Common Misconceptions/Myths

To make sure I am clear on this, which is the direct order he disobeyed? We are talking about a courts-martial offence with the death penalty attached as a possibility, so the case has to be pretty solid here.

Also, "Franklin". No Y.
Ok, Franklin. I know, the "if practicable" does give Sumner a way out of getting Franklin to move against the West Woods but but it's clear that the repeated attempts to get Sumner to conform to the letter of the instructions of his superior during a battle could be considered as failing to obey an order. Sumner was repeatedly told to organize his command to form a defensive line and hold the line at all hazards.
 
My point is that if Sears has put together the account of the battle that you are using as your basis, then it is possible that where there are two interpretations in contention Sears may pick the one which is negative towards McClellan even if the one which is positive to McClellan is better or equally well supported by the evidence.

I think however that we should perhaps consider spinning this Antietam discussion off into a separate thread; it's taking over this one which is supposed to be a more general thread.
No problem. But one more thing to add. Sears uses Carman as a source for his account of the battle. Just because he spins his account of S. O. 191 that conforms to the most generally accepted one does not mean everything Sears puts on paper about McClellan should be discarded and the other interpretation accepted.
 
One pervading myth is that doctors & nurses over prescribed newly available anaesthesia, causing the reported rise in narcotic addiction at the end of the 19th century. Some veterans no doubt developed an addiction, but these were few in number- indeed those who were addicts were denied their pension !
 
Smith reached the fords about 0900 and were almost immediately ordered to reinforce Sumner. All three brigadiers report ploying into line at 1000; Hancock blunted the rebel pursuit of Sedgwick (with the 7th SC getting to within 30 yds of the gunline before being driven back by Hancock), Irwin to his left and Brooks was sent to the sunken road, where and 1000 he ployed to the right of French's shattered division, with Meagher starting his attack at ca. 0930 and Brooke cresting the ridge overlooking the sunken road at 0945. The cavalry crossed the Porter Bridge before 1000, and directed their horse artillery at the sunken road. McClellan even asked Pleasanton if he could charge it.

The Carman maps disagree with the reports, and the memories of the rebels who ran into Hancock's brigade ca. 1000 whilst chasing Sedgwick. All the timings fit with Smith ploying at 1000 hrs (and Slocum at 1100), but the Carman maps show it more than two hours later.

The Carman manuscript is missing 5 pages, and they are those the pursuit over the pike and the charge against Hancock etc. I wonder if these being missing have anything to do with many histories (which use Carman as their basis) missing it?
 
Smith reached the fords about 0900 and were almost immediately ordered to reinforce Sumner. All three brigadiers report ploying into line at 1000; Hancock blunted the rebel pursuit of Sedgwick (with the 7th SC getting to within 30 yds of the gunline before being driven back by Hancock), Irwin to his left and Brooks was sent to the sunken road, where and 1000 he ployed to the right of French's shattered division, with Meagher starting his attack at ca. 0930 and Brooke cresting the ridge overlooking the sunken road at 0945. The cavalry crossed the Porter Bridge before 1000, and directed their horse artillery at the sunken road. McClellan even asked Pleasanton if he could charge it.

The Carman maps disagree with the reports, and the memories of the rebels who ran into Hancock's brigade ca. 1000 whilst chasing Sedgwick. All the timings fit with Smith ploying at 1000 hrs (and Slocum at 1100), but the Carman maps show it more than two hours later.

The Carman manuscript is missing 5 pages, and they are those the pursuit over the pike and the charge against Hancock etc. I wonder if these being missing have anything to do with many histories (which use Carman as their basis) missing it?
I'm not going to use Sears so that I'm not accused of using anti McClellan authors. From Harsh Taken at the Flood;

"After learning that Franklin's Sixth Corps was within a mile and a half of Keedysville, at 9:10 the Federal commander sent orders to Burnside ''to open your attack". During the next hour, from 10:00 to 11:00, the news was of decidedly mixed character. At 10 o'clock the head of Baldy Smith's division (Sixth Corps) reached Keedysville".


Keedysville is 3.6 miles from Sharpsburg. It took 50 minutes for Smith's leading column to reach Keedysville. There's some controversy as to when Burnside received the order to attack but if we go by Burnside receiving his order at 10:00 AM it took at least 45 minutes for the order to travel about 2 miles from Pry House to Burnside.

From Col Ruggles, HQ Staff "General Franklin's command is within one mile and a half from here. General McClellan desires you to open your attack....." OR LI, P 1, p 844

I'm confused about the part that Hancock blunted the rebel pursuit of Sedgwick. According to Hancock's report the only mention I see that mentions 30 yards is during Cladwell's relief of Meagher's brigade at the Sunken Road.
 
Ah, that part of the evidence that the order (mis)timed as 0910 to Burnside was in fact the 0800 order that Lt Wilson carried. At 0800 Franklin's command was about 3 miles from the field, but at around 0900 Smith's division had reached the battlefield "in front of Keedysville", and were sent in to assist Sedgwick almost immediately. All three brigadiers placed the time they formed line in front of the enemy at 1000.
 
I'm not particularly sure what you mean by "wrong on Gettysburg", though I was going for some of the highest-casualty battles in both cases. What about if we look at all the Army of the Potomac's battles post-McClellan (on the grounds that the McClellan era has some number nonsense which we don't have time to disentangle)?

Battle​
U​
U Cas​
C​
C Cas​
U %​
C %​
Fredericksburg​
122000​
12500​
78500​
5500​
10.25%​
7.01%​
Chancellorsville​
134000​
17500​
60500​
13000​
13.06%​
21.49%​
(Gettysburg)​
104000​
23000​
73000​
25000​
22.12%​
34.25%​
Bristoe​
76000​
1000​
45000​
3500​
1.32%​
7.78%​
Mine Run​
81000​
1500​
48000​
500​
1.85%​
1.04%​
Wilderness​
140000​
17500​
66000​
11000​
12.50%​
16.67%​
Spotsylvania​
110000​
18500​
55000​
12500​
16.82%​
22.73%​
North Anna​
100000​
4000​
50000​
1500​
4.00%​
3.00%​
Cold Harbor​
112000​
12500​
60000​
5500​
11.16%​
9.17%​
2nd Petersburg (siege assault)​
62000​
11500​
38000​
4000​
18.55%​
10.53%​
Crater (siege assault)​
8500​
4000​
6000​
1500​
47.06%​
25.00%​
Five Forks​
22000​
1000​
10500​
3000​
4.55%​
28.57%​


The Crater's numbers are skewed because not the whole force is counted, but if we discard that one then the average casualties are about 10.5% for the Union and about 15% for the Confederates; as you can see, Gettysburg is the highest % of casualties for both armies of an actual field battle.

We could compare this with e.g. Napoleon's 1812 campaign (the whole thing) or Wellington's battles in the Peninsula (plus Corunna etc. for the brief period someone else was in charge).
Wrong about Gettysburg meaning the causality % matches a large scale European battle. You compare it to Waterloo which has little in common with a three day battle.
 
I'm not particularly sure what you mean by "wrong on Gettysburg", though I was going for some of the highest-casualty battles in both cases. What about if we look at all the Army of the Potomac's battles post-McClellan (on the grounds that the McClellan era has some number nonsense which we don't have time to disentangle)?

Battle​
U​
U Cas​
C​
C Cas​
U %​
C %​
Fredericksburg​
122000​
12500​
78500​
5500​
10.25%​
7.01%​
Chancellorsville​
134000​
17500​
60500​
13000​
13.06%​
21.49%​
(Gettysburg)​
104000​
23000​
73000​
25000​
22.12%​
34.25%​
Bristoe​
76000​
1000​
45000​
3500​
1.32%​
7.78%​
Mine Run​
81000​
1500​
48000​
500​
1.85%​
1.04%​
Wilderness​
140000​
17500​
66000​
11000​
12.50%​
16.67%​
Spotsylvania​
110000​
18500​
55000​
12500​
16.82%​
22.73%​
North Anna​
100000​
4000​
50000​
1500​
4.00%​
3.00%​
Cold Harbor​
112000​
12500​
60000​
5500​
11.16%​
9.17%​
2nd Petersburg (siege assault)​
62000​
11500​
38000​
4000​
18.55%​
10.53%​
Crater (siege assault)​
8500​
4000​
6000​
1500​
47.06%​
25.00%​
Five Forks​
22000​
1000​
10500​
3000​
4.55%​
28.57%​


The Crater's numbers are skewed because not the whole force is counted, but if we discard that one then the average casualties are about 10.5% for the Union and about 15% for the Confederates; as you can see, Gettysburg is the highest % of casualties for both armies of an actual field battle.

We could compare this with e.g. Napoleon's 1812 campaign (the whole thing) or Wellington's battles in the Peninsula (plus Corunna etc. for the brief period someone else was in charge).
One at a time. Compare the greatest tactical masterpieces of two leaders; Austerlitz and Chancellorsville. The French incurred 12% losses, the ANV over 20%. This is a back handed compliment to AOP, they fought hard though poorly led.
 
Wrong about Gettysburg meaning the causality % matches a large scale European battle. You compare it to Waterloo which has little in common with a three day battle.
The Waterloo Campaign is a four day battle sequence, with one day of relatively minor combat; the single Waterloo battle is a one day battle. I included both.


One at a time. Compare the greatest tactical masterpieces of two leaders; Austerlitz and Chancellorsville. The French incurred 12% losses, the ANV over 20%. This is a back handed compliment to AOP, they fought hard though poorly led.
This actually speaks to something important which I admit I have not been looking at thus far, which is that in general a smaller force should expect to take higher casualties (owing to Lanchester's Laws). At Chancellorsville the Army of Northern Virginia was outnumbered roughly 2:1, while at Austerlitz the French were outnumbered only about 9:7 - which is rather easier to overcome. (That being said, the French did outperform expectations to a greater degree than Lee if you calculate CEVs).

It seems though that what you want to do is to just assert that American battles are fundamentally different, somehow, rather than looking at a large corpus for both and seeing if they're comparable; would you be able to point me at which American battle in the sample set above you think is not directly comparable to a Napoleonic battle, and if so in what way?
 
Ah, that part of the evidence that the order (mis)timed as 0910 to Burnside was in fact the 0800 order that Lt Wilson carried. At 0800 Franklin's command was about 3 miles from the field, but at around 0900 Smith's division had reached the battlefield "in front of Keedysville", and were sent in to assist Sedgwick almost immediately. All three brigadiers placed the time they formed line in front of the enemy at 1000.

There's nothing factual about the order being mistimed. IMO, that's just an excuse to conform with McClellan's revised report of August 4, 1863. Besides Sears Appendix II Burnside and his Bridge there's this article on HistoryNet which should be of interest. For primary sources there's Smith's report in which he writes;

"...arrived on the field of battle near the Antietam Creek (meaning Pry House; HQ) about 10 o'clock a. m., and I was at first ordered to mass the troops on the road to Sharpsburg, ready to support the attack on the right or left, as might be required. In a short time I was ordered to form my division to command the ford across the creek, and shortly was ordered to a point across across the creek, and in rear of where it was then supposed our troops were engaged with the enemy".

Irwin's report should not be taken at face value as he was most likely drunk during the battle and was relieved of command; see Following the Greek Cross

Second brigade commander Brooks of Smith's division writes; "On arriving on the battlefield of Antietam, about 10 a. m. on the 17th instant, this brigade was sent to the support of French's division, then reported heavily pressed. On gaining French's right, I found that the enemy had been checked and repelled". It would have been impossible for Brook to have been sent to support French's division if Brook had arrived at 9:00 AM at HQ because French's division would not begin the engagement until at least 9:30 AM - half an hour later.
 
Smith meant the scene of the fighting, not the Pry House. Smith reached Sumner before 1000 and started formingd his division into mass (i.e. columns). Immediately news came that the rebels who had pursued Sedgwick were close to overrunning the artillery, and Smith sent Hancock forward. Notably, Smith placed the charge of the 7th Maine here, whereas ISTR Carman (and those that used his example) moved it to the late afternoon.

As Siciliano puts it:

"The next day, McClellan ordered Franklin's corps to join the
rest of the army before Sharpsburg. The corps left their encampment in
the rear of Rohrersville, in Pleasant Valley, at 5:30 in the morning
of September 17. Smith's division led the column, and its head arrived
at the field of battle about 10:00. Sumner, the commander of the Union
right, ordered Baldy to form his division closed in mass facing to the
northeast. Just as the leading brigade, the First Brigade, had been
placed, Colonel J. Taylor, Sumner's Adjutant-General, came galloping
up to Smith and said: "The enemy's skirmishers are advancing from
the front, and if you don't get some troops out there immediately,
our artillery will be captured." Without referring the matter to
Sumner, Smith directed Hancock to deploy his force under Taylor's
guidance. Hancock's brigade drove away the Confederate skirmishers,
who had advanced close to the batteries. Hancock detached some companies
to occupy some buildings and fences in front of his position. The
Confederates moved up two batteries and opened fire on Hancock's position.
Despite severe enemy artillery fire, Hancock's skirmishers and artillery
silenced the Confederate batteries and forced their withdrawal with
the loss of several limbers. The First Brigade assisted in saving two
batteries and held its position during the remainder of the action,
sometimes under very heavy artillery fire.'

The next brigade to arrive was Smith's Third Brigade under
Irwin. Smith formed up the brigade and ordered it forward to meet the
approaching enemy. The brigade, animated by the words and examples
of Smith and its own officers, dashed at the enemy and was soon hotly
engaged with them. The Confederates could not endure the brigade charge
and broke in confusion. They drove the Confederates to the little
church at the edge of the woods, but at this point a severe flank fire
from the woods on the right threw the Thirty-Third and Seventy-Seventh
New York slightly into confusion. Smith riding along the line and
discovering the advanced and unprotected position of the two regiments,
sent an aide to order them to retire. They closed up, faced by the rear
rank, and poured in a close and scorching fire, driving back and
scattering the enemy. The men were then ordered to lie down behind the
crest of a slope facing the woods and open ground to its right. The
rest of the brigade was ordered to face to their proper front and
form behind a crest nearly at right angles to the other. 148

With Irwin being heavily engaged, Smith sent back for Brooks'
brigade to support Irwin. Smith intended to place Brooks on Irwin's
left in front of the Hagerstown turnpike. In this position, Brooks'
right could also take advantage of the crest which shielded Irwin's
brigade. Without Smith's knowledge or consent, however, Sumner ordered
Brooks' brigade to reinforce General French's brigade which had nearly
expended its ammunition. On reaching French's right, Brooks found
that the enemy had been checked and repelled. The brigade then occupied
a position on French's right, which situated it on Irwin's left.
Brooks stayed there for the remainder of the day and night, frequently
coming under enemy artillery fire. Smith later complained in his report
about this detachment of Brooks' brigade: "It is not the first or
second time during a battle that my command has been dispersed by
orders from an officer superior in rank to the general commanding
this corps, and I must assert that I have never known any good to arise
from such a method of fighting a battle, and think the contrary rule
should be adopted of keeping commands intact." 149

By this time, Franklin had come up and Smith reported his
movements and position to him. After talking matters over, the two
generals agreed that they could make an assault on the Confederate left
without repeating the tactical blunders made in the previous assaults.
Franklin went to Sumner and told him his plans, but Sumner disapproved
them since the repulse of the Sixth Corps would imperil the safety of
the army."
 
There's nothing factual about the order being mistimed. IMO, that's just an excuse to conform with McClellan's revised report of August 4, 1863.
and every other timing.

The 0910 order is clearly a repeat of the 0800 order. Hence the different situations on the right being mentioned. In the 0800 (and 0910 repeat) Hooker is driving the enemy and Mansfield is coming into action. In the other 0910 the right is suffering and Hooker and Mansfield are both down.
 
The Waterloo Campaign is a four day battle sequence, with one day of relatively minor combat; the single Waterloo battle is a one day battle. I included


This actually speaks to something important which I admit I have not been looking at thus far, which is that in general a smaller force should expect to take higher casualties (owing to Lanchester's Laws). At Chancellorsville the Army of Northern Virginia was outnumbered roughly 2:1, while at Austerlitz the French were outnumbered only about 9:7 - which is rather easier to overcome. (That being said, the French did outperform expectations to a greater degree than Lee if you calculate CEVs).

It seems though that what you want to do is to just assert that American battles are fundamentally different, somehow, rather than looking at a large corpus for both and seeing if they're comparable; would you be able to point me at which American battle in the sample set above you think is not directly comparable to a Napoleonic battle, and if so in what way?
Your sample set provides poor comparisons. I already listed two that were better examples. Compare Murfreesboro and Eylau; similar results, similar season, equally matched armies.
CSA 33% loss
USA 30% loss

French 33% loss (estimates vary widely)
Russians 31% loss

Waterloo/Gettysburg is an extremely poor comparison and including the campaign makes your choice worse. It is not my assertion, it is fact the the ACW and Napoleonic conflicts were wholly different. You posted a rather in depth reason for the difference in the cavalry arm but your post was deleted. Can you refute any of the numbers of the three battles I have mentioned?
 
The Waterloo Campaign is a four day battle sequence, with one day of relatively minor combat; the single Waterloo battle is a one day battle. I included both.

Waterloo involved 3 armies, neutral ground, multiple nationalities, relatively few terrain obstacles, divergent supply lines, and lots more cavalry that played a key role.
 
Your sample set provides poor comparisons. I already listed two that were better examples. Compare Murfreesboro and Eylau; similar results, similar season, equally matched armies.
CSA 33% loss
USA 30% loss

French 33% loss (estimates vary widely)
Russians 31% loss

Waterloo/Gettysburg is an extremely poor comparison and including the campaign makes your choice worse. It is not my assertion, it is fact the the ACW and Napoleonic conflicts were wholly different. You posted a rather in depth reason for the difference in the cavalry arm but your post was deleted. Can you refute any of the numbers of the three battles I have mentioned?

I'm not sure how what you've posted here in any way disproves the assertion that ACW battles and Napoleonic battles are fundamentally comparable. Remember, I said they were "on par with Napoleonic battles in percentage terms"; the example you've picked seems to confirm this rather than dispute it.
Thus either I've missed something or we're agreeing at great length (that Napoleonic battles and ACW battles were fundamentally similar in terms of casualty count, or at least occupied a similar space).


As for Waterloo and Gettysburg, well, Gettysburg is the highest-casualty battle of the Civil War and involves three days of fighting. Waterloo is an immediately recognizable battle and the campaign involves three days of fighting (out of a four day campaign) so it's not an immediately ridiculous comparison; more to the point it's a recognizable comparison.


Something I do want to point out though is that if you point to higher casualties for the attacker (at Chancellorsville) as evidence of American superiority then that's not really something that follows without further examination. If you have two victorious battles of equal size where the defeated enemy suffers equally heavily, but in one of them the attacker sustains more casualties, this can be the result of a lack of finesse on the attack as well as a greater stoicism in the defence (as either would explain the observed information); Lee's comment at Chancellorsville that he'd have done better with Prussian discipline seems to suggest that perhaps the issue is partly related to the quality of the attackers. Of course it's also worth realizing that the defenders at Austerlitz inflicted 1 French casualty for every ten defenders, and about the same ratio obtains at Chancellorsville; the higher casualty count for the attackers at Chancellorsville may simply be the smaller size of the Confederate force relative to the Union one.
There's insufficient information to determine this by itself.
 
As for the question of whether Napoleonic and Civil War battles were different, I would agree that they definitely had differences, but it's not to do with any special quality of being American - or because of the advance of technology. Instead it's a systemic result of the duration of the Civil War and the nature of the armies which fought it.

The primary arms and their weapons in both wars roughly amounted to:

Artillery:
Cannon capable of firing shell, solid shot and canister (and which used all three, though the use of shrapnel shell was only just coming in in the Napoleonic Wars) were used in both wars.
The Civil War saw the presence of longer ranged rifled cannon, but the Napoleonic Wars saw a much greater prevalence of trained artillerymen and so the range improvement from the longer ranged rifled cannon was not all it could be; the greater range offered by rifled cannon was not fully realized in most cases (since there was not time to train a full corps of gunners).
Most uses of artillery in the Civil War fundamentally match Napoleon, though there are tactical uses of artillery which are missing (such as fully integrated artillery accompanying an assault column to provide fire support at short range).

Cavalry:
Cavalry armed with long arms to allow them to serve as infantry, or armed with melee weapons, appear in both wars; breechloaders and repeaters are Napoleonic only.
Napoleonic cavalry was superior in mounted action and numerous enough to serve in decisive ways on the battlefield; American cavalry was somewhat more capable of dismounted action, though the extent to which this is because they never really faced enemy shock action is less clear (since the shock cavalry revolution was on the same side as the cavalry armed primarily with repeaters). This resulted in the employment of cavalry suffering compared to the Napoleonic period, and the reason for this is partly due to the length of the war (as it means that it takes a long time to get together a properly sized corps of trained cavalry) and partly due to tactical issues (as there's a tendency to detach the cavalry for deep raids instead of handling the "normal" cavalry jobs; Napoleonic cavalry arms were usually large enough to do both).

Infantry:
In the Napoleonic War, most infantry were armed with the smoothbore musket, and some specialists were armed with rifles.
In the Civil War, the percussion musket and the rifle musket make up the overwhelming majority of weapons; some specialists have sharpshooter and range estimation training, but most do not.
The result of this is that the infantry's individual capabilities are quite similar (and indeed there is statistically no difference between smoothbore musket and rifle-musket in the Civil War). There are some specialists who can provide long range sharpshooting, but most of the infantry is able to fight at point blank range (100-150 yards - the range at which a weapon pointed level at the enemy is more likely than not to hit) and not really at a greater distance.
There is less sophistication of drill in the infantry because most of the infantry is not well trained, since the army has expanded enormously and it's done it without breaking up for cadre; this is entirely what we should expect, as very few men in the Civil War have had the luxury of drilling for multiple years and almost nobody has done so under the direction of trained NCOs able to spot and correct mistakes.


Most of the differences between Napoleonic warfare and Civil War warfare are the result of a lack of training on the part of the ACW soldiers, and so ACW warfare looks like "poorly trained Napoleonic warfare" missing many of the elements of sophistication that Napoleonic warfare brought in (columnar assault, mixed order etc). If the ACW soldiers had been better trained then they would not have just produced "Napoleonic warfare", though, because if they'd been better trained then they would have been able to use the expanded capabilities brought on by the rifle-musket, rifled artillery and so on.

That however most likely requires a longer war, or a larger pre-war American army.
 
Replies to posts 271 & 272 will be posted on the Battles Forum: Antietam

Edit by moderator: Reply in New Thread in Antietam sub-Forum here
 
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I'm not sure how what you've posted here in any way disproves the assertion that ACW battles and Napoleonic battles are fundamentally comparable. Remember, I said they were "on par with Napoleonic battles in percentage terms"; the example you've picked seems to confirm this rather than dispute it.
Thus either I've missed something or we're agreeing at great length (that Napoleonic battles and ACW battles were fundamentally similar in terms of casualty count, or at least occupied a similar space).


As for Waterloo and Gettysburg, well, Gettysburg is the highest-casualty battle of the Civil War and involves three days of fighting. Waterloo is an immediately recognizable battle and the campaign involves three days of fighting (out of a four day campaign) so it's not an immediately ridiculous comparison; more to the point it's a recognizable comparison.


Something I do want to point out though is that if you point to higher casualties for the attacker (at Chancellorsville) as evidence of American superiority then that's not really something that follows without further examination. If you have two victorious battles of equal size where the defeated enemy suffers equally heavily, but in one of them the attacker sustains more casualties, this can be the result of a lack of finesse on the attack as well as a greater stoicism in the defence (as either would explain the observed information); Lee's comment at Chancellorsville that he'd have done better with Prussian discipline seems to suggest that perhaps the issue is partly related to the quality of the attackers. Of course it's also worth realizing that the defenders at Austerlitz inflicted 1 French casualty for every ten defenders, and about the same ratio obtains at Chancellorsville; the higher casualty count for the attackers at Chancellorsville may simply be the smaller size of the Confederate force relative to the Union one.
There's insufficient information to determine this by itself.
Actually you replied to my original post with “Not really.”, when I stated casualties were heavy as a percentage of combatants involved in ACW battles. A point you have not disproved.
 
Actually you replied to my original post with “Not really.”, when I stated casualties were heavy as a percentage of combatants involved in ACW battles. A point you have not disproved.
Well, it seems to me that the chain of discussion goes like this:

Wasusabob:
The myth: battle casualties were extremely heavy. @Saphroneth states they were not, they were typical of Napoleonic battles, and even somewhat low.

You (in direct reply to that):
They were heavy as a percentage of combatants

Me:
Not really...



Which means that it seemed to me (and still seems) that your original post was contesting the idea that ACW casualties were "typical of Napoleonic battles" (as a percentage of combatants) and were claiming that instead they were heavy (as a percentage of combatants); i.e. that they were heavier than Napoleonic battles as a percentage of combatants.

What I have subsequently shown is that Napoleonic battles and ACW battles fit into the same space in terms of the number of casualties suffered; I have also shown that Gettysburg (which sees casualties on par with the Napoleonic) is the highest-casualty field battle in the Eastern Theatre post-McClellan, and that most others don't rise to the casualty heights of Gettysburg. (Spotsylvania and Chancellorsville are the second and third and are the more "typical" battles in the sample set.)

So, what is your contention about Civil War battles, and what battles are you thinking of to support it? Are you arguing that ACW battles are heavier in % casualties than Napoleonic battles (which I dispute), that ACW battles fall into the same ballpark as Napoleonic battles as regards % casualties (with which I would broadly agree) or something else?
 
I'm not sure how what you've posted here in any way disproves the assertion that ACW battles and Napoleonic battles are fundamentally comparable. Remember, I said they were "on par with Napoleonic battles in percentage terms"; the example you've picked seems to confirm this rather than dispute it.
Thus either I've missed something or we're agreeing at great length (that Napoleonic battles and ACW battles were fundamentally similar in terms of casualty count, or at least occupied a similar space).


As for Waterloo and Gettysburg, well, Gettysburg is the highest-casualty battle of the Civil War and involves three days of fighting. Waterloo is an immediately recognizable battle and the campaign involves three days of fighting (out of a four day campaign) so it's not an immediately ridiculous comparison; more to the point it's a recognizable comparison.


Something I do want to point out though is that if you point to higher casualties for the attacker (at Chancellorsville) as evidence of American superiority then that's not really something that follows without further examination. If you have two victorious battles of equal size where the defeated enemy suffers equally heavily, but in one of them the attacker sustains more casualties, this can be the result of a lack of finesse on the attack as well as a greater stoicism in the defence (as either would explain the observed information); Lee's comment at Chancellorsville that he'd have done better with Prussian discipline seems to suggest that perhaps the issue is partly related to the quality of the attackers. Of course it's also worth realizing that the defenders at Austerlitz inflicted 1 French casualty for every ten defenders, and about the same ratio obtains at Chancellorsville; the higher casualty count for the attackers at Chancellorsville may simply be the smaller size of the Confederate force relative to the Union one.
There's insufficient information to determine this by itself.
Being a famous battle does not Necessarily make it a good comparison
 
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