Hiram Berdan recruited his sharpshooters by marksmanship test. The standard was unforgiving: ten consecutive shots into a ten-inch target at two hundred yards, from any position, with the rifle of the recruit's choice. Men who could not shoot to that standard were not accepted. Those who could were enlisted into the 1st and 2nd United States Sharpshooters — two regiments organized in 1861 that became the only Federal sharpshooter units of the war recruited specifically for marksmanship. Berdan, a New York mechanical engineer and pre-war national rifle champion, knew what shooting at distance required. The men he assembled were New England woodsmen, Wisconsin farmers, Michigan loggers, and California gold-rush veterans whose marksmanship had been earned at home before the war.

This W. Britain figure depicts a 1st U.S. Sharpshooter in the regiment's distinctive dark green uniform — green forage cap, green frock coat, green trousers, deliberately chosen for concealment against trees and brush at a time when every other infantry regiment on the continent wore dark blue or gray. The light canvas knapsack carries his haversack and rations; the cartridge box rides on his right hip. The rifle is the Sharps breech-loading rifle — a single-shot weapon with a falling-block action, loaded from the breech, capable of eight to ten aimed rounds per minute compared to two or three for a muzzle-loading rifle musket. The sharpshooter figure anchors any Civil War skirmish-line diorama. Pair this figure with 1st U.S. Berdan's Sharpshooter, the matched skirmish-pair companion; with Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the Confederate cavalry commander shot at Yellow Tavern by a former Berdan's sharpshooter (Pvt. John A. Huff of the 5th Michigan Cavalry); or with Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, the II Corps commander whose troops Berdan's regiments screened in the Overland Campaign.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31509. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.