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Ok, here's one...one that has baffled me since I started reading about the Civil War. What makes men/boys with single-shot muskets run towards the horrific sounds of battle/killing/death, rather than running in the opposite direction, as, say any other rational human being would? Devotion to cause? Because your friends/neighbors are? Because you are trained to? What?
Terry
__________________ "In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one." Abraham Lincoln - August 18, 1864 Speech to the 164th Ohio Regiment
All of the above. Devotion to cause made the men enlist into the service, officers trained them to load, shoot, and march towards the fire, and friends and relatives kept them from running when the heat was on.
Texas, you have just correctly outlined the idiocy behind the civil war. Napoleon and military resistance to change must take part credit. Nathan Bedford Forrest rode into the realm of legend because he saw that phenonenon working several times and without the benefit of military training, he decided there must be a better way. I believe he was correct.
Please don't get me wrong. I have nothing but the deepest admiration for those "boys", on both sides, for having the courage, guts, whatever, to do what I think would be the complete opposite of the human instinct for survival. ...to run directly into what they had to know would be certain death.
Terry
__________________ "In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one." Abraham Lincoln - August 18, 1864 Speech to the 164th Ohio Regiment
The training sure, the folks back home ok, the cause, or as I have observed it is your comrades. The one who you have been cold, wet, scared and lonely with. The one who you talked about what you are going to do after the war with. When it comes time to cross the field and kill the enemy you don't want to let him down.
I've noticed in my reading regarding MI soldiers, a lot of them joined thinking of it more as a Grand Tour (like people did of Europe). By the time they actually saw combat they were loyal to their commanders (mostly at the regimental and company levels) and didn't want to let them down - especially in the early days of the war when there wasn't a lot of fighting for weeks/months on end.
__________________ ~ Highfly
If you want to catch the Devil, if you want to have fun, if you want to smell hell, jine the cavalry!
I'll bet no one volunteered for flag duty twice? That was a necessary 'evil', however, because of the flag being used for orientation. Troop movements either side (flanks) were directed by use of the flag.
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