Image size: 8 1/2" x 11" Edition size: 500 S/N Issue price: $75 (when print is sold out it will only be available on the secondary market at usually a much higher price - if this happens, call for price and availability 800-237-6077 we usually have a large in stock inventory of secondary market prints ) In the fall of 1861, a unique regiment of men was being raised throughout several Northern states, from New England to Wisconsin. Those members encamped at Weehawken, New Jersey were described as having the “complete outfit of the Sharpshooters, which consists of a regulation undress blue jacket and Austrian gray pants, a frock coat and fatigue cap of green cloth, an extra felt hat with leather visor and cape, blankets, shoes underclothes, etc.” Colonel Hiram Berdan ultimately recruited 18 companies of proven riflemen for the defense of the Union, and two regiments were formed from them: The lst and 2nd Regiments of U.S. Sharpshooters. Berdan was a mechanical engineer from New York City who was also one of the top amateur marksmen in the United States prior to the war. He hoped to prove the value of such men in war and to promote his ideas and inventions in the process It was Berdan’s idea to clothe his men in distinctive uniforms. Originally he had even proposed a fringed blue sack coat and winter uniforms of gray, but the Sharpshooters, as they became known, did indeed wear an unusual uniform. Their uniform or frock coats were styled exactly as the federal pattern 1858 coats, but were of dark green with emerald or medium green trim on collar and cuffs. Their trousers, first of light blue, were eventually of dark green as well. More distinctive, however, was the gray felt “Havelock” hat. A patent, waterproof headgear, it was accompanied initially with a seamless waterproof gray felt overcoat, edged with green. Both of these items proved of limited value, the overcoats becoming stiff when wet, and both items being too “secessionist” in color to be safely worn at the battlefront. Other unusual clothing included russet leather leggings, originally made by a New York firm for $2.25 a pair. The regimental knapsacks were ordered from “Messrs. Tiffany” of New York City and were of “the hide Knapsack, Prussian Pattern,” and cost $3.75 each. An idea of what was required to clothe the First and Second Regiments of Sharpshooters is gained from a list of articles sent to Washington for distribution on 12 November 1861: 1000 prs. Sky blue trousers, 1600 prs. Leggins, 1100 Ostrich feathers, 1000 Privts. Green trousers 32 Sgts Green chevrons 2 Sergt. Maj. Green chevrons, 2 Q.M. Sergt. Chevrons Green, 2 Commy. Sergt. Chevrons Green 32 Green cords & tassels for bugles’ 400 Gt. Coats, seamless, green trimmings, 500 Knapsacks, similar to those furnished to this corps This list includes two more items of note. The ostrich feathers were not to trim uniform or Hardee hats as might be expected, but instead were worn on the fronts of the green forage caps. The cords and tassels were used on the bugles used instead of drums to sound calls for the “chippies” as the Sharpshooters were nicknamed by the soldiers of the 14th Brooklyn because of their use of bugles for reveille. Hiram Berdan wanted his men armed with the new M1859 Sharps breechloading rifle. Instead, in addition to their privately-owned target rifles, the initial issue to the regiments was Colt’s revolving Rifles. Eventually, after a near-mutiny in the 1st Regiment, the regiments received their Sharps’ rifles which they carried and used with great effect through the war. Green coats and Sharps rifles became trademarks of the Sharpshooters, but it was their gallant service through the war that made them a Civil War legend. SOURCES: C.A. Stevens, Berdan’s United States Sharpshooters…,Dayton 1984 New York Tribune, 15 October 1861, p.8 NA, Record Group 92 |
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