Civil War Tactics

Factual Questions
1

I just finished watching Glory on TV. And just like I did during that other Civil War epic, Gettysburg, I cringed as I watched the commanders keep their soldiers in close formation - sitting ducks for artillery and rewarding even an errant sharpshooter with an inadvertant hit.

I assume that these films are accurate in their portrayal of battlefield tactics (I think this is a reasonable assumption given the many technical advisors consulted in each movie).

My God. What compelled them to keep tight rank and not to disperse their troops? Pride? Tradition?

I guess the same could be asked right up to WWI where row after row of infantrymen were marched into the breech of machine guns.

Why did the commanders not disperse their men? Not let them seek and use natural cover? etc.

2

This is a complete WAG until someone knowledgeable shows up, but it might be that fairly undisciplined troops are likely to cower and not start moving again if they’re allowed to make use of cover along the way. If you send them all at once, together, then once the legs get pumping and the adrenaline gets flowing there’s a chance of at least some of them making it all the way across the field/hill/trenches/whatever. Perhaps a carryover from the Revolutionary War-era lock-stepping formations to keep the troops from breaking and running.

But that’s just a guess.

3

I recommend John Keegan’s studies of military history if you are really interested in this, particularly “The Face of Battle”. They are absolutely fascinating reading if you are interested in battle conditions.

As I understand it, discipline is crucial and difficult to sustain in battle. Modern western armies have a pretty intelligent, well educated, fighting force but historically, the troops have been simple young men, basically farm boys. Given the chance, in the heat of battle, they’ll dig right into the ground and not even raise their heads, and even run like rabbits given half the chance. It just goes against fundamental self-preservation instinct to march towards people shooting to kill.
First you train the troops by drilling and marching endlessly and, when the time comes you march them to attack in the same way. Often, in battles around the world, it helped that the troops knew that battle police patrolled behind them with orders to shoot anyone running away.

I repeat that, if you can find a copy of “The Face of Battle”, your question will be very well answered and you will have enjoyed a brilliant analysis of the human condition during some of the great battles of history. Keegan’s book “A History of Warefare” and “The Book of War” are also thrilling stuff. Wait until you read about the piles of dead higher than a man’s head at the Battle of Agincourt, when the defeated French flung themselves into huge piles as they were being slaughtered. Horribly fascinating. Better than Stephen King.

4

Tradition is part of the answer, technology, another part and snobbery still another part.

The tradition part was due to Frederick the Great who instaured “drill” and achieved tremendous successes. So everybody copied his methods.

Then a little bit later came Napoleon, with his variants on these methods (shock columns, massed artillery, skirmishers, etc.) and since he was even more successful, his methods were copied.

Now you have to remember that 19th century America, was pretty much the boondocks of the world stage. And to show that they were up-to-date, Americans took Napoleonic studies very seriously at West Point where most of the main leaders of the Civil War studied.

Now here comes the technology part, until the middle of the 19th century, most muskets were smoothbore, which limited their range and accuracy, so it made sense to stay close together so as to deliver the maximum fire at a range of about fifty yards from the ennemy and then charge, leaving him with maybe one, maybe two shots.

Now at the time of the Civil War, the smoothbores were being replaced by rifled muskets, extending the range by a factor of 5, so the previous 2 shots became 10. And a new bullet was introduced, the Minié ball.

This explains part of the reason for the casualties level.

Another reason is that a large amount of the officer corps on both side was made of amateurs, who learned their trade “on-the-job” so to speak, and their prime teachers were the small bands of professional who had studied Napoleon at West Point, hence the mass groupings.

As the Civil War went on new tactics emerged, but not enough and not widely distributed and not well studied at the time. So, in cases of doubt, they reverted to the old standards, because they didn’t have anything else.
As for WWI, one of the reasons it went that way was because of the intellectual snobbism(?) of the Western armies. They could have studied the American Civil War, the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 for the effects of massed fire and fortifications, but they ignored them, after all what did these people (Americans, Russians, Japanese) knew about war ?

5

I would say the detop pretty well hit it on the head.

One interesting fact that goes along with the idea of holding onto things of the past, is the single shot rifle. Our leaders insisted on the idea that quality was better than quantity. In other words marksmanship would win over firepower. In the Spanish American War, the Spanish had semi-automatic rifles and would have beaten us if it hadn’t have been for the Gatlin Gun being rushed into service. Even that didn’t convince our leaders and it took WWI to get them to change.

6

Just a small precision, the Gatling gun was actually introduced in the later stages of the ACW (it could have been available earlier, but politics and conservatism slowed its introduction).

7

Kniz, the Spanish did not have semi-automatic rifles in the Spanish-American War. The first combat semi-automatics were American Garands in the second world war. They had Mauser bolt-action rifles, with five-round stripper clips. The Americans used Krag-Jorgensen rifles with a three-round magazine that was loaded from loose rounds. Your basic premise is absolutely correct, though, as a skilled soldier with a Mauser-type rifle can put out a frightening volume of fire, while the Americans were playing at marksman.

8

Thanks all.

It still seems like such a natural innovation, though - dispersing one’s troops - that you’d think someone would have violated traditional teaching in the heat of battle. I’m no expert in the Civil War, but wasn’t that one of the reasons that Jeb Stuart was so successful. He attacked, harassed, withdrew, … No massed attacks for him.

I’m off the boards for a while - holiday. So don’t interpret my silence in this thread as lack of appreciation for any further comments.

9

You’re welcome.

True about JEB Stuart, but you forgot one thing, Stuart was a cavalry leader, not an infantry one, and the tactics for cavalry and infantry are totally different. Cavalry, for one, is much more mobile than infantry.

10

[Spock voice on] fascinating! [Spock voice off]

11

I just realized that someone might interpret my smart-assed remark incorrectly. I truly found the posts very informative, most enlightening, and taught me something that I would not have found in the course of my everyday life. Thanks, guys.

12

Sorry, detop. I didn’t mean the Spanish American War was the first war in which the Gatlin Gun was used. I meant that they went off to war with just their rifles and the Spanish were getting the best of our troops. So, someone like Teddy said:[list][list][list][list][list]**GET THEM GATLIN GUNS OUTTA MOTH BALLS, IN A HURRY![LIST][LIST][LIST][LIST]:eek:

13

On a side note, Custer’s 7th Cavalry detachment in the Black Hills campaign had been issued three Gatling guns. However Custer decided to leave them behind because he worried that bringing them would slow down his cavalry and give the Sioux a chance to escape before he could attack them. Turns out he needn’t have worried; the Sioux waited until he showed up.

14

Any one who has fired a Civil War era rifle-musket will tell you that it isn’t all that accurate a weapon. Because of this it was still necessary to mass fires by putting your people in a bunch and having them all shoot more or less at once and as much and as fast as possible. Most commanders did not want their people to fire at ranges of more than 250 yards even though the .58 cal. Springfield and its ilk had a theoretical effective rang of as much as 800 yards. I, also, recommend Keegan’s book as well as George Stewart’s Pickett’s Charge and Paddy Griffith” Battle Tactics of the Civil War. Griffith is a British army officer with a somewhat jaundiced view of the skill of both Northern and Southern armies.