1/1/2024 0 Comments Confederate sharpshooterA short distance in the rear you from time to time come on a ‘reserve,’ which is a large body, perhaps of fifty or a hundred, who are concealed and who are ready to come to the assistance of the posts, if they are attacked …. In the woods, you follow along from one rustic shelter to another, and see the sentries, out in front, each standing behind a good tree and keeping a sharp lookout for Rebel scouts, bushwhackers and cavalry. They must always have their belts on and be ready to fight at a moment’s notice. The squads of men make to themselves a gipsy bough-house in front of which they make a fire in cool weather. You know it consists of a string of ‘posts,’ each of half a dozen men, or so, and, in front of these, a chain of sentries who are constantly on the alert. A Union officer left a vivid description of a picket line, which might have applied to either army.Ī picket line is always one of the most picturesque sights in an army, when it runs through woods and fields. So important was this that a negligent soldier, especially one who fell asleep, was severely punished and might even be executed. Without them an army was in constant danger of being overrun without warning. The security of an army depended on its pickets – the sentinels who provided early warning of infiltration or enemy attack. “Sharpshooters, like fiddlers, are born and not made.” Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill, CSA. “It is a post of honor, not one of ease.” Captain Shepherd Green Pryor, 12th Georgia. Their victims also included high-ranking officers such as Union Major General John Sedgwick, killed on May 9, 1864, most likely by a sharpshooter armed with a Whitworth rifle and Confederate Brigadier General George Pierce Doles, felled three weeks later at Cold Harbor by a Yankee bullet. Although they did not produce the casualties of the clash of the lines of battle, their psychological effect and disruption of the chain of command was palpable. By mid-war sharpshooters had become an ever-present danger for soldiers everywhere. Armed with regular service rifles, repeating rifles or heavy target rifles, both sides concentrated on officers and artillerymen. When in contact with the enemy the sharpshooters often sheltered themselves in rifle pits. In the 19th century the term sharpshooter applied both to precision marksmen (who would be called snipers today) and light infantrymen. Four hundred yards behind the skirmish line was the reserve, usually formed in close order, upon which the skirmishers could fall back if pressed. A small body called a support (and in practice usually a company) was positioned about 150 yards behind to fill vacant places, furnish the line with cartridges, relieve the fatigued, and serve as a rallying point. In practice a skirmish line typically deployed by a regiment was composed of two companies in groups of four comrades in battle, five paces apart with the groups separated by no more than forty. In general, the cavalry was responsible for the distant security of the army, with the light infantry doing the close-in work. In the wars of the 19th century pickets and skirmishers had a similar duty – to warn the army of the approach of an enemy and to keep them from observing and interfering with its operations at rest, on the march, or in a battle. A picket line is always one of the most picturesque sights in an army, when it runs through woods and fields.
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