Here are some remarks of the danger of sharpshooters during the siege of Vicksburg.

06 04 1863 [Thursday]

It is most dangerous for a man to expose himself any where along our line on account of the sharpshooters.

06 06 1864 [Saturday]

We have rifle pits with 75 yards of the Rebel forts and our sharpshooters were in them; and as soon as a Rebel showed his head, he was shot at. We have sharpshooters so near their forts that they have not been able to fire any of their large guns for several days. . . Our pickets are so close to the Rebel pickets that they can talk to one another. Some of our boys heard them talking and cursing each other last night. Sometimes the pickets have a compromise , for of all places that I ever saw, this is the hillest. It is nothing but steep hills and large hollows. ( Capt. Rynearson, 15th Iowa)

06 20 1863 [Saturday]

If one lifted his head ever so little above the earthworks, the crack of a sharpshooter’s rifle, followed instantly by a dull thud, would announce the doom of another Reb. A man who was slightly wounded in the trenches stood in considerable danger of being more seriously injured, if not killed outright, as he traversed the open space between ???? and hospital. Life under such conditions became a torturing ordeal