66th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment - Independent Service

Independent Service

"Birge's Western Sharpshooters" was a multi-state, Federal unit organized at St. Louis, Missouri and mustered into federal service on November 23, 1861. Initially two companies were raised in Ohio, three in Illinois, one in Michigan, and four were organized at St Louis' Benton Barracks of Missourians and detachments of volunteer candidates sent by recruiting officers from Iowa, Minnesota and other western states, thus forming a regiment that represented every state in the west, a pet scheme of General John C. Fremont.

During the unit's existence it was re-designated first as the "Western Sharpshooters-14th Missouri Volunteers", and later re-designated again as the "66th Illinois Volunteer Infantry (Western Sharpshooters)". While federal and state authorities repeatedly changed the formal designation of the unit, the regiment was commonly referred to as the "Western Sharpshooters" (or simply "The Sharpshooters") for the duration of the war. After the war autographs by former members often included the appellation W.S.S.

Companies of the Western Sharpshooters

• "Welker's Company" (WSS's original Company A): Missouri men with some outstate members
• Company A: "Boyd's Company", Missouri and outstate members
• Company B: Missouri and outstate members
• Company C: Illinois (Bureau and Logan Counties) and some Iowa men
• Company D: Michigan
• Company E: Illinois (Edgar County)
• Company F: Missouri and outstate members
• Company G: 1st Independent Company of Ohio Volunteer Sharpshooters (Reed's Sharpshooters)
• Company H: 2nd Independent Company of Ohio Volunteer Sharpshooters (Dougherty's Sharpshooters)
• Company I: Illinois (Lawrence County)
• Company K: 3rd Independent Company of Ohio Volunteer Sharpshooters (Taylor's Sharpshooters)

The regiment was envisioned as a specialized unit of marksmen and skirmishers, a Western Theater counterpart to Colonel Hiram Berdan's 1st and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters (raised from multiple states under President Lincoln's patronage for service in the Eastern Theater). On August 28, 1861, Fremont authorized a St. Louis physician, John Ward Birge, to raise the regiment and muster recruits at Benton Barracks, St. Louis.

As marksmen, Fremont intended that they should have a special uniform based on "hunter's dress" and be armed with highly accurate Plains Rifles (handmade half-stock long rifles), provided by the famed St. Louis firearms firm of Horace (H.E.) Dimick of St. Louis (a competitor of the Hawken Brothers, also of St. Louis). While the majority of the special uniform envisioned by Fremont did not survive long beyond his removal (except for an extraordinary sugar loaf hat decorated with three squirrel tails), Dimick fulfilled his contract, providing over 1,000 long rifles, although he had to scour regional (and even east coast) gunmakers to fulfill the enormous order for handmade weapons in the time allotted. The Western Sharpshooters found the "Dimick Rifle" (as the unit called them, although Dimick's gunsmiths built only about 150) to be lethally accurate and declared themselves "well pleased" with the Plains Rifles.

Fremont's scheme was partially squelched by Major General Halleck when he relieved Fremont in November 1862, ending additional recruitment. General Halleck returned a tenth company of missouri sharpshooters under Captain John Welker (which had initially been recruited by Birge, but detached on MG Fremont's orders for his southwestern expedition, and subsequently operated as an independent company), bringing Birge's Western Sharpshooters up to full strength of ten companies. Immediately afterward, Halleck ordered the partially equipped and trained sharpshooters into the field in guerrilla racked central and northern Missouri. On December 12, 1861, Colonel John W. Birge, of St. Louis, marched them from Benton Barracks to Centralia, in Northern Missouri. The regiment was then deployed in small detachments to fight bands of the secessionist Missouri State Guard and guerrillas attacking the strategically vital North Missouri Rail Road and other targets of interest to the Federal government. On December 28, 1861, five companies of Birge's Sharpshooters and five companies of cavalry fought a mixed force of Missouri State Guard and secessionist volunteers at the small, but strategically important Battle of Mount Zion Church.

On February 4, 1862, the sharpshooters were first shipped by railroad to St. Louis and then by steamboat to Fort Henry, where they eventually arrived on the 9th, just too late to take part in its capture. (Note: As they passed through St. Louis, Maj. Gen. Halleck ordered Company A (Welker's Company) stripped out of the regiment and reassigned to the newly forming 26th Missouri Volunteer Infantry Regiment, temporarily reducing the regiment to nine companies). At Fort Henry, the Sharpshooters joined Colonel Lauman's brigade of General C.F. Smith's division and marched with them to Fort Donelson. In Grant's army they served at the Battle of Fort Donelson and the Battle of Shiloh.