Sharps Military Rifles and Carbines
The military Sharps rifle (also known as the Berdan Sharps rifle) was a falling block rifle used during and after the American Civil War. Along with being able to use a standard percussion cap, the Sharps had a fairly unusual pellet primer feed. This was a device which held a stack of pelleted primers and flipped one over the nipple each time the trigger was pulled and the hammer fell - making it much easier to fire a Sharps from horseback than a gun employing individually loaded percussion caps.
The Sharps Rifle was produced by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut. It was used in the Civil War by the U.S. Army Marksman, known popularly as "Berdan's Sharpshooters" in honor of their leader Hiram Berdan. The Sharps made a superior sniper weapon of greater accuracy than the more commonly issued muzzle-loading rifled muskets. This was due mainly to the higher rate of fire of the breech loading mechanism and superior quality of manufacture.
At this time however, many officers were distrustful of breech-loading weapons on the grounds that they would encourage men to waste ammunition. In addition, the Sharps Rifle was expensive to manufacture (three times the cost of a muzzle-loading Springfield rifle) and so only 11,000 of the Model 1859s were produced. Most were unissued or given to sharpshooters, but the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves (which still carried the old-fashioned designation of a "rifle regiment") carried them until being mustered out in 1864.
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—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
““My ancestors were all famous for military genius.”
My Lady smiled graciously. “It often runs in families,” she remarked: “just as a love for pastry does.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“I think that for once the Sharp’s rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)