eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) (04/10/90)
From: eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) In <15267@cbnews.ATT.COM> David Emery wrote: > One of the more controversial policies during the Civil War was that > regiments were treated as "non-renewable resources". Rather than > refilling a depleted regiment (black or white) with new soldiers, the > Union Army instead replaced the entire regiment with a new one > (usually green), and they got predictable results. Soviet operational doctrine does things this way; they burn up whole formations, dissolve them and use the few survivors for cadre or repple-depple. By contrast, U.S. and NATO doctrine is (when possible) to rotate a formation out when it's taken 40%-60% casualities and rebuild it. My source for this was an article on the armies of Europe in an S&T years back. They didn't speculate on the reasoning behind the Soviet policy, but my guess is that it reflects 1) the higher cost of transport, and 2) Soviet need to minimize command-and-control complexity due to the relatively poor quality of their troops and officers. -- Eric S. Raymond = eric@snark.uu.net (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
greg@ncelvax.UUCP (Gregory K. Ramsey) (04/10/90)
From: greg@ncelvax.UUCP (Gregory K. Ramsey)
I am posting this for a fellow inmate here at the lab.
******************************************************
I just finished reading Battle Cry of Freedom, a one volume history of
the Civil War. It cleary describes the tactics and weapons used in
the conflict, along with the political happenings of the period.
As with any war the tactics used in the Civil War were based upon the
previous war, the Mexican War. In the Mexican War the main weapon was
the smoothbore musket, a standby for decades. They were very
inaccurate, belligerents had to close to within 60 yards to have
maximum effectiveness. And after a few volleys, the force with the
most discipline remaining would carry out a bayonet charge against the
other. This was standard practice throughout the world through much of
the late 18th and most of the 19th century. Until the advent of the
rifle...
At the beginning of the Civil War, rifles were relatively few, but as
the war progressed the casualties began to mount. Frontal assualts
were still the order of the day; Gettysburg, Fredricksburg, and other
places classic style wave attacks were stopped with horrific force.
In the last years of the Civil War earthworks and trenches became the
standard method of survival. Everytime an army camped near the enemy
earthworks were thrown up. The spade became as important as the rifle.
And artillery was ineffective against earthworks, as shown by Fort
Wagner in the movie. Other masonary forts, such as Fort Sumtner, were
reduced to rubble.
The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the black regiment in the movie was
not disbanded right after the attack on Fort Wagner. As was the
practice of the time decimated regiments remained together, and others
were raised and numbered accordingly. So at the end of the war, older
regiments were very small.
180,000 black soldiers served in the Civil War, 60,000 became casualties.
Generally, they guarded supply depots in the rear areas or manned supply
trains. However, whenever they got into a fight they fought with
a vengance, and with valor. Also, it was the policy of the Confederate
forces to kill any black soldier and his white officer captured, any of
the black soldiers not killed outright were sold into slavery.
Charles Lindsey
Naval Civil Engineering Lab
Port Hueneme, CA 93043
****************************************************************
--
greg@ncelvax.uucp ___ Greg Ramsey
_n_n_n____i_i ________ Naval Civil Engineering Lab
(____________I I______I Code L54 805/
/ooOOOO OOOOoo oo oooo Port Hueneme, CA 93043 982-9720fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (04/11/90)
From: fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
In article <15390@cbnews.ATT.COM>, eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
:
:
: From: eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond)
:
: In <15267@cbnews.ATT.COM> David Emery wrote:
: > One of the more controversial policies during the Civil War was that
: > regiments were treated as "non-renewable resources". Rather than
: > refilling a depleted regiment (black or white) with new soldiers, the
: > Union Army instead replaced the entire regiment with a new one
: > (usually green), and they got predictable results.
:
: Soviet operational doctrine does things this way; they burn up whole
: formations, dissolve them and use the few survivors for cadre or repple-depple.
: By contrast, U.S. and NATO doctrine is (when possible) to rotate a formation
: out when it's taken 40%-60% casualities and rebuild it.
The U.S. seems to periodically use different approaches to using up formations.
Sometimes they keep them in one piece, rotating units in and out.
Sometimes they keep the unit in place and rotate personnel in and out.
The latter method seems to have had some drawbacks when used during the
Viet Nam thingie, such as increased morale problems.
------------
"Up the airey mountain, down the rushy glen,
we daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men..."
('cause Fish and Game has taken to hiring axe-carrying dwarves)major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) (04/12/90)
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
major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) (04/12/90)
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) > Another question, the all black regiment in the movie, was it disbanded > because of the high losses during the attack on the sea fort ? If it > was not disbanded, did the regiment continue till today ? The Volunteer Regiments, as such, did not remain on 'active duty'. Only 'Regular Army' regiments such as the 2d Infantry, 4th Infantry, 3rd Infantry etc...and Cavalry such as the 7th Cav and 4th Cav....ever remained on active rolls throughout the history of the army. Most maintained their lineage and honors, undergoing periods of being 'active' or 'inactive'. Today, for instance, the 1st Bn 2d Inf is with the 1st Inf Div at Ft Riley. The 3 Squadron 7th Cav is with the 3d Inf Div in Schweinfurt Germany..etc Of the 'colored' regiments of the Civil War - most were disbanded. "Black Jack" Pershing commanded a 'colored' regiment on the Mexican Border (I'll have to do some research into the history of the black regiments). The 10th Cavalry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers) was a black cavalry regiment doing duty in the western frontier during the Indian Wars, basically stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Today, the 1st Sqdn 10th Cavalry is an Air Cav Squadron with the 7th Light Infantry Division, Fort Ord I have not seen "Glory" yet, so I'm not familiar with the action being depicted. What was the attack on the 'sea fort'? The best my 'research' has come up with in any detail is at Petersburg (June 1864) where BG Ferrero's Fourth Division (Burnside's IX Corps) consisting of two 'colored' brigades, about 4,300 men, attacked through "The Crater" suffering terrible losses. mike schmitt
PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai) (04/12/90)
From: PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai) PREVIOUSLY ' Also, it was the policy of the Confederate 'forces to kill any black soldier and his white officer captured, any of 'the black soldiers not killed outright were sold into slavery. ' 'Charles Lindsey 'Naval Civil Engineering Lab 'Port Hueneme, CA 93043 While that may have been policy, it was not necessarilly the fate of every captured black his officer who was captured. Actually, not a whole lot were murdered, because there were many Confederate POW's in the North, whose safety had to be considered in the South's actions. In "The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant", Grant says that the first use of black troops in battle was during the Vicksburg(sp) campaign of May-July 1863. They participated along with white infantry in action in the vicinity of Millikens Bend while Grant was to the East of Vicksburg. Grant was quite pleased with their performance. **************************************************************** Jon Papai * I think of this project as Mater.Sci.&Eng * quite important, it is you Ohio State Univ. * I take lightly. Papai@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu * -James T. Kirk ****************************************************************
tiwasawa@netxdev.DHL.COM (Takashi Iwasawa) (04/14/90)
From: tiwasawa@netxdev.DHL.COM (Takashi Iwasawa) In article <15495@cbnews.ATT.COM> ssc-vax!shuksan!major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) writes: > >From: ssc-vax!shuksan!major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) > > 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. A few Union states did recruit replacements for existing regiments. I think Wisconsin was one. Individual regiments sometimes tried to find replacement manpower by using officers on leave or men invalided home to find and sign up new recruits, but these efforts usually did not suffice to maintain regimental strength. > In complement, a regiment consisted of 2 to 4 battalions. ^^^^^^^^ Shouldn't that be "a BRIGADE consisted of 2 to 4 REGIMENTS (which had only one battalion each)" ? I thought that Civil War regiments normally had only one battalion, so that regiment and battalion were usually interchangable terms (applies to infantry only). There probably were exceptions; didn't Berdan's 1st U.S. Sharpshooters have more than one battalion? On the other hand, the Sharpshooters were a specialized unit, usually operating as separate companies attached to various Corps. > Each battalion had 8 companies of 60-100 men each. ^ I thought the standard Union regiment was supposed to have 10 companies of 100 men each, giving a battalion (regiment) of 1000 men. Of course, even if a regiment had that many at the time of recruitment, deaths and medical or other types of discharges would start reducing the numbers immediately, so that a regiment would be doing well to bring 800 or 900 men to its first battle. > A 'trench warfare stalemate' like we'd see in WWI was averted because the > Confederacy was physically and materialy exhausted. There was no stalemate in the Civil War because the area over which the war was fought was large, compared to forces available (look at the distance between Switzerland and the English Channel, and compare it to the distance between Mississippi River and the Atlantic seaboard, then check the size of populations of Germany, Britain, France, and Belgium in 1914 and compare to the populations of the Confederacy and the Union in 1860). Even in World War I, there was no 'trench warfare stalemate' on the Eastern front, where there was room to manuever. > mike schmitt I enjoyed your article, Mike. Thanks! Takashi Iwasawa DISCLAIMER: The above article does not represent any views, opinions, or policies of any companies that I have been employed at or might be employed at in the future. On the other hand, if I start my own company....
mcgrath@nprdc.navy.mil (James McGrath) (04/14/90)
From: mcgrath@nprdc.navy.mil (James McGrath) In article <15496@cbnews.ATT.COM> ssc-vax!shuksan!major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) writes: > > > The best my 'research' has come up with in any detail is > at Petersburg (June 1864) where BG Ferrero's Fourth Division (Burnside's > IX Corps) consisting of two 'colored' brigades, about 4,300 men, > attacked through "The Crater" suffering terrible losses. > Actually, the black soldiers did not suffer heavy losses in the battle of the crater because the attack plan was changed at the last moment. The black soldiers were designated to lead the attack when the explosive-packed tunnel was detonated and they had been well briefed to strike against the flanks to either side of the explosion point. But Washington authorities objected to the plan on the grounds that it would appear that the Union army was using blacks as cannon fodder. They were withdrawn from the van and replaced by white soldiers. It was because the white soldiers had not been briefed and drilled on the lateral movement that caused the fiasco. They charged straight ahead into the crater and could not get out. When the Confederate defenders recovered from the initial blast, they lined the rim and slaughtered the (white) attackers trapped in the crater. Ironically, if the well-prepared black soldiers had been allowed to lead that attack, it probably would have resulted in a spectacular success.
geoffm@purplehaze.Central.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller) (04/14/90)
From: geoffm@purplehaze.Central.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller) Could someone please post a comprehensive summary of the types of combat units (regiment, company, division, platoon, etc.) along with definitions, typical sizes, and any miscellaneous information? I've never understood this stuff. Thanks, Geoff Miller +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Geoff Miller + Sun Microsystems geoffm@purplehaze.sun.com + Fremont, CA +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++