I agree. Part of our job, for those of us who are a part of this board, is also education. Even for long time studiers like myself.

When I first found out that one of my ggranfathers was a member of the Palmetto SC Sharpshooters I thought the very same things that James and 90% of everyone else was thinking, "HOT DOG, Grandpa was a sniper!!!". Well, I learn better after years of following what the unit actually did.

I have been able to take the few fragments of stories passed down about Ggrandpa's experiences and tie those stories to specific incidents to that units history. But, there are still many mysteries about Ggrandpa's service in the Sharpshooter that I have not found a clue about. Such as why he kept a .45 caliber 1869 french bayonet for all those years? Or, if he aquired it after the war, WHY? Something he absolutely had no use for as a farmer in Grant County, Arkansas!

It seemed to have some value to grandpa because it was his dad's, but did it have anything to do with Ggrandpa's service in the Sharpshooters? I know that Ggrandpa surrendered all of his Military equipment at Appomattox. So he wouldn't have brought his bayonet home with him from the war unless he hide it during the surrender, which seems unlikely. But that was always the story that went with the Bayonet that it was Ggrandpa's during the war.

Who knows? But my Ggrandpa wasn't a "sniper' in the true definition of that term, althought the Sulfolk Campaign was almost a World War I style of sniping engagement from the trenches. I am sure like Vicksburg was.