1st Company Massachusetts Sharpshooters


The 1st Company Massachusetts Sharpshooters was a sharpshooter unit in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Service

The 1st Company Massachusetts Sharpshooters was organized in Lynn, Massachusetts and mustered in for three years service on September 2, 1861. The company was originally recruited for Colonel Hiram Berdan's sharpshooter regiments. When the men were informed that they would lose their enlistment bounty, they declined to join Berdan's regiments and instead remained independent. Most of the recruits tended to be skilled workmen who were competitive shooters tending to be older than the average Union soldier, and these men also tended to be of the larger physical size. They were armed with heavy, custom target rifles and Sharps rifles during their service.
The company was attached to 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, II Corps, Army of the Potomac, but nominally operated with the 15th Massachusetts Infantry to July 1864, and with the 19th Massachusetts Infantry to September 1864.
The 1st Company Massachusetts Sharpshooters mustered out September 6, 1864.

Detailed service

1861

Arrived morning 2 July, positioned at rock wall on the north end of Cemetery Ridge, several squads were detached and sent to different parts of the line. Cleared out Confederate snipers occupying Bliss farm. In late afternoon, when II Corps retook Bliss farm, a squad went with them to snipe from the farm. No losses 2 July.
On 3 July, unit dueled with Confederate snipers in buildings in Gettysburg facing Cemetery Hill and Ridge. During Pickett's Charge, unit concentrated targeting on officers. Suffered four dead, three wounded.
The company lost a total of 39 men during service; 3 officers and 21 enlisted men killed or mortally wounded, 15 enlisted men due to disease.

Commanders

Throughout their service, the company was armed with custom, muzzle-loading target rifles equipped with telescopic sights running the length of the barrel. The larger than average physical size of the unit members proved an asset in carrying these weapons. These target rifles were a mix of heavy bench rifles and lighter out of hand rifles. Hawkins and Morgan James were among the manufacturers of these rifles.
Starting at Antietam, they also carried Sharps rifles in the field firing over the iron sights. The Sharps Rifle was produced by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut. The Sharps made a superior sniper weapon of greater accuracy than the more commonly issued muzzle-loading rifled muskets. This was due mainly to the higher rate of fire of the breech loading mechanism and superior quality of manufacture, as well as the ease of which it could be reloaded from a kneeling or prone position.