Battlefield wounds question....

[George1863]

I am interested in the community's opinions on the proportionate cause of battlefield wounds during the Civil War. I watched an online lecture by Gary Gallagher recently in which he mentioned that, on the basis of records kept by Union surgeons at Spottsylvannia Court House (May, 1864), edged weapons caused a little less than 1% of wounds, artillery rounds caused 10-12% and (obviously) musketry caused the rest. Gallagher suggested that this ratio (or close to it) reflected the wider situation throughout the war. I confess that I was surprised that the proportion caused by artillery was this low, having expected it to be somewhere around 25-30%, as you might find in Napoleonic warfare.

Not having the opportunity to discuss the matter with Professor Gallagher, I would be very grateful for any comment or opinion. As an after-thought, I wondered if surgical records might find it difficult to distinguish between case shot wounds and those inflicted by sidearms - but that's just the idle thought of a novice.

 

[JeffFromSyracuse]

You bring up an interesting point. The lack of artillery in the Mule Shoe fight (because Lee had hauled off his artillery just before the attack + the close quarter nature of the fight) may have kept artillery wounds disproportionaly low, in part because so many casulaties from the battle occurred here.

At the same time, the varied terrain made the usefullness of artillery a proposition that depended on the battle and theater, which would also impact the statistics.

 

[redbob]

I will agree that probably the battlefields terrain had a great deal to do with casualties from artillery fire and also whether massed assaults came into play where canister and case shot would be deadly. In WWI for example, it is estimated that 60% of all casualties were caused by artillery fire. With only the data from one battle being used, I would feel that this figure of 10-12% is low when all of the casualties from all actions were totaled.

 

[George1863]

I am becoming more perplexed by the (in)effectiveness of Civil War artillery. The Battlefield Trust website suggests the following proportion for each major cause of injury or fatality, again derived from Federal surgical records.

Musketry - 50.6%
Artillery - 5.7%
Pistol/buckshot - 1.2%
Sabre/bayonet - 0.4%
Unknown - 42.1%

Unless there is reason to believe that a high percentage of the 'unknowns' might be attributable to artillery, 5-6% is far lower a figure than I'd thought.

 

[redbob]

Perhaps the better question here is what did the dead die of as wounds may or may not be fatal.

 

[George1863]

Perhaps the better question here is what did the dead die of as wounds may or may not be fatal.

I believe that these figures are for all casualties, i.e. dead and wounded, excluding disease and camp mishaps.

 

[Tom Elmore]

Here are the Gettysburg numbers from my ongoing compilation (percentages are rounded to the nearest tenth so the totals don't add to exactly 100%).

Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (sample size: 2,078 cases):

Gunshot - 1,650 (79.4%)
Artillery (direct and indirect) - 379 (18.2%)
Artillery and Gunshot (multiple wounds) - 38 (1.8%)
Bayonet or Saber - 3 (0.1%)
Other - 8 (0.4%)

Meade's Army of the Potomac (sample size: 1,061 cases):

Gunshot - 735 (69.3%)
Artillery (direct and indirect) - 275 (25.9%)
Artillery and Gunshot (multiple wounds) - 26 (2.5%)
Bayonet or Saber - 4 (0.4%)
Clubbed or Butted Musket - 3 (0.3%)
Other - 18 (1.7%)

If combining the above totals, the artillery accounts for 20.8 % of the total casualties. I would surmise the latter figure is heavily influenced by the fact that there was so much open ground on the Gettysburg battlefield, which is more advantageous to artillery, as opposed to the generally more wooded battlefields of Virginia like Spotsylvania.

 

[jepridgen]

I'm actually thinking this is pretty close to correct. WW2 and WW1 both had high explosive charges on massive (comparatively) caliber pieces. Artillery also had forward observation and WW2 had precision fires for that time period anyway. Civil War artillery had black powder fired from often smoothbore cannons with relatively imperfectly produced rounds when compared to 20th century cannon. Aiming was via eyesight without optics, and they had no way to shoot accurately beyond line of sight. While it's probable some actions had a bit higher percentage from artillery, I'd say it wasn't that much more than the above quoted percentage. The difficulty of shooting a solid shot 3 inch rifle bolt at a line of infantry hundreds of yards away hoping to hit one or two guys can't be understated. The explosions from shells (which were generally air burst) wasn't as spectacular as the movies portray although I bet the smoke from the powder used looked a lot more impressive.

 

[jepridgen]

Here are the Gettysburg numbers from my ongoing compilation (percentages are rounded to the nearest tenth so the totals don't add to exactly 100%).

Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (sample size: 2,078 cases):

Gunshot - 1,650 (79.4%)
Artillery (direct and indirect) - 379 (18.2%)
Artillery and Gunshot (multiple wounds) - 38 (1.8%)
Bayonet or Saber - 3 (0.1%)
Other - 8 (0.4%)

Meade's Army of the Potomac (sample size: 1,061 cases):

Gunshot - 735 (69.3%)
Artillery (direct and indirect) - 275 (25.9%)
Artillery and Gunshot (multiple wounds) - 26 (2.5%)
Bayonet or Saber - 4 (0.4%)
Clubbed or Butted Musket - 3 (0.3%)
Other - 18 (1.7%)

If combining the above totals, the artillery accounts for 20.8 % of the total casualties. I would surmise the latter figure is heavily influenced by the fact that there was so much open ground on the Gettysburg battlefield, which is more advantageous to artillery, as opposed to the generally more wooded battlefields of Virginia like Spotsylvania.

Yup, lot of wide open space to shoot a lot of artillery. I bet the total expenditure of rounds for that battle is astronomical. There was also the largest artillery barrage ever on American soil included in that figure.

 

[George1863]

@Tom Elmore
That's amazing work. Many thanks. I hope you publish your compilation when it is completed.

@jepridgin
Your reasoning is highly compelling. Thank you. I guess my surprise is more that shorter-range canister fire did not 'up' the overall percentage more than a figure around 5-10% would suggest. Unless resort to canister-fire was much rarer than I suppose, which is also possible. Presumably the figure for Gettysburg includes a lot of canister-fire against the Confederate advance on the third day.

 

[Nathan Stuart]

In the 'The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion' prepared under the direction of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army there are 246,712 cases reported of treated wounds caused by weapons of the Civil War.

In Volume II, Part III, at page 696, a dissection of these cases can be summarized as follows :-

Number of cases

Wounds from artillery fire 14,032

Wounds from small arms fire 127,929

Saber and bayonet wounds 922

Unascertained missile wounds 103,829

TOTAL CASES 246,712



Unascertained wounds above refer to missile/projectile wounds that were unidentifiable because of their unusual or eccentric character.

If one ignores the unascertained wounds cases above, the relative proportions of each type of weapon wound can be represented as follows:-

wounds from artillery fire 9.80%

wounds from small arms fire 89.60%

saber and bayonet wounds 0.60%

TOTAL 100.00%

Of course these wound statistics do not necessarily reflect the same mix of causes of battlefield deaths (fatalities), but these counts provide some indication of the effects of different weapons on civil war related injuries.

These official statistics also only relate to wounds treated at field hospitals. Soldiers killed outright on the battlefield, or who succumbed to wounds before reaching treatment facilities, or who were considered mortally wounded upon reaching a hospital, were not included in this statistical count (they would have been recorded as killed in action).

 

[jepridgen]

@Tom Elmore
That's amazing work. Many thanks. I hope you publish your compilation when it is completed.

@jepridgin
Your reasoning is highly compelling. Thank you. I guess my surprise is more that shorter-range canister fire did not 'up' the overall percentage more than a figure around 5-10% would suggest. Unless resort to canister-fire was much rarer than I suppose, which is also possible. Presumably the figure for Gettysburg includes a lot of canister-fire against the Confederate advance on the third day.

The Confederate attack on the third day likely increased artillery casualties a lot. Canister is a unique situation, but some of those rounds had relatively small numbers of rounds in them, particularly rifled pieces. Optimal effectiveness required the charge to hit right in front of the target. Thats not always easy under fire. Close in point blank canister probably wasn't all that common. That's very effective, but also means you are about to be overrun. You have to limber up at some point to save your guns and crew.

 

[George1863]

@jepridgen

That is a great answer. Very many thanks.

 

[Cavalier]

@George1863 I am not aware of any effort being made to determine the nature of wounds inflicted on the dead, and wonder if any ever were.

John

 

[CavRTO]

@George1863 I am not aware of any effort being made to determine the nature of wounds inflicted on the dead, and wonder if any ever were.

John

I'm sure you're right. Maybe an attempt was made to identify the individual, but aside from that burial of the dead if they could would then take precedence.

 

[George1863]

@Cavalier - @CavRTO

I wasn't aware either but came across figures on the Battlefield Trust website that includes among 'casualties' the deceased. It's only logical that they do, after all. Their source is 'The New Civil War Handbook' by Mark Hughes. You may be correct and Hughes has extrapolated from data for wounds, or from a small sample where death certificates were supplied across the entire conflict. I have no idea at this point. My original query was prompted by a statement by Gary Gallagher that at least at Spotsylvania, this information was known due to records kept by AOP surgeons. It doesn't seem an unlikely proposition to me that causes of death would be recorded, where possible, in order to facilitate the payment of widows pensions, for example.

 

[George1863]

Further to that, I have checked Mr. Hughes' website: his figures do include the causes of death of Federal soldiers. I will try and get hold of it through my university and gladly report back on methodology.

 

[George1863]

Hughes' figures include the deceased with the exception of 'tens of thousands' buried on the battlefield 'without inspection.' They derive from an 1870 report by the US Army Surgeon-General. I wonder if this is the same report cited by Mr. Stuart above? Actually, it can't be because the artillery proportions differ significantly. Lordy, a statistical rabbit-hole. I will try and access the 1870 S-G's report. I suspect it will be a long, long read.

 

[George1863]

The 1870 report of the S-G is in six volumes, the first of which is nearly 1,200 pages long. It is available on 'Internet Archive' website, for those interested. Fortunately, I didn't have to read it all. Volume I is that drawn on by Hughes and the opening section reproduces a number of requests and general orders by the office of the S-G to the effect that all casualty reports (including deaths) held by army medical personnel and civilian superintendents of hospital facilities be transmitted for collation to Washington. S-G Hammond and Sec. of War Stanton intended in effect to memorialise the suffering of Union soldiers be recording for posterity the known details of wounds, diseases and fatalities. These records are itemised bi-monthly, starting with the Bull Run campaign, such that in May and June, 1861, we learn that 697 men of McLellan's army reported with gonnorrhea, of which none died; and that 122 recieved gunshot wounds, of which 34 died. What the report doesn't do is identify artillery casualties, sadly. But I am pretty satisfied that Hughes has used this archive extremely well.

 

[George1863]

I missed something when I read Hughes. The 42.1% of casualties listed by the ABT as 'unknown' is listed by Hughes as 'shot' by undetermined missile (field-gun, rifle or pistol). This obviously will have some bearing.