Civil War tactics

Oxander

Oxander

It strikes me (while watching Gettysburg over the last couple of days - in remembrance of the date) that the southerners would have been rather more inclined to use their traditional methods of hunting. That is, instead of marching in idiot columns, they would be lying flat, hiding behind trees, and just far more skirmishing in general.

In the larger battles, they more often played a defensive role, so massing behind walls or on ridges makes sense there, but just wondering aloud really. Most northern forces would be less affiliated with the wilderness and thus that way of fighting might work better for them in terms of discipline and organization - save for maybe the Old Northwest or Maine (i.e. the frontiersmen).

Anyway, I guess what I'm driving at is exactly why didn't the southern command allow for more of the effective irregular fighting that might have inflicted more losses on the northerners and especially affected morale? After all, history is full of instances where the smaller, less industrious/capable nations fighting less conventional tactics against the larger, more industrial/capable enemy...
 
9 Fanged Hummingbird

9 Fanged Hummingbird

Actually I think fighting was a little more irregular than modern depictions give it credit for. I recently read a book about life in the Civil War, and it had a passage from some veteran who described how before his first battle he thought that people really did just stand in straight lines and fire at eachother, but in reality while they marched to battle in orderly formations, as soon as the first shots started going off, people would disperse and do their own thing. Some might get on the ground and go prone, others would crouch, or hide behind any possible cover, others just might stay standing, as long as they were all still close enough to their officers.
 

Elfwine

The Old Northwest, Maine, the Midwest. . . the idea that the average Northern soldier was a city boy who had never seen anything outside his city but the average Southern soldier was a frontiersman is just a bad joke.

Also, this may interest you: http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Troops-Confederacy-Fred-Ray/dp/0964958554

That happening from the start (unlikely, that takes a LOT of training and not just "I hunted back home") would be as close as you can get to a skirmishing Confederate army.
 
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Elfwine

9 Fanged Hummingbird said:
Why are you directing that at me? I don't think I was saying that most Yankees were naive city-folk. :(
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By mistake.

:eek:

I was responding to your post as the latest post in the thread, and the fact my reply was really directed at the first one didn't register on me until you pointed out my goof.

My most humble apologies.
 

Genmotty

9 Fanged Hummingbird said:
...it had a passage from some veteran who described how before his first battle he thought that people really did just stand in straight lines and fire at eachother, but in reality while they marched to battle in orderly formations, as soon as the first shots started going off, people would disperse and do their own thing. Some might get on the ground and go prone, others would crouch, or hide behind any possible cover, others just might stay standing, as long as they were all still close enough to their officers.
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I think 'disorganised' is the word. It's fairly well documented that nation did stand in rank and fire, what's not true is that entire battles were fought in this manner.

Individual units fought in indervidual groups, generally keeping together so that a larger group would not be able to kill them via weight/volume of fire. However as the modern rifle developed, the volume of fire of a single man later with breechloading and percussion cap ammunition, was getting to the point where groups that were once 120 men, could reduce to units more like 30 men, for equal firepower. Since a unit of 30 men can move and be commanded easier (as well as get into and out of formation quickly) smaller units could do more, hence why 'light infantry' units developed seperate from the 'line infantry' units.

This state of affairs lasted all the way through the first world war as well tragically, and it was only with the development of infantry automatic weapons that the idea of rank firepower truely died.



Also one must distingush, skirmishing, from actual battle. There are very different tactics used in each.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
The only way to move in line is with the "touch of elbows", or formation and coherence simply disappears and any fool with a bayonet or sabre will cut through you like a knife through hot butter. Two deep with elbows touching is actually quite a loose formation, when the French and Prussians were using (successfully) 6 deep storm columns.

The real problem is (as 9 Fanged Hummingbird alludes to) discipline was poor and after the first volley lines would scatter backwards and thin out. They aren't moving into skirmish lines (and how could they with another regiment on their left and another on their right doing the same thing). They've dispersed backwards away from the firefight and are not involved. Most shooting was done by a small core of men and those directly under their officers supervision. Also remember as soon as a volley is delivered the firers are engulfed in a cloud of thick smoke and cohesion breaks down.

Mahone brought in the erroneous ideas that dominate modern notions of how ACW infantry combat was fought. Griffith completely overturned it in the way only he could (RIP) in this tome which the American exceptionalists hate with a passion, but it's gained more acceptance since an American has repackaged the argument.
 

Elfwine

Although it appears that not all reviewers agree on the quality of the book, to say the least.


“ Content is of major importance in any book, but presentation, balance, accuracy and many other factors affect the quality and value of the work. ” billmilwee@msn.com | 3 reviewers made a similar statement
“ So, not only did the author not engage the services of a good editor, he and the publisher didn't even hire a proofreader. ” Catman | 3 reviewers made a similar statement


When Amazon puts that next to the reviews section, I have to say my likelihood of buying the book drops several levels.

And I'm not someone in favor of "American exceptionalism". I'm just equally unfond of "the United States of the mid-19th century was comparable to the US of half a century earlier, which is to say, a gnat at best."
 

Elfwine

Mahonists?

http://www.google.com/#q=%22Mahonists%22+American+Civil+War&hl=en&prmd=imvnsb&filter=0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=9dcaf724e0185e54&biw=1024&bih=601

Funny, the only mention of that term related to the American Civil War that google can find is in this thread.

Or this:
MahonistS. The followers, in 1878, of general Mahone, of West Virginia,, who seceded from the ranks of the Bourbon Democrats.


And it would be like an iconoclast to pick a book that is regarded as mixed by the reviewers and claim that it shoots down a different theory.
 

Elfwine

Fiver said:
This isn't the first time 67th has made up a term.
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True enough. But it being an obscure term that someone else coined wouldn't be entirely inconceivable.

And at least "centennialist" comes up in more places than one thread in this site.
 

Rich Rostrom

DasTierInMir said:
It strikes me (while watching Gettysburg over the last couple of days - in remembrance of the date) that the southerners would have been rather more inclined to use their traditional methods of hunting. That is, instead of marching in idiot columns, they would be lying flat, hiding behind trees, and just far more skirmishing in general.

In the larger battles, they more often played a defensive role, so massing behind walls or on ridges makes sense there, but just wondering aloud really. Most northern forces would be less affiliated with the wilderness and thus that way of fighting might work better for them in terms of discipline and organization - save for maybe the Old Northwest or Maine (i.e. the frontiersmen).

Anyway, I guess what I'm driving at is exactly why didn't the southern command allow for more of the effective irregular fighting that might have inflicted more losses on the northerners and especially affected morale? After all, history is full of instances where the smaller, less industrious/capable nations fighting less conventional tactics against the larger, more industrial/capable enemy...
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Skirmishers cannot hold ground against formed troops.

Therefore, guerrilla warfare assumes the abandonment of all fixed positions, including all cities, and allowing the enemy to enter any area they want to.

This would have been instant economic catastrophe for the South. It would have destroyed the CSA's ability to administer its territory; it would have destroyed the CSA's control over its inhabitants. One must remember that support for the CSA was far from unanimous. Large areas such as east Tennessee were pro-Union. And the CSA raised much of its army by conscription - in fact the CSA initiated conscription well before the Union did, and had a higher proportion of conscripted soldiers.

On the purely tactical level: Southerners were only slightly more rural than Northerners. Skirmish warfare is not an enormously difficult skill. If the Yankees faced nothing but scattered snipers hiding in woods, they would not march about in unprotected mass formations to be easy targets.

Throwing out skirmishers was a standard tactic. I'm sure General Hardee's textbook of infantry tactics had a chapter on deploying skirmishers. Any close order formation would have skirmishers two hundred yards out, screening it from sniper fire.

And skirmishing is not an automatic success for ambushers. They end up exchanging fire with the other side, and they can get surrounded or overrun. Skirmish infantry is extremely vulnerable to being run down by cavalry; they can also get pounded by artillery with no counter.
 

Gannt the chartist

Skirmishers would have extreme difficulty taking or holding ground against formed troops. Especially if the formed troops were screened by their own skirmishers.

By the book (Hardee) the interval for skirmishers is about 12 foot vs. 2 foot for close order which gives serious command and control problems for the skirmishers. Typically the engagement ranges are 100- 200 yds at quick time a close order unit covers 80 yds a minute and at double quick 100+ and at best reload times are 3x per minute more likely 2, and that could be one round per minute in lying down. Decreasing with fear, fouling etc.

So the skirmisher might get off 2-4 rounds ( mostly at the skirmish screen) and face 1-2 in return (from the advancing skirmishers) on the defence before the close order body is in bayonet or very close volley distance. And your nearest mate is four yards away. Thats why Hardee has a formed body close behind the skirmish line.

In the attack they are faced with equally accurate weapons with 6x the firepower per unit of front and have to stop to reload.

I think there is some evidence that some troops - Cleburne’s being one unit - could be tactically decisive in skirmish order at 350 + yd but these are exceptional units and the yankees had them too.

Without exceptional troops this sort of thing is only feasible with breech or magazine loader (or MG) vs. muzzle loaders

Also where is the idea that the confederates were continually or usually on the defensive tactically.

I think the rural history is also misleading as most hunters would have been using shotguns or smoothbore buck and ball not the very different rifled musket.
 

lucaswillen05

Part of civil war strategy involved the use of raiding cavalry columns led by commanders such as Moresby and Forrest. In places the Confedderates also employed guerilla tactics much as DasTierInMir suggests.

However the main war was a conventional one as the military leaders on both sides were trained at West Point reading the European texts (eg Jominini) and gaining their military experience of conventional war during the Mexican War.

The Civil War was therefoe fought Consider Nosworthy's book on Civil War battle tactics., at least for the first two to three years using "conventional" battle tactics. But technology did impact on battle tactics with greater reliance on skirmishing/open order tactics and trench warfare becoming mor significant features, Quite a few of the magor battles were fought in forests (eg Chacellorsville, Chickamuauga, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse)
 
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Snake Featherston

Banned
The Confederacy did try large-scale use of irregulars. The Partisan Ranger Act of 1862 was the legal justification for this. The guerrillas played a forgotten role in the shift of the Union to the hard war approach, as Union soldiers gradually lost sympathy for Southern civilians when they got shot at and then everybody played innocent about it. The thing is that irregulars aren't necessarily useful in all situations or a panacea to every single strategic dilemma.
 
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