FYI....the latest issue of the NRA Rifleman has an artilce on CW sharpshooters. Plan to read it this weekend myself, but at a quick glance may be good.  

I saw that too.. I haven't had a chance to read it yet either.

I liked the article. I found it interesting(I was amazed) how few Whitworth rifles the Confederacy actually purchased and how few were actually scoped(not so amazed abour the scopes). And, it was also interesting to see how the quality of the ammunition affected the rifles accuracy. That ammunition principil applies even today. My handloaded rifle ammo is waaaay more accurate than anything you can buy over the counter. I wonder if the rifle/ammo combos purchased for the $1200(huge for the time) if, the ammo was custom loaded for the rifle?

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GrumpyDave wrote : I liked the article. I found it interesting(I was amazed) how few Whitworth rifles the Confederacy actually purchased and how few were actually scoped(not so amazed abour the scopes). And, it was also interesting to see how the quality of the ammunition affected the rifles accuracy. That ammunition principil applies even today. My handloaded rifle ammo is waaaay more accurate than anything you can buy over the counter. I wonder if the rifle/ammo combos purchased for the $1200(huge for the time) if, the ammo was custom loaded for the rifle?

I have stated time value of money was about 18-20 times the CW dollar depending on the year which would be.. $21,600 in todays dollars. using 1863 as the base and a professional calculator.

In 2006, $1,200.00 from 1863 is worth:

$19,878.39  using the Consumer Price Index
$16,439.89  using the GDP deflator
   using the value of consumer bundle *  
$158,459.50  using the unskilled wage
$232,763.34  using the nominal GDP per capita
$2,076,654.58  using the relative share of GDP

Speaking of sharpshooters, but of the union variety, I wonder if enough people interested in that specialty impression remain in the hobby to staff a small living history. Marc, any thoughts?

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Charles Heath wrote : Speaking of sharpshooters, but of the union variety, I wonder if enough people interested in that specialty impression remain in the hobby to staff a small living history. Marc, any thoughts?

Charles,

Company C of the 2nd USSS has just completed their 30th year.Living History is one of our favorites, plus we are the caretakers of the Wyman White collection. E-mail me and let me know the particulars. The company meeting will be in January to set the schedule etc.

Interesting how many of us receive the "American Rifleman". Wow, what a surprise!  

I had a breif discussion with Kevin O'Beirne, over on the Reenactor Forum, concerning the changes in skirmishing that I feel took place as the War went on. I just read an interesting article in one of the Civil War history magazines about Confederate skirmishers taking a Federal artillery battery in the front and both flanks. They were able to capture the battery with minimum casualities, since they offered no mass target for the guns.  

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Bill wrote : Interesting how many of us receive the "American Rifleman". Wow, what a surprise!   I had a breif discussion with Kevin O'Beirne, over on the Reenactor Forum, concerning the changes in skirmishing that I feel took place as the War went on. I just read an interesting article in one of the Civil War history magazines about Confederate skirmishers taking a Federal artillery battery in the front and both flanks. They were able to capture the battery with minimum casualities, since they offered no mass target for the guns.

Its too bad at most of the living histories we do as the boys in green, the demo area is a wide open field and we can just show the book skirmish line 5 yards apart etc. We try to explain that skirmishers did use any cover available and did not always have those straight lines etc. One time at our camp of instruction and at a neat location with woods etc, we divided up into two groups and had a small tactical. It was a blast using in the woods and other areas. We kept in touch by sight and the bugle.