This National Guard Manual by Pinckney is a fantastic resource to understand many specific details about military life, duties, and equipment.  This is a must read!  Don't take my word for it check it out yourself.

CLICK HERE

Google books has a fantastic selection of Civil War publications free.  Sometimes it can take some creative searching, though.  Taking a look at period manuals is a good way to get a sense of what would have been expected of our duties.  Here is a link to a good book for company officers:

Hints to Company Officers on Their Duties by Capt. C.C. Andrews of the 3rd Minnesota Regt.

Such topics include:

• Business capacity and Responsibility
  
• Military Responsibility
  
• Character
  
• Morale of Troops
  
• Treatment of the Men
  
• Fortitude
  
• Valor
  
• Superiority of Valor and Skill over Number
  

Feel free to post a comment if you have other sources to recommend.

Duties of the 1st Sgt.

By Rebecca Onion

The Vault is Slate's history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here.
     In 1862, a year into the Civil War, the Philadelphia publishing company Charlton & Althrop registered a trademark for this optimistic and bellicose “Game of Secession, or Sketches of the Rebellion.” The four-color game board is a collage of small patriotic scenes, portraits of Union and Confederate generals, and cartoons mocking the Confederate cause.
     Printed 19 years after the publication of the first board game in the United States, this game’s method of play is simple: Using two dice or a “tee-to-tum,” players advanced the number of spaces dictated by their throw. Unlike the multitude of Civil War–themed board games in today’s market, this game has no element of strategy, nor does it test the player’s knowledge of the military or political scene of the time.
     Players can land on spaces that celebrate Union victories and jump ahead, or have the bad luck to land on a Confederate-themed space and be sent back. The player advancing to space 71, which depicts a Zouave Union infantryman in hand-to-hand conflict with a mounted Confederate cavalry officer, could jump 28 spaces to celebrate the Zouave’s bravery.
     Meanwhile, the Confederate illustrations often mock the other side’s leaders or armies. In space 79, for instance, “Mrs. Columbia” (a stand-in symbolizing the Union) holds a little “Jeff Davis” and shows him his “Christmas Tree”—growing out of a bucket labeled “rebellion,” it’s a leafless stick festooned with snakes. Landing on this spot could set a luckless player back by 44 spaces.
​

The treasures from the Maine State Archives keep coming!  There is a lot of information in these letters and they cover a little bit of everything.  One letter I like is a request for eating utensils and another lists Sharpshooters transferred to the 17th Maine Volunteers.  These are copies of the original letters and not transcripts.  Some will take you quite a while to decipher the handwriting but they are full of never before written about daily business.

Believe it or not there is even more scanning to be done!

The file link includes every enlistment paper for the soldiers of Company D.  The Maine State Archives were amazingly friendly and helpful in my research efforts.  The documents were all scanned by Melissa who is super awesome for helping.  The free version of Weebly has a 10 megabyte max on file uploads so the enlistment papers are in two files.  If you want it in one version you can email me.  Enjoy!

Here is some excellent research provided by Captain Sturgill on our captured soldiers at Petersburg.

 COLONEL BERDAN AND HIS SHARPSHOOTERS. WE illustrate herewith the exploits of Colonel Berdan and his famous sharp-shooting regiment, which will shorty be heard of at the war. On 7th the Colonel gave an exhibition of his skill at Weehawken, New Jersey, in presence of a large crowd of spectators. The reporter of the Evening Post thus described the scene:

The "man target," christened Jeff Davis, was set up at a distance of a little more than two hundred yards. Colonel Berdan inaugurated the firing. In an easy, business-like way he loaded his rifle, an ordinary target piece, with a telescopic sight, and approached the "rest." The visitors crowded around him in every direction, excepting, of course, that occupied by the muzzle of the rifle. A sense of personal danger preserved a small opening there. The wind blew quite heavily.

It will be conceded that these circumstances were not particularly conducive to careful and unerring aim. But Colonel Berdan is a man of wonderful nerve. The crowd did not at all disturb him. He proceeded in the work with the utmost steadiness. Balancing his rifle for a moment, he fired at the head of the figure. When the smoke cleared away, the hole made by the bullet was observed by the aid of the telescope—the cheek, near the nose.

Again the Colonel loaded and quickly fired at the head, hitting it just over the frontispiece of the cap which was painted upon it.

The third shot was fired. "Put his eye out," remarked the Colonel. The ball had struck near enough to that organ to destroy its use had it been a real one.

The fourth shot hit the face.

"I'll try nature's rest," said the Colonel, and he proceeded to a knoll near by, and throwing himself at its side, accommodated his person to its shape and took aim, but the percussion cap only exploded. "Davis is safe this time," he remarked. "We'll try him again." Another cap was provided, and the image was struck just below the front piece of the cap. The aim was quite as accurate as that he had previously obtained.

The sixth shot hit about two inches lower than the fifth.

The seventh hit the top of the head.

Loading again, the Colonel made ready to fire. " Where will you have this shot?" he inquired of one standing by. "In the end of the nose," was the answer. "Between the eyes," suggested another. At this moment the rifle was discharged. " You spoke too late," quietly remarked the Colonel, " he has another nostril." A gentleman was called to witness the effect of the shot, and afterward our reporter. It was as the Colonel had said. The nose had an additional aperture.

"Where shall I put the next shot?" the Colonel inquired of the gentleman at whose request he had spoiled the nose of the image. "Try his right eye," was the answer. No sooner said than it was done. The ball entered the lower part of the eye. The effect of this shot was carefully noted by several persons through the glass.

"Will you tell me where to hit him again?" once more asked the Colonel of the person who had called the last two shots. That individual declined. He was satisfied that the Colonel could hit any thing, and it was not worth while to fire at the image, whose face was riddled. '' We will hit him once more, and now in the centre of the forehead." This shot, the tenth, was the finest of the whole. It took effect midway between the front piece of the cap and the root of the nose, and directly over that organ. The distances were almost mathematically accurate.

The Times thus speaks of the Regiment :

Some idea of the rigidity of the test may be gathered from the fact that no man is admitted who does not shoot, at 600 feet distance, ten consecutive shots at an average of five inches from the bull's-eye. That is, the aggregate distance of the whole ten shots must not exceed fifty inches. Not a man is accepted under any circumstances who varies a hair-breadth from the mark. Remarkable though it may seem, many of the men exceed this proficiency. Colonel Berdan himself has, on a windy day, with a strange rifle, put ten balls within an average distance of one inch and one-tenth each from the bull's-eye, at 600 feet. At 1000 feet the Colonel made a string of 22 inches. Sergeant-Major Brown, under more unfavorable circumstances, made a string of 33 inches, or a little more than three inches each ball, at a distance of 100 yards, with a strange rifle. In testing the applicants at Albany, about two-thirds were found unfitted, and indeed the general average of incompetent applicants is more than that. The American riflemen prove generally superior, especially the hunters of New England and the West. The First Lieutenant of Captain Shoenecker's company is Mr. Sonnley, formerly Professor of Mathematics in the Nashville Military Academy, and other gentlemen equally qualified will be in the ranks.

The uniform of the sharp-shooters will be green in summer and gray at other seasons, to assimilate as nearly as possible with the colors of nature. They ridicule the idea of Zouave and Havelock uniforms, as affording too splendid a target for marksmen. They will be armed with the most improved Springfield rifle, with a plain silver pin sight at the muzzle, and notch sight, or the globe sight at the breech for long range, or on a dark day, or night shooting. It was at first intended to arm them with the Northern target-rifle, but it was found that there were not enough in the country. Colonel Berdan has invented a ball which is superior to the old Springfield rifle ball. It will carry with great accuracy a distance of 3000 feet. It is a grooved and conical ball, and is almost certain for a horse at the distance of three-fifths of a mile. Each man may take his own rifle if he wishes.

The design of the Colonel is to have the regiment detached in squads on the field of battle to do duty in picking off officers and gunners on the European plan, by which they take the risk of being cut off by cavalry, or executed, as they certainly would be, if taken. It is the first regiment of rifles ever formed worthy of the name—i. e., that subjected each member to the rifle-shooting test.

Colonel Berdan comes of Huguenot stock. His ancestry came to this country after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was born in the western part of New York.

 

"A rebel captain forcing negroes to load cannon under the fire from Berdan's Sharpshooters.  Seen through a telescope from our lines, and sketched by Mr. Mead."