1st United States Volunteer Sharpshooter Regiment - Uniform

Uniform

The most notable aspect of the Berdan Sharpshooter uniform is the green color, rather than the standard Union blue. They were one of only a few regiments that went outside the typical Potomac Army's uniform. The green uniform gave the sharpshooters the clear advantage of camouflage, but also sometimes was a disadvantage because they were easy to distinguish against the rest of the Union soldiers for enemy Confederate targets to spot them. Sharpshooters were high-priority kills amongst the Confederate army, because they had such high skills and good salvageable equipment. Sharpshooters used more guerrilla warfare battle tactics than the rest of the Union infantry. Another standard requirement along with the green uniform was to have no brass on any of their leather or buttons (they were to be all black, again to camouflage better since brass is shiny and would be more noticeable). In fact, the tar/rubber used to blacken the standard brass on the Sharpshooters uniform was made by Goodyear (the modern day "Goodyear Tire" company). Their shoes (also known as "brokens") were standard Union issue, but their leggings were made out of deer hide, once again to give a more camouflage look, as opposed to the regular Union infantry that usually had either black leather leggings or white cloth leggings. The deer hide leggings were also much more durable in the wilderness and dense forestry. The Sharpshooters leather (cartridge box, belt, cat-box and canteen) were all standard Union issue, besides the fact that the brass on the leather was darkened/blackened. Also, their haversack was black leather instead of light tan cloth. Another significant difference in the Sharpshooter uniform from the standard Union uniform was their backpack. The backpack was a little bit bigger due to the fact that a company of Sharpshooters wouldn't typically be following a large platoon around, but instead be on their own for weeks to months at a time so they were forced to bring more supplies around with them. With the bigger backpack and haversack, one man would have enough room to bring enough supplies to be able to be self-sufficient for a given period of time. The most unique difference between the standard backpack and Sharpshooter backpack is that the Sharpshooter backpack was made out of deer hide, just like their leggings.