Well I googled Civil war staff and didn’t find much so perhaps that was too narrow a search.
I am interested in the Civil War as many of us who live in the states are. I have recently got to thinking about the role of army staff officers during the war.
Anyone willing to suggest some further reading?
Oh yes! and by the way: Please suggested readings, not debate about the war! It does seem that just about everyone has a different view of the war and the relative merit of this, that and the other fellow as General. I am more interested to learn how they used their staff and how the staffs in Washington and Richmond contributed (or not) to the over all management of the respective war efforts.
Well, the classic look at the Army of Northern Virginia is Douglas Southall Freeman’s “Lee’s Lieutenants”
As a reference work (giving biographies of the Army of Northern Virginia’s staff officers, as well as statistical information about them), check Robert Krick’s “Staff Officers in Gray”. I don’t know of any counterpart on the Union side.
Modern staffs (staves?) grew up in the period before WWI. In the American Civil War, the G-staff stuff was done by a number of Bureaux and Chiefs (Chief of Artillery, Chief of Engineers, Chief of Ordinance, Bureau of Navigation, Bureau of Ships). These were hybrid civil-military organizations.
S-level staffs were less well-defined. Brigades or even Regiments had a Surgeon and a Quartermaster. The Adjutant had all the S-1 roles, but also served as a sort of chief clerk. Some general officers used aides-de-camp as staffers. Others did not.
Add into that the complexities of Army/Navy cooperation and strange ducks like the role of telegraph companies and the United States Military Railroad and you get all sorts of nooks and crannies.
Everything I have read suggests that while there were staff officers down to brigade level there was certainly not the organized and structured staff structure found in Western armies. On both sides there were a handful of officers called assistant adjutants general in each headquarters along with a handful of enlisted couriers and clerks. These people seem to have been jacks-of-all-work.
As you get into headquarters for larger organizations, e.g., division and corps and army headquarters, there seem to have been chiefs of staff, engineer officers, commissary officers, judge advocates, provost martials, artillery officers, signal officers, medical officers, ordinance officers who had specific, full time responsibilities although they could be and were called on to do other work as well. Gen Gibbon, who commanded one of the Union divisions struck by Pickett’s Charge, mentioned his judge advocate in his after action report as having been wounded while rallying broken troop formations. That’s not the sort of thing you are likely to find and modern JAG doing.
In short, the staff structure on both sides in the American Civil war was much more loosie-goosie and ad hoc that US staff structure since WWI, when we stole the French system of separate staff slots with specific jobs.
Even other “Western” armies did not have proper staff at this time. The Prussians had the Great General Staff, IIRC, but the French and British were still flying by the seat of their pants at this time. The Franco-Prussian war brought modern staff (of two models, Germans and British) into widespread use. We may roughly trace the birth of the American staff to about 1900.
In the British way of looking at things, the Operations Guy was the big dog. He planned operations and the other sections (Intel, Supply and Whatnot) supported him. Oddly, in the German model, the Supply Guy was the Man, and the other sections danced to his tune.
BTW, you know how the Geek in James Bond is called “Q?” That is from the British designation for “Quartermaster.” An old British staff section (now NATO has standardized S-1,2,3,4).
Why, yes I spent too much time in Bell Hall at Leavenworth, why do you ask?
