Posted inStories

Sure Shot: Confederate Sharpshooters Left No Doubt the Whitworth Was Their Weapon of Choice—When Available

by Doug Wicklund and Michael Williams

From hundreds of yards away, a Confederate sharpshooter carefully aimed his prized Whitworth, the crosshairs of its Davidson telescopic sight outlined against the ramparts of Fort Stevens in Washington, D.C. Through the scope—fitted to the left side of the stock—his eye scanned the ample crowd of Union soldiers and plucky civilians who had ventured by, hoping to observe warfare up close. Suddenly, the shooter’s attention shifted to a tall bearded man wearing a stovepipe hat, realizing it was that Yankee president, within easy range of his English-made precision rifle. As he prepared to fire, though, a Federal officer dragged Abraham Lincoln out of view.

Posted inStories

News! The War On The Net

by Susannah J. Ural

In the spring of 1865, about a month before the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, Union Lieutenant Richard Baxter Foster waged a very different war in the Trans-Mississippi West. Baxter was, he explained in a March 8 letter to his wife, Lucy, “teaching a school of the Sergeants and Corporals of the Company about one hour each day.” It was a task in which he took “great pleasure,” enjoying the fact that the “men are very much interested and thank me every night for the lesson. I never saw a body of men so anxious to learn as our regiment now are.”