PART 2b - WEAPONS EFFECTS & TACTICS
The Spotsylvania attack as depicted in the Westpoint Atlas shows a formation with a density of 45 men per yard of front. Wright’s attack on the same day disposed some 16,000 men over about 350x25 yards or about 48 men per yard of frontage. Couch’s attack at Fredricksburg at 11am, December 13, 1862, arrayed about 14,000 men over an 500x400 yard area making a 28 man per yard of frontage density. The general tactical trend is for Civil War formations at Spotsylvania to be larger and denser than those of the Napoleonic Wars. This clearly conflicts with the portrayal by some writers for new and innovative Civil War tactics.
A comparison with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 confirms no great tactical innovation of the mid-19th century. The Prussian Guard attack at the Battle of St. Privat, September 15, 1870, disposed 6000 men over 1600x200 yards or a tactical density of 4 men per yard of front. Again, we find that American Civil War battles show greater density than European battles occurring only five years later. The claimed trend toward innovative new tactics is not confirmed.(fig.13 & 14) (fig.15 & 16)
Further comparison with the French and Prussian drill regulations of the 1880’s and 1890’s shows that the basic tactical formation continued to be the close battalion column. These formations were reminiscent of the French tactical formations of the Napoleonic wars as described by David Chandler in The Campaigns of Napoleon.29(fig.17 & 18)
During the Boer war, the British army continued its use of the close battalion column as a basic formation. At the battle of Biddulphsberg, May 29, 1900, the Guards Brigade was disposed in three battalion columns over 800x400 yards. This force was stopped and pinned down by fire from about 100 Boers at a range of 1000 yards. The brigades 1800 men were deployed on a front with about 2 men per yard.30 In August 1914 during the German advance through France the German attack at Blied, August 22, 1914, by the 53rd Brigade of 6800 men was disposed over 3500x200 yards with 2 men per yard of front.31 The battalion column continued as the basic tactical formation on both sides well into the war. The commander’s basic tactical problem continued to be discipline and control. The close column was the sensible choice made to meet that need.(fig.19 & 20)
Jay Luvaas in The Military Legacy of the Civil War, characterizes the civil war, in part:
It was a war of improvisation…the enormous distances involved posed new problems in logistics and increased the importance of river transportation. Railroads, used here for the first time to transport troops in war, became vital supply arteries… New weapons also were introduced or used on a large scale for the first time in war… It was, in short, a total war, the first great war fought with the tools and weapons of the Industrial Revolution.32
In spite of Luvaas’ claim of innovation and new tactics, in his own review of post-civil war commentary by professional European officers he could find little to confirm his claims. In fact, he generally claimed that Europeans had missed the evidence of tactical revolution because they were prejudiced against the non-professional led citizen armies.33 He generally found that few professional European officers “thought that the American campaigns offered new lessons” in strategy or tactics.34 Many of the commentaries reviewed by Luvaas concluded that the Civil War was in no way a war offering any great new lessons or insights and it was not “heralded as the dawn of a new day in warfare.”35 Many Europeans actually disapproved of the Civil War troops, their leaders, and much of the clumsy practice of both Union and Confederate armies. To the extent that European observers recognized any positive lessons from the Civil War, these were largely to confirm that the general principles and practice in strategy and tactics then existing among major European armies were essentially correct and required little modification.36 In spite of the fact that the available obersvations of contemporary witnesses saw nothing new in tactics of the Civil War, modern war proponents like Luvaas argue that new weapons and tactics made the Civil War a modern total war.
Edward Hagerman took up Luvaas’ argument in The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare. Hagerman’s major conclusions include the following:
The American Civil War ushered in a new era in land warfare. In this war, mass armies first experienced the widespread impact of industrial technology.
Early modern warfare was transformed most conspicuously by the technology of the industrial revolution. The rifled musket, the weapon that first challenged traditional tactical forms made its full impact felt for the first time during the civil war.
Offensive tactics largely in response to the rifled musket, developed in two directions: on the one hand, the extension of the skirmish order was reminiscent of the extended order of Guibert and the French Revolutionary armies; on the other hand there was the novel deveoplement of assaults by rushes, with the spade accompanying the rifle. The classical line and column of Empire and Restoration doctrine faded. As the rifled musket forced the Civil War soldier to dig in on the offense as well as the defense, scenes of trench warfare anticipated World War I.37
Both Luvaas and Hagerman base much of the claim for a modern war interpretation on the use of new infantry small arms and especially the rifled musket. Hagerman also claims new breechloading rifles were part of the transformation in tactics. Yet while some 1,700,000 rifled muskets were issued to civil war soldiers only about 77,000 Spencers, 90,000 Sharps and 10,000 Henry rifles and carbines were carried by these armies.38
Only about one in ten of all civil war small arms were breechloaders and many of these became available only in the last two years of the war. More significantly, about 40% of these weapons were carbines capable of ranges of not more than 200-300 yards. Thus, the claim that these weapons may have contributed to the impulse toward new tactics based on extended rifle ranges seems unlikely.
By the 1860’s European armies still made war with weapons, tactics, troops, and equipment largely unchanged since Waterloo.39 Very few generals had begun to recognize that major change might be needed to deal with the potentialities of the next generation of weapons and tactics.40 European experience through the 1860’s confirmed that the principles and doctrines of warfare had not changed since Wellington, Blucher, and Napoleon. Clausewitz’s work was a formulation of the traditional principles and rules rather than a blueprint for tactical revolution.41
The Prussian Needle Gun did not conform to the typical claim of longer ranged accuracy creating the need for new tactics. It was a close range weapon with its main advantage being rate of fire not range.42 Major tactical change was pushed forward more by rate of fire technology than range improvement, though together with smokeless powder all three had the decisive effect.43 In the Italian Campaign of 1859, French tactics were essentially the same as at Waterloo.44 Their focus on the little colonial wars of this period obscured the importance of large unit, division, and brigade, tactics and strategy.45 In short, neither Europeans nor Americans recognized a revolution in tactics because none had occurred.
When we look at the effect of the rifled musket on total civil war casualties the thesis of new tactics based on a deadlier basic infantry weapon is not confirmed. A common statement in many civil war histories is that there was a revolution in tactics in the civil war because of the effect of the rifled musket, attacks suffering very heavy losses and being nearly suicidal because of the new weapon.
When we examine the total battle casualties suffered in the civil war in comparison with the Napoleonic Wars this is not confirmed. In the civil war, of the largest 49 battles the average total force on both sides was 70,430 suffering 11,600 casualties at a per cent rate of about 16%.(data from Livermore, Numbers and Losses and Rothenburg, The Art of War in the Age of Napoleon) In the Napoleonic Wars, for the 49 battles between 1800 and 1815, the average total force on both sides was 121,920 suffering 23,792 casualties at a rate of about 20%. This is clearly the opposite of the expected finding based on the idea of the effect of a deadlier rifled musket. When we examine only civil war battles where both sides totaled more than 100 thousand we find only an increase to 17.5% as the average loss rate. The difference is then not really accounted for by the Napoleonic Wars having more and larger battles and lasting some 15 or more years. The largest four civil war battles averaged 121,978 total force on both sides and suffered about 33,300 casualties at a rate of about 27.4%. (Stones River, Gettysburg, Chickamauga and Spotsylvania) Here then, we begin to see something more in line with our expectation if the rifled musket had the effect stated. However, a similar comparison with the four battles of the Napoleonic Wars having the greatest per cent losses tends to correct this view. These four battles of the Napoleonic Wars being Waterloo, Borodino, Austerlitz and Eylau, showing per cent losses of 34%, 32, 31, 31, respectively. Again, we find that even a selection of civil war battles having the largest forces and the greatest per cent casualties do not show greater losses as is suggested as the effect of the rifled musket. The largest and most deadly civil war battles do not show greater losses than Napoleonic War battles. This information does not support the notion of a revolution in tactics resulting from much higher losses from the rifled musket. Civil War battles simply did not show greater losses than experienced in the Napoleonic Wars. The causative factor claimed for the revolution in tactics simply did not exist. Thus no revolution could have occurred and, in fact, there was not significant change in tactics resulting from the civil war battle experience.
Among the most telling evidence, showing no tactical revolution in the civil war is the following:
During the 1880’s the German Army had all but abandoned open order tactics. The belief that the increased casualties that resulted from dense formations were a fair price to pay for the guarantee that troops would remain under the direct supervision of their officer became widespread. The fear of losing control of troops in battle reinforced an entrenched belief in the moral value of the bayonet charge. The battles of the second half of the nineteenth century provided numerous examples of close formations attacking with the bayonet prevailing over rifle-firing skirmish lines.46
The controlling factor was, in the end, command and control. Prior to the development and general adoption of modern communication equipment, the bugle call, the range of a company commander’s voice, and speed of the courier’s mount determined tactical formations. This is the reason that the best modern doctrine of Germany, France and Britain in 1914 still called for the company column as the basic tactical formation, much the same formation as used against Napoleon.47
Some Civil war historians insist that the new tactics of the war simply went unrecognized by the narrow minded Europeans. Then why was the American army even more backward by the turn of the century? The year 1900 had come and gone before the American Army had begun to adopt real modern reforms. In Cuba, American gunners still served old blackpower pieces. A modern magazine rifle comparable to the Mauser and a new general staff organization were not adopted until 1903.48
NOTES PART 2
PART 2 - TACTICS
PART 3 - ENTRENCHMENTS
PART 4 - BOER TACTICS
PART 5 - RAILROADS
PART 6 - CIVILIAN VIOLENCE
PART 7 - DRAFT
List of figures and tables
WORKS CITED
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