"The rifle that killed Sedgwick? " Topic

Did it have a scope?
Even with a good rifle find it difficult to imagine someone hitting a single man at a 1000 yards with no scope.

You're assuming that Sedgwick was the target. 😉

Who is the Greek Goddess of ironic quotations?
That's who really killed him.

Did any Johnnie ever take credit for it?

Never thought of that before. A Johnnie shot Johnnie…

A rifled musket is definitely capable of hitting a target at 1000 yards. Elephant or not.

The real question is was he actually aimed at? given that he was near an artillery battery you would expect a fair amount of smoke and any number of Minie bullets flying around. A rifled musket bullet IS capable of killing a target at 1000 yards- but is the shooter able to see properly at that distance and aim under battlefield conditions. The effectiveness of the weapon is highly overrated.

A rifled musket is definitely capable of hitting a target at 1000 yards. Elephant or not.

Yes, and a smooth bore is capable of hitting a man at 150 meters.(and the ball can kill at 400 yards if it randomly hits someone) A 20pdr parrot can kill plenty of men at 3500 yards. But it never happened. What a technology can do is irrelevant as long as humans are the operators.

There are giftet shooters that can do stuff normal humans can't. But they are still not super human. A human eye can only get so good. We aren't eagles. Also with modern rifles and powerful scopes.

even with a scope I doubt they could hit what they aimed at. So yes semi accurate fire at the general direction of enemy troops seems more likely.

Not going to vouch for the accuracy of the story, but it is a famous rifle shot in Texas lore (quote form Wikipedia):

The stand-off continued into a third day, when a group of Indians were noticed about a mile east of Adobe Walls. It is said that [Billy] Dixon took aim with a quickly borrowed .50-90 Sharps (as, according to his biography, he only had a .45-90 Sharps and felt it could not reach) buffalo rifle and fired, knocking an Indian near Chief Quanah Parker off his horse almost a mile away on his third shot. The Indians then left the settlement alone. Commemorative "Billy Dixon" model reproduction Sharps rifles that supposedly recreate the specifications of Dixon's famous gun are still available today.

As above, I suspect the General was just unlucky enough to be within the beaten zone of long range rifle fire.

I think Winston Smith has the answer. Don't tempt fate.

I thought the story was that Confederate Sharpshooters had been targeting an area by a Union battery all morning and had already wounded a number of people in the vacinity.

Sedgwick stoped to alter some deployment and was warned more than once by his staff to be careful – made his famous statement – and promptly bought the farm.

So obviously he was in a area that had already been zeroed in (or whatever passed for it in those days) and was duly zapped as a result !

I think the speculation is whether he was picked off by a "sharpshooter" or a specialist sniper with a Whitworth or some such scope equipped target peice. Sharpshooters being a bit of a generic term and tools like the Whitworth, being a lot more accurate than an Enfield and a good eye.

It needs to be pointed out accuracy and range are not the same thing! :o)

In 1874 there was a shooting match at the Creedmore rifle range between the American national team and an Irish national team in response to a challenge from the Irish.

The American team -

The U.S. team used a combination of breech loading Remington Rolling Blocks and Sharps rifles. The Irish team used Rigby muzzle loading rifles.

On the day of the match, September 26, 1874, the two teams shot the 800 and 900 yard relays in the morning, took a one-hour break for lunch, and then completed the match with the 1,000 yard relay in the afternoon. Apparently, one of the members of the American team, General T. S. Dakin, had a bit too much champagne with his lunch and did very poorly at 1,000 yards. He had three (3) misses out fifteen shots at 1,000 yards. His poor performance almost cost the U.S. team the match. Fortunately, another member of the American team, H. Fulton, a 29-year old surveyor, put on an outstanding performance to help make up for Dakin's indiscretion. Fulton scored 36 bullseyes and 9 centres in his 45 record shots — with not a single miss. His final score, out of a possible 180 points, was 171!

As no artificial rests were allowed the shooting position was a bit different -

At Creedmore the final shot was for the match -

John Bodine, also known to many as "Old Reliable", was a 48-year old former Colonel in the New York Militia. When his time came to shoot, he calmly walked to the firing line at 1,000 yards, got into his shooting position (which oddly enough was a face-downward posture, but not using any type of crossed sticks for support of the barrel), took aim, and fired. His shot struck the black bullseye of the target for a score of 4 — giving the American team the victory with a final score of 934.

Now the 1000 yard bull was a 3 foot square, but if Sedgewick was actually targeted, he was on a horse which would be rather more than a 3x3 foot target – just aim up slightly from the horse to hit the rider. And anyone on a horse would likely be an officer.

Now by 1874 rifles had improved significantly, but the Rigby Match Rifle had been introduced in the mid 60s for long range where it edged out the reigning Whitworths.

Sighting arrangements varied also. Some Whitworths had Enfield-type sights graduated to twelve hundred yards, and others had a sophisticated sliding blade sight with a vernier screw adjustment for windage; some had simple front sights, and others boasted an adjustable post-and-globe front sight. A few rifles sported a four-power telescopic sight, fitted in an adjustable mount on the gun's left side. While it was a state-of-the-art system in 1864 it did have its drawbacks. "After a fight those who used them had black eyes," remembered one sharpshooter, "as the end of the tube rested against the eye while taking aim, and the 'kick,' being pretty hard, bruised the eye."

Most of the men in the Army of Northern Virginia's sharpshooter battalions used Enfields, and only one or two men per battalion carried Whitworths. Thus in the approximately thirty-six infantry brigades of the Army of Northern Virginia, there were most likely between thirty-six and seventy-two of these rifles in service. Although some claims of its accuracy are no doubt exaggerated, the fact remains that the Whitworth could and did strike at a thousand yards and beyond. "The claim of 'fatal results at 1,500 yards,'" concluded one modern expert, "was no foolish boast." Overall, it was a deadly weapon that, in the right hands, repaid its high cost many times over. "I do not believe a harder-shooting, harder-kicking, longer-range gun was ever made than the Whitworth rifle," asserted sharpshooter veteran Isaac Shannon.

Most likely it was just a shot from a sharpshooter targeting the area around a fieldpiece to harass the crew and hopefully cause casualties. However there is a distinct possibility that was deliberately targeted as being an officer of some sort.

Of course without finding the bullet, one doesn't know if it was a Whitworth or an Enfield that fired the fatal shot making it impossible to know if it was a fairly high probability shot a Whitworth or a bad luck hit from an Enfield.

According to Wiley Sword's "Mountains Touched with Fire", Hood's division at Chattanooga had 6 riflemen armed with Whitworths. These proceeded to shut down the Union supply line across the river by shooting a number of teamsters and many mules. Numerous Union sharpshooters with Spencers were unable to stop them. Finally a whole brigade crossed in pontoons and drove the snipers and their supports away.

My guess is the Whitworth armed snipers were about when Sedgwick was killed.