2nd United States Sharpshooters, Company D
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In Company D, we are dedicated to researching and compiling as much information about Company D, Berdan Sharpshooters, and Civil War life as possible.

James Fessenden Can Find No Good Shots

9/5/2014

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James Fessendan Transcript Portland Sept. 21, 1861 Hon. Israel Washburn

Dear Sir
I am very sorry to have so unfavorable a report to give you but the fact is that I have not been able to find one man who comes up to Colonel Berdan’s standard, though there are many who approximate to it and probably would reach it with a few days constant practice under the eye of a competent instructor.
I have not felt at liberty to enlist any who are not now up to the mark and consequently have made no enlistments. There a very few men in this county who own rifles sufficient to shoot with accuracy such a distance, and in that part of Oxford which I have canvassed, I find, to my surprise, scarcely any.
I shall start on Monday on a tour through Androscoggin and Oxford Counties in the hope of finding some suitable persons to recruit, but my present impression is that, unless the other recruiting officers have met with better success that I have, the only way to form such a company will be to select the best shots that can be found and forming a camp of instruction at Augusta, and gradually bring them up to the standard.

Yr’s Resp’y James D. Fessenden



Source:  Maine State Archives

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    Manuals and Guides
    • 1861 Regulations for the Uniform and Dress of the Army of the United States.
    • ​1861 Regulations for the Army of the United States
    • 1861 Ordnance Manual
    • A System of Target Practice
    • ​Beadles  Military Handbook
    • Handbook for Active Service 1861
    • 1852 Bayonet Exercise
    • The Company Clerk

    Original Documents:
    • Form 9a
    • Form No. 10 (c) Abstract of Expenditures

    ​Additional Resources:
    • ​Explicitly Clear
    • Silas' Reenacting Links
    • ​Archived Rockland Maine Newspapers

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