[1] These men accompanied regular infantrymen and their occupation was usually eliminating Union artillery gun crews.
The Whitworth rifle proved to be an accurate and deadly instrument.
Its most remembered act was on May 9, 1864, at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, where Union General John Sedgwick urged his men to leave a ditch in which they lay in order to cover from the Confederate snipers hidden 800 to 1000 yards away.
"[2] Seconds later he fell forward with a bullet hole below his left eye.
This article about a specific military unit of the American Civil War is a stub.