Sharps Rifle
The single-shot, breech-loading Sharps rifle was designed in 1848 by North American gunsmith Christian Sharps. It is based on a very reliable and robust breech closing mechanism called "falling block". Sharps rifles, which have existed in a wide variety of versions and calibers, have always had (and still have) a reputation for high reliability and high accuracy.
The Sharps military rifle
The Sharps rifle, produced from 1848 by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co. in Hartford, Connecticut, was used during and after the Civil War.
In December 1861 (eight months after the start of the war, and when the setbacks accumulated by the Northerners made evident the need for a jolt), Hiram Berdan, the expert in small arms of the War department Unionist, was given the mission to try out the military Spencer repeating rifle, which could fire 7 shots in a row. But the case of a Spencer cartridge cracked during the firing, and hot gases were projected towards the eyes of the expert. Berdan then declared that he preferred Sharps rifles, whose qualities had been well known since 1848. But the troop needed a repeating rifle that could surpass the Springfield Model 1855 and its descendant the Springfield rifle. Model 1861, certainly effective but with a shot, and the Sharps needed to be reloaded, even by the breech, after each shot; so the Unionist authorities ended up choosing the Spencer rifle.
On the other hand, its price (due to the quality of its machining), its weight (9.5 lb, or 4.3 kg), its length (47 inches or 1.20 m), its precision at long distance, its rate high rate of fire (it could fire 8 rounds per minute, even 10 in trained hands) and also its reliability caused Hiram Berdan to recommend to members of the Federal Ordinance Department that the Sharps rifle be reserved for selected marksmen in the ranks of Unionist soldiers, shooters that he organized into 2 regiments of US Sharpshooters.
In its standard version (there were many versions in different calibers, often "customized" on demand, especially with regard to the sights), the Sharps rifle was .52 caliber (13.2 mm) and chambered a paper cartridge containing 80 grains (5.2 g) of black powder. At the muzzle the 370-grain lead bullet reached a speed of 1,200 ft/s (370 m/s). Despite the projectile's modest ballistic performance (according to current concepts), the Sharps was recognized as very effective at 500 yards (460 m), and allowing good scores at 1,000 yards (910 m) in the hands of a shooter. 'elite. Moreover, it could be easily reloaded by a prone shooter (the sniper's favorite position), whereas muzzle reloading of a "rifled musket" is difficult and long in this position.
During the Battle of Gettysburg (2cd day), a detachment of the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, armed with Sharps rifles, was on the highly strategic eminence of Little Round Top. Placed behind a dry stone wall by Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and well hidden, the snipers sowed confusion among southerners in Alabama and Texas who were retreating after the victorious bayonet counterattack by the soldiers of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. They therefore contributed to discouraging southern attacks on this sensitive portion of the unionist line of defence11:the fact that the northerners kept Little Round Top, which commanded the left flank of their line of defence, is, according to historians, one of the factors of the Unionist victory at Gettysburg.
The Whitworth sniper rifle used by Southern snipers was a "rifled musket" produced in England. Its 33-inch (84 cm) "small" caliber gun allowed it to be effective between 900 and 1500 yards.
To counter the Sharps, the Confederate "sharpshooters" used a sniper rifle bought in the United Kingdom, the Whitworth rifle. Perhaps it was with this material that General John Sedgwick was killed, 1,000 yards away, in the Battle of Spotsylvania. Unless, ironically, the Southern shooter used a Sharps taken from the enemy:the Southerners used a lot of weapons (and various supplies) "granted by the Yankees".
Note that the Sharps rifles were nicknamed Beecher's Bibles:in 1856 the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin) sent his anti-slavery friends in Kansas crates that were marked "bibles" despite containing Sharps rifles.
Civilian derivatives of the Sharps rifle
After the end of the Civil War, surpluses (about 100,000 Sharps had been produced) were often made into long-range sporting weapons or hunting weapons.
Production of civilian Sharps continued for some time, however, until the Sharps Borchardt Model 1878 which was the last flagship produced by the Sharps firm before its closure in 1881. Still single-shot and falling-block, but hammerless (with internal hammer) , it chambered the most powerful central percussion cartridges intended for big game. He arrived too late to complete the bison extinction, which had already taken place.
New or rebuilt Sharp rifles aimed particularly at bison hunters could fire the most powerful black powder cartridges known, such as the .50-90 Sharps. These high-powered cartridges (.50 caliber lead bullet, propelled by 90 grains of black powder) which were intended for the bison (buffalo) had a rimmed case, 2.5 inches long (64 mm:the falling block mechanism does not does not limit the length of the cartridges), and of almost cylindrical shape, easy to reload, even at camp.
The effectiveness of the bison hunters' weapons and the ensuing massacre provoked reactions of despair from the Native Americans:Second Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874, and Buffalo Hunters' War in 1877.
During the Second Battle of Adobe Walls, when the Comanche assault came in contact with the walls of the post, the beleaguered buffalo hunters used sidearms and then fired their Sharps at the retreating Indians. On the 3rd day of the siege, as the Comanches were preparing for the assault, a scout named Bill Dixon, who was armed with a Sharps rifle, killed a warrior 1,538 yards away. The Indians then abandoned the siege of the small post of Adobe Walls.