I thought you all would enjoy this. 5 inches at 200 yards is impressive even with today's standards.

It says five inches from the center of the bullseye to the center of the ball. That could be a 10" group.

I was about to say the same thing, Still pretty good shootin

Measure across your chest. A 10" group will kill you. Unlike animals. We're pretty fragile.

200yds with iron sights is damn good shooting. Unless they used scopes during the war?

Some of the shots these sharp shooters pulled off during the war were very impressive. I was reading about one confederate sharp shooter who served under General Lee was able to consistently "hit a man at 800 yards. " now it did not mention where he would hit. But at one battle, the Union troops were so demoralized by him, that when they discovered his hide, they turned their artillery on him. Ending his rain of terror on the men.

10 inches is probably correct. But without a scope, there's no way I could do that.

Here are a link to a couple of rifles some with optics used during the civil war. http://www.berdansharpshooters.com/

200 yards, 10" group with open sights. Yep, I couldn't do that either. I am assuming most of the people were shooting smooth bores also (before the civil war?) Didn't rifling barrels and paper patched conicals come on during the war?

Neither can i.

Civil war had rifled barrels. Was the first war that made pre-load ammunition. Had powder maxi ball in a paper wad. Made reloading a lot faster. Also metalic cart rounds were used. Single shot rifles like the sharps and repeating rifles like the henry were introduced in limited amounts.