Union Captain James McKnight’s Regular Army battery had already been overrun once that foggy October 19, 1864, morning at Cedar Creek. Now, as part of Brigadier General George W. Getty’s division, they waited on a low hill outside Middletown, Virginia, as another Rebel attack materialized out of the mist. The gunners gaped at the Confederate skirmishers loping up the hill, howling their trademark yell. “I could not believe they were actually going to close with us:’ said one gunner,  “until the men on the remaining gun of the left section abandoned it and retreated toward the old graveyard wall.

Their front line was not in order, but there was an officer leading them, and I distinctly heard him shout: ‘Rally on the Battery! Rally on the Battery!” The Yankee gunners managed to get off a last shot of double canister, but “as the Rebel veterans understood this kind of business they ‘opened out’ so that the charge did not hit any of them.  "In a moment the Southerners were in among the gunners, “amid smoke, fog. wreck, yells, clash and confusion....man to man, hand to hand, with bayonet and musket butt on their side and revolvers, rammers, and hand spikes on ours!”

This is the opening to an article in America's Civil War magazine from July 2002. The article "Shock Troops of the South" by Frederick L Ray.

When I read the above, I thought to myself I wonder what that must have looked like.. about 2 years ago during the dawn tactical at Cedar Creek, I was able to experience this moment from the sharpshooter perspective.

To go off on a bit of a tangent, I was curious what the OR's said about sharpshooters.. and I found 92 hits for them when I search them.

Here are 2 that I found to be the most interesting:
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXVII/2 [S# 44]
JUNE 3-AUGUST 1, 1863.--The Gettysburg Campaign.
No. 397.--Report of Col. John B. Klunk, Twelfth West Virginia Infantry, of operations June 12-15.

In the afternoon, as three companies of our regiment were supporting a section of the Baltimore battery, Second Lieut. Ben Gough, Company F, was shot by a rebel sharpshooter at not less than 900 yards distance. The lieutenant died in the Taylor Hotel hospital at 10 p.m. Sunday night.

O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXVIII/3 [S# 74]
May 1-September 8, 1864.--THE ATLANTA (GEORGIA) CAMPAIGN
No. 607.--Reports of Col. Ellison Capers, Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry, Gist's brigade, of operations May 6-July 18 and September 1.

In the fight of the 24th we captured a sharpshooter who had a small looking-glass attached to the butt of his musket, so that he could sit behind his breast-work, perfectly protected, with his back to us, and by looking into his glass, sight along the barrel of his piece.

900 yards, that is a heck of a shot.  And it would be neat to see the looking glass rig this soldier had setup.

Greg,

This would make a great scene in a well done movie!