Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: ssc-vax!shuksan!major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Glory, strange tactics. Keywords: civil war Message-ID: <15495@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 12 Apr 90 00:55:45 GMT References: <15221@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: The Boeing Co., BAC MMST, Seattle, WA Lines: 141 Approved: military@att.att.com From: ssc-vax!shuksan!major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) In article <15221@cbnews.ATT.COM>, anthony@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Anthony Lee) writes: > > > From: anthony@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Anthony Lee) > I gathered some data in answer to your question about Civil War Tactics: To understand the tactics, first we must understand the organization of units and the difference between Union and Confederate. The regiment was the building-block of the infantry and represented the smallest battlefield unit of manuever. Commonly, the brigade was the tactical unit and the division or corps the grand tactical unit. Confederate regiments usually bigger than Union regiments because Union regiments were to waste away while fresh manpower was channelled into new regiments, which meant new colonels could be created. This dumb process was responsible for the uneven quality of Union troops. In any campaign whole brigades and divisions were raw or untested. It was politically expediant since in the volunteer regiments the state governors controlled the appointment of field officers. On the other hand, later in the war these became veteran units - superior in as tactical units, flexible, responsive, and easily handled. Confederate units generally had a majority of veteran troops reinforced with replacements. Late in the war when recruits were unavailable, units depleted in battle were amalgamated with other units. The Confederates brigaded regiments from the same state together, while the Union regiments were most often brigaded haphazardly, without regard to state of origin. This helped the Confederate morale and improved the 'elan' of the men with brigades rapidly developing an 'identity' or reputation like the old regiments of the British Army. An example is Hood's Texas Brigade of Lee's Army and the Kentucky "Orphan Brigade" of the Western Army. Only rarely were Union troops brigaded in this manner, but when they were they performed magnificantly like the Vermont Brigade of the Army of the Potomac. In complement, a regiment consisted of 2 to 4 battalions. Each battalion had 8 companies of 60-100 men each. Historically, American infantry had fought in shallow, two-man deep, linear formations. This maximized firepower but could be broken by a tough bayonet charge if the enemy could plow through the musket fire and close. After the American Revolution, the British adopted this formation, which became the 'thin red line' that broke up the offense of Napoleon's massed battalion columns. However, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars most nations abandoned the line in favor of the shock-power of the dense column. In U.S. military schools, they taught the value of the line as a defensive formation but emphasized the column for offensive manuever. However, Civil War units rarely manuevered in the dense columns employed by European armies. Loose columns, a succession of lines - 'waves' - were used, being better suited to the American volunteer. This gave the column less mass but made it much more flexible and cut casualties on approach. Even then, the volume of musket fire and canister shot encountered in the last several hundred yards of any attack usually wrecked the head of the column and often stopped the succeeding waves. Utmost valor and discipline were needed to push on to the objective - green troops usually gave way and bolted, while veterans sought cover, or stood upright and exchanged vollys with the enemy at the closest range until one side or the other gave way. This happened in the Wheatfield during the battle of Gettysburg, with part of the firefight carried on at 40 yards, neither side giving ground until the issue was decided on their flanks. Where European-style dense columns were employed for the attack - as at Kenesaw Mountain (1864), casualties were frightful. The officers who ordered these attacks were brave but misguided and foolish and not recognizing the new realities of modern warfare. By 1863, officers and men adjusted their tactics. Concealment and cover were used to a greater extent. The front was no longer lines of men facing each other arrayed over half a dozen miles. Trench-systems began to be built, then became more elaborate. By 1864, Virginia and northwest Georgia became scarred by hundreds of miles of trenches, not unlike WWI. Petersburg and Atlanta became miniature Verduns. These defenses increased the strength of the defenders. Concentration of artillery, now a defensive weapon, interlocking fields of fire, wire obstacles, made offensives prohibitive and suicidal. New tactics were experimented with - open order - attacks in 'rushes' - but generally the same old offense was used. At the 'Hell Hole' in Georgia, Hooker lost ten times as many men as the defenders. The trenches also increased the area over which a battle might be fought - fewer men holding more front. At Peterburg, Lee with 40,000 men held 35 miles of entrenchments against an army three times as large. A 'trench warfare stalemate' like we'd see in WWI was averted because the Confederacy was physically and materialy exhausted. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Typical assault formation - of a Union division at Fredericksburg: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (skirmishers) 14th Indiana 28th New Jersey 24th New Jersey 7th W Virgina ________________ _______________ _______________ ____________ _______________ ______________ _______________ ___________ (Kimball's Brigade) 4th New York 132d Penn 10th New York _____________ _____________ _____________ _____________ ____________ _____________ (Andrew's Brigade 108th New York 130th Penn 14th Conn _____________ _____________ ___________ _____________ _____________ ___________ (Palmer's Brigade) The regiments of each brigade were deployed in a double line. The spacing between brigades was about 150 yards - but gradually closed during the attack - and by the time the assault hit the objective the lines would become intermingled. (Sources: Bruce Catton, "A Stillnes at Appomattox" "The American Way of War" "Civil War Battles", Johnson and McLaughlin "Lincoln and His Generals") mike schmitt