Articles

The Most Lethal Fighting Unit of the Civil War

 

At approximately 4:00 PM, July 2, 1863, the Confederate turning movement at Gettysburg, meant to roll-up the Federal line from left-to-right, finally stepped-off, General Evander Law’s Alabama brigade leading the way. Longstreet’s entire division was to deliver the blow, the assault performed in left echelon, one brigade going-in after the other. Law’s objective was Little Round Top, a rocky hill, then unoccupied, that dominated the Federal line. If the Confederates could secure that hill, the remainder of the Federal line could be enfiladed from the heights and rendered indefensible – game over.

As the Confederate skirmishers initially moved forward, there appeared no force between them and their objective, but this was misleading. Unseen to the Rebels, the Federals had posted a thin skirmish line from the base of Big Round Top (approximately ¼ mile south of Little Round Top) running west about 900 yards. Very loosely strung, these 204 veterans represented the only Federal opposition between Law’s brigade and Little Round Top. Fortunately for the Federal cause that day, this unit was the 2nd United States Sharpshooters, one-half of the most lethal detachment of the American Civil War.

Waiting behind a stone fence, Wyman White, one of the U.S. sharpshooters later recalled: “They came yelling and firing and struggling over fences and through the timber. Just in front of where I was, the land was open, and, as they were mostly dressed in butternut colored clothes, they had the appearance of a plowed field being closed in mass formation.” Although outnumbered more than 10 to 1, the Sharpshooters calmly took aim and began firing. “As we took the matter very coolly,” said White, “many a brave Southron threw up his arms and fell. But on they came, shouting and yelling their peculiar yell.” The Sharpshooters had no hope of stopping Law’s advance, of course, only slowing it, and they went about this with deadly professionalism. Moving in groups of four, two shooters laying down suppression fire while the other two withdrew to cover, the Sharpshooters began taking a heavy toll on the lead elements of Law’s advance.

One of the Most Daring and Romantic Naval Feats of History

Rain began falling in sheets as the small steamer known as picketboat No. 1 puffed its way through the choppy surf toward the mouth of the river, now just minutes away. Directly astern, the boat tugged an open cutter full of sailors, all hand-picked, good with “revolvers, cutlasses, and hand-grenades.” The two boats had departed the Shamrock river almost three hours earlier, and now, as the mouth of the river loomed ever-nearer, their sense of casual confidence gave way to grim determination, for they had all volunteered for a mission many senior officers in Washington considered suicidal.

It was October 27, 1864, and the cold, rain-drenched men were slowly departing Albemarle Sound for the Roanoke River. They were still about ten miles from Plymouth, North Carolina, where their objective – the Confederate ironclad ram, CSS Albemarle – was berthed among various elaborate defensive measures. Every man realized he was in for a long, dangerous night, and that many would not be returning. Their task was to either cut the ironclad out or if that proved unfeasible, torpedo the Albemarle in its berth. Not one man had the slightest notion that within days the New York Times would hail their mission as “one of the most daring and romantic naval feats of history.”

 

The Day the South Nearly Won

It has become an accepted historical fact that the South could not have won the American Civil War. The North’s advantages in finance, population, railroads, manufacturing, technology, and naval assets, among others, are often cited as prohibitively decisive.

Yes, the South had the advantage of fighting on the defensive, this with interior lines, but those two meager pluses appear dwarfed by the North’s overwhelming strategic advantages, hence defeat virtually a foregone conclusion. But if strategic advantage alone was always decisive in warfare, then names like Marathon, Cowpens, Rorke’s Drift, and Cannae would today be meaningless, and they are not.

Indeed, there are times when the decided underdog wins in war, and there was one day in 1862 when the stars aligned, so to speak, to offer the South a victory of such magnitude that the Civil War might have ended in its favor.