Sharps Rifles

Sharps 1859 Rifle

My Daily Kona has a post about the fight over Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg during 'the recent unpleasantness' as it was euphemistically called. Therein I found this bit:

Undoubtedly patterned after the British Green Jackets of Napoleonic War fame, the Sharpshooters were the brainchild of Colonel Hiram Berdan, and they had performed superbly throughout the war.

The British Green Jackets? That sounds a whole lot like Richard Sharpe's outfit from Bernard Cornwell's stories about the Napoleonic wars.

Baker Rifle

So be careful, Sharp's rifles could mean Richard Sharpe's squad of sharpshooters fighting Napoleon using Baker flintlock rifles, or it could mean rifles designed by Christian Sharps 40 years later. Note that in both cases we are talking about rifles as opposed to smooth bore muskets. The Baker was a flintlock, the Sharps used percussion caps.