Military aspects of the American Civil War

[BasileII]

I know there are a lot of thread about the Civil War. But I still have a question. A century before, the Brits were mostly using charges with bayonets to break their ennemies. They did the same during the Canadian revolt of 1837-1838. And I now Napoleon's soldiers loved to charge rather than to fire in ranks too.

Still, it seems that the soldiers of the Civil War used to get in lines, firing by ranks, even when attacking defensive positions. I could understand that defending soldiers, equipped with new far-reaching guns (If I remember correctly, accurate even at 200 meters), would now fire rather than charge. But why would attacking ones accept to fire then reload and fire again with such a disadvantage? Are the images given in movies (I think about Gods and Generals) completely innacurate, or is it only inability to adapt and stupidity by the generals (the later one being always mentionned in every war anyway...).

Please help me.

[hellheaven1987]

Because...

Rifled-musket, which was the standard weapon of both sides, was far accurate, longer range and inflicted more horrible wounds than muskets. Hence, it was impossible to charge when the effective range of firearm increased dramatically.

In fact, the reason why the casualty rate was high in Civil War (static suggest a 15 to 20% casualty rate for both sides most battles) is because they tried to fight in rank, which the accuracy of rifled-musket killed everyone quick enough.

However, there are still some examples of mass-charge during Civil War; I have impression that it was one of favor tactic used by Stonewall.

[Perkele]

You are overestimating the accuracy, try 200 yards instead. Then add smoke and the casualties start getting quite much lower...
Anyways, the thing here is morale. You wont lead a charge if you think you can't break the enemy morale. And I very much doubt it was used that much more in earlier times either.

[Flavius Nevitta]

Well...this would deserve a very long reply but I don't have that much time right now.

Warfare changed quite a lot during the ACW as weapon techniques developed und different strategies came into play.

One factor for example is guns and artillery. The North had a huge advantage concerning weapons. The Southern troops were mainly equipped with old muzzle load muskets in the beginning of the war and also had a wide variety of different guns in use.

I'd suggest reading E.Porter Alexander's wonderful "Fighting for the Confederacy" if you want to learn more about the problems of supplies and artillery the CS Army faced (great book with great accounts on all major battles plus imho Alexander is one of the most intelligent and able commanders of the ACW).

He says it took at least up till Chancellorsville (iirc) until the South was able to properly supply their troops with better and more standardized guns which brought them closer to the Union. Still the Federals always had the better artillery.

So if you're constantly outgunned and outnumbered this already dictates some parts of your strategy. One of the reasons the ANV often chose terrain where the Federals couldn't properly deploy all their advantages (like Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Spotsylvania)

About the charges:

many guns were still pretty inaccurate, so firing in line is still the best option, especially because you can't really load the muzzle loaders while lying down. If you want to break the enemy the bayonett charge was still a very good option (although it became more and more costly throughout the war and rather suicidal as the years 64/65 show when troops regularly started to dig themselves in.)

Gen. Longstreet in his account of 1st Manassas talks about how the fresh troops were not used to reloading under fire and would try to retreat and only after some time and some getting used to it were able to stay in line after the first volley.

It even seems that the troops had a tendency to stop and fire instead of going for the charge. This exposed them to more enemy fire than necessary and cost much more time then going straight for the charge.

Alexander writes that one of the Union generals at Fredericksburg (don't remember which one now) orderd his troops to charge without previously loading their guns so they would not try to stop and fire.

In general the armies tried to win by flanking manouvers to drive the enemy out of their positions as direct charges often proved to be very costly (and stupid) like Malvern Hill, Gettysburg for the Confeds or Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor for the Union.

Another trend concerning charges is that while at the beginning of the war charges were often made on a wider frontline from 63 onwards there is a tendency towards deeper attack columns on a smaller part of the frontline (Longstreet at Chickamauga, Grant at Spotsylvania for example) to break the enemy by weight and have more support.

[Dr. Croccer]

The American Civil War is essentially the beginning of the development of modern warfare, with the first true modern war being WWI. In the ACW it became apparant that offensive armies were at a disadvantage and defensive ones were at an advantage, due to the massed use of rifled muskets, rifled cannons, repeaters and volley guns. It also proved to be extremely valuable to be entrenched, such as in the Siege of Petersburg, in which both sides were entrenched and conducted what was essentially trench warfare, though on a far smaller scale than WWI. Many of the attacks in the siege were similairly pointless and incompetent as in WWI. That's the paradox of trench warfare. Trenches helped reduce casualties by protection but also increased them by empowering the other side in case you needed to attack.

[Tiberius Tosi]

This is because of the increase in accuracy of both rifles and artillery. With the increase in accuracy of rifles, charges are far more deadly and less likely to succeed. Also, it was more effective for soldiers to fire volleys at each other because of the increase in accuracy of rifles.
The increase in accuracy in artillery played a small role in why soldiers no longer favored charges as well. First of all, they were more deadly and charging a position held by artillery was near suicide. Also, artillery would be pretty much rendered useless once soldiers were locked in bayonet charges, so keeping them at a minimum gave the Union in particular the benefit of continuous close artillery support while firing rifle volleys, therefore making bayonet charges something that was more of a last ditch resort rather than an appealin option.

The North, who tended to have newer, more accurate rifles, as well as more and better artillery pieces benefited from keeping the enemy at a distance. Mostly it was the improvements to rifles, but artillery improvements did play some small parts.

[67th Tigers]

Because...

Rifled-musket, which was the standard weapon of both sides, was far accurate, longer range and inflicted more horrible wounds than muskets. Hence, it was impossible to charge when the effective range of firearm increased dramatically.

In fact, the reason why the casualty rate was high in Civil War (static suggest a 15 to 20% casualty rate for both sides most battles) is because they tried to fight in rank, which the accuracy of rifled-musket killed everyone quick enough.

However, there are still some examples of mass-charge during Civil War; I have impression that it was one of favor tactic used by Stonewall.

This is a myth perpetuated by a certain type of ACW historian. In fact rifled muskets were not used at ranges greater than those of the Napoleonic wars (typically less than 200 yds, the average firefight opening range was around 100 yds). They did not hit more than Napoleonic musketry, and ACW battles are not on average more bloody than those of Napoleon. Rifled muskets required a lot of training to use beyond 100 yds. training the men simply didn't have. They used their weapons as muskets, and got the same effect as muskets. Barloon's research shows no statistically significant difference between the results of ACW firefights with smoothbores or rifles.

There were many effective bayonet charges, but not much bayonet fighting. This was not new however; bayonet fighting only ever occurred when assaulting posts in the Napoleonic period as well.

[BasileII]

Thank you all.