharpshooters have been at the front during the entire siege, and they shall not be displaced now.”

Upon occupying the abandoned position, the Union soldiers heard stories from escaped slaves that further bolstered the reputation of Berdan’s marksmen. One older black man who was inside the fort during the siege later related, “By golly! Stick up a cap, an’ a hole gets in it immediately.”

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to