Principles of Civil War Marksmanship

Ideally, a historical shooter should examine sources from his region and period of interest in order to determine how marksmanship was practiced with the weapon he is using.  Unfortunately, although marksmanship was studied extensively in England during the Nineteenth Century, little information about the practice of marksmanship in America during the Civil War period exists.  None of the extant infantry manuals from the War discuss the subject at all, and some sources suggest that many soldiers of the time had never fired their weapons before doing so in battle for the first time.  Some of the cavalry manuals did discuss some aspects of the art (e.g., Cooke’s Cavalry Tactics from 1864), but even they were very vague and general.  Fortunately, at least one detailed study of marksmanship exists from the period, viz., Heth’s A System of Target Practice from 1862.  In addition, some manuals from immediately after the War covered the subject (e.g., Whittaker’s Volunteer Cavalry: The Lessons of the Decade from 1871 and Blunt’s Instructions in Rifle and Carbine Firing for the United States Army from 1885) and can be assumed to reflect the principles in use during that time.

In order to shoot well, you must understand what the bullet does.  With our modern firearms we expect nearly flat trajectories, but black-powder weapons had much more extreme parabolas.  This means it was necessary to understand the bullet’s path and to judge the distance well in order to make a good hit.

The line of fire is a straight line extending through the centre of the barrel, indefinitely produced. The line of sight is a straight line passing through the middle of the notch of the rear-sight and the top of the front-sight. A ball describes a curved line in its flight, which line is called the trajectory. When fired from a gun, the ball crosses above the line of sight after going a certain distance,--according to the arm used,--it crosses below the line of sight: this point is called the point-blank. Suppose the point-blank of your carbine to be one hundred yards: to hit an object at that distance, aim at it; if the object is closer, aim below it; if farther off, aim above it. Good aiming can only be attained by proper instruction and careful practice.  Congdon’s Cavalry Compendium pp. 34-35.

Figure 1

Every weapon, and every load used with that weapon, will have a different trajectory, and it is important to understand that trajectory in order to learn to use the weapon well.

Here are some important terms that will be used on this blog:

Point of Aim (PoA):  The point at which you aim your sights.

Mean Point of Impact (MPI):  The average of the group where your shots actually hit; group center.

Intended Mean Point of Impact (IMPI):  Where you intended your group to center.  Also called “Correct Zero Point.”

Grouping:  Adjusting your ammunition, sights, sight picture, and point of aim so that your group size is as small as possible.

Zeroing:  Adjusting your ammunition, sights, sight picture, and point of aim so that your MPI moves to your IMPI.

Line of Sight (LoS):  An imaginary line connecting your eye, your rear sight, your front sight, and the PoA.

Bullet Trajectory:  The actual path of the bullet’s travel.

Line of Fire (LoF):  An imaginary line from the center of the bore to infinity.

Point Blank Range (PBR):  The second of the two points at which the trajectory crosses the LoS.

Aiming

Sight picture refers to the shooter’s view of the rear sight, front sight, and target in line when aiming for a shot.  The front sight should be centered in the notch of the rear sight with the point of your front sight on your PoA.  Sight picture can affect your MPI significantly, and there were three sight pictures used for shooting in the Nineteenth Century, Full, Half, and Fine, as described below.

In addition to sight picture, your hold point on the target is important.  The hold points listed below refer to the PoA you use on a target, and are what Cogdon was talking about in the quote above when he said to aim on, above, or below your target.

Each of the sight pictures can be combined with a hold point, so that, for example, you can shoot with a Fine Sight picture at a 6:00 Hold, or a Half Sight picture at a center mass hold.  Combining these gives a shooter the ability to significantly affect the impact of his shots without adjusting his sights.

Interestingly, modern shooting principles call for shooters to prefer the full sight picture, however, every marksmanship manual of the period calls for the half sight as the standard for normal use.

 Sight Picture

·        Full Sight:  The top of the front sight is aligned with the top of the rear sight.  This is the highest MPI and should be used when you are shooting under the target.

·       Half Sight:  The top of the front sight is halfway between the top and the bottom of the rear sight notch.  This is a medium MPI and is hard to do consistently.

·       Fine Sight:  The top of the front sight is barely above the bottom of the rear sight notch.  This is the lowest MPI.  Use this when your bullets are passing over the target.

 

Figure 2

Hold Points:

·         6:00 Hold:  At the bottom of the bullseye (image 1 in Figure 3).

·         Center Mass Hold:  In the center of the bull (image 2 in Figure 3).

·         12:00 Hold:  At the top of the bullseye (image 3 in Figure 3).

Figure 3

The following Four Rules of Rifle Marksmanship come from The Boy's Manual of Seamanship and Gunnery by Charles Burney from 1871.

Four Rules of Rifle Marksmanship

1.      To see that the sights do not incline to the right or left.

2.      That the line of sight should be taken along the center of the notch of the back sight and the top of the fore sight, which should cover the middle of the mark aimed at.

3.      That the eye should be fixed steadfastly on the mark to be aimed at, and not on the barrel or fore-sight, which latter will be easily brought into the alignment if the eye be fixed as directed.

4.      That in aiming the left eye should be closed.

 This list is extremely interesting in that point #3 differs from modern practice.  The modern practice is to bring the front sight into focus while allowing the target and the rear sight to be blurred in your vision, whereas in every period source we are instructed to focus on the target and not on the sights.