Common Misconceptions/Myths

[CSA Today]

How true, I started this about "Commissary Banks" nicknamed by Confederate soldiers for the food and other things he lost that they didn't have, but I'm sure they liked the better rifles they got.

 

[leftyhunter]

Unionist does not mean one volunteers for the Confederate army at all.......and one could be a opportunist and flip flop around with the fortunes of war.....it does not indicate any strong ideology such as Unionist however, it actually indicates the lack of any allegiance or morals. It's an insult to those who did have a true allegiance.

Unionist is as Unionist does. People have the right to change their minds such has St. Paul of Turas who at one time hunted down and killed Christians but latter became a Christian Saint.
Leftyhunter

 

[archieclement]

Unionist is as Unionist does. People have the right to change their minds such has St. Paul of Turas who at one time hunted down and killed Christians but latter became a Christian Saint.
Leftyhunter

Yes Unionist is as Unionist does.....which is remain loyal to the Union.

Volunteering for Confederate service disqualifies one as being a Unionist.....and yes I have pointed out many switch allegiances during war, it indicates opportunistism not any true allegiance, as that does not change.

He violated his allegiance to the Union by volunteering to serve the Confederacy. He then violated that oath by deserting. It hardly makes him loyal to either, just a dishonorable man whose words or oaths were meaningless.

 

[Saphroneth]

".......what myth of the War would you most like to snap your fingers and remove from the collective memory of humanity?"

That Confederate cavalry and Confederate sharpshooting was superior to Union cavalry and Union sharpshooting, usually said to be so because the Confederates had a more rural upbringing.

Union cavalry may have gotten off to a slow start but it got to be effective. Very effective. And a plainsman or a backwoodsman from the north woods lived by his rifle as much as a backwoodsman from the south.

I feel I should point out that there's a definite reason why Confederate sharpshooting would be better among line infantry, and it's that the Confederacy put more effort into teaching range estimation.

It wasn't much, except in Cleburne's division which did a basic form of the Hythe course, but there was definite effort in 1864 to determine what rifles were most effective at 500 yards (they found the Enfield seemed to be the best commonly available long arm). This speaks to more effort being put in than in the Union, where by the end of the war thousands of AotP soldiers had never fired their weapons (let alone been trained with them).

 

[Saphroneth]

Yes, they do indeed. I believe that photo (pre-colorized) was taken during the Maryland campaign, but I'm not sure. Does fly in the face of the Marylander's accounts (and even Virginian lady from Leesburg who is reported to have said "The Lord bless your dirty ragged souls") of the CSA troops they encountered marching. The thing is that Lucius B. Northrop had to have been doing a miserable job of supplying the troops in order to incur the wrath of so many. Probably not all, but many of the CSA troops were underfed and underclothed for such a period of time that it became a big issue.

Given that the Union army in the Maryland Campaign was lacking some thousands of pairs of shoes (and any spare clothing etc., especially afterwards, plus food shortages in October) it might have mostly been a Maryland Campaign thing.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

I feel I should point out that there's a definite reason why Confederate sharpshooting would be better among line infantry.......

Among line infantry. Point taken.

I was not considering line infantry. I meant that Union sharpshooting regiments skirmished as well as Confederate sharpshooting battalions and that Union independent sharpshooters were as deadly as Confederate independent sharpshooters.

 

[Sbc]

The myth: battle casualties were extremely heavy. @Saphroneth states they were not, they were typical of Napoleonic battles, and even somewhat low. Reality: the main causes of death and disability were disease, caused by poor camp engineering, lack of sanitary discipline, and extremely poor army diets.

They were heavy as a percentage of combatants

 

[Saphroneth]

Among line infantry. Point taken.

I was not considering line infantry. I meant that Union sharpshooting regiments skirmished as well as Confederate sharpshooting battalions and that Union independent sharpshooters were as deadly as Confederate independent sharpshooters.

Independent sharpshooting regiments is actually the less effective way of doing it; what you want is sharpshooters spread throughout the line infantry as it serves as a force multiplier.

 

[Saphroneth]

They were heavy as a percentage of combatants

Not really. Let's take a look at the deadliest battle of the war, Gettysburg, and compare it with a few major Napoleonic battles - Borodino, Waterloo, Leipzig and Salamanca. I'm going to count the whole of the Waterloo campaign and also the day of the main battle only, because Gettysburg was a three-day battle.

Battle​	Combatant​	Combatants​	Casualties​	Percent​
Gettysburg​	Union​	105000​	23000​	21.90%​
Gettysburg​	Confederate​	75000​	25000​	33.33%​
Waterloo B​	Allies​	118000​	24000​	20.34%​
Waterloo B​	French​	73000​	41000​	56.16%​
Waterloo C​	Allies​	230000​	61000​	26.52%​
Waterloo C​	French​	125000​	63000​	50.40%​
Salamanca​	Anglo-Portugese​	50000​	5173​	10.35%​
Salamanca​	French​	52000​	13000​	25.00%​
Borodino​	Russians​	133000​	45000​	33.83%​
Borodino​	French​	152000​	34000​	22.37%​
Leipzig​	Allies​	300000​	54000​	18.00%​
Leipzig​	French​	185000​	73000​	39.46%​

Gettysburg is not especially out of the ordinary. In fact it's quite similar to Borodino in terms of casualty rates, and it certainly doesn't stand out (unlike Waterloo, in which one man said "I never heard of a battle in which everybody was killed, but this seemed likely to be an exception" - though these casualties include wounded and MIA).

Lest it be thought that the death rate was high at Gettysburg, though, I should note that the Battle of Waterloo itself (which is very comparable in terms of number of men engaged with Gettysburg) saw 4,700 Allied dead as compared to 3,150 Union dead at Gettysburg. Borodino sees the French suffer at least 6,500 dead and possibly more since the count of dead officers at least is incomplete.

 

[wausaubob]

Independent sharpshooting regiments is actually the less effective way of doing it; what you want is sharpshooters spread throughout the line infantry as it serves as a force multiplier.

When defending units had time to prepare, I think the best shots moved to the front and the loaders moved to the back.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

Independent sharpshooting regiments is actually the less effective way of doing it; what you want is sharpshooters spread throughout the line infantry as it serves as a force multiplier.

I think that's debatable. Because Berdan's Union sharpshooter regiments were formed at the war's outset and employed throughout. And the Confederacy eventually saw need to form and employ sharpshooter battalions: http://www.cfspress.com/sharpshooters/

It was even deemed necessary to form a western counterpart to Berdan's AoP sharpshooter regiments: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B554ORI/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Some conventional commanders have always denigrated specialized units of any sort. The thinking has been that they draw the best troops out of line units and thus lower the overall quality of those units. But at the outset of every war specialized units have been formed to fill a perceived need.

 

[Saphroneth]

What I mean is that if you have a specially trained sharpshooter regiment or two, they offer their sharpshooting in a couple of critical places; if you train line troops (which is something you can absolutely do, the British trained every man in their army) or otherwise have it spread through your army as widely as possible you have it everywhere it might be needed and you're more likely to win every firefight.
It's not like paratrooper training. It makes the infantry significantly better at their core combat tasks to have even a little bit of sharpshooter training - if one side has 800 men with typical ACW accuracy (1/160 shots fired hits) and the other has a smaller regiment of whom 10% have been given sharpshooter training and have a 1/16 hit rate, even before considering the magnifying effect of improved range you get a situation where a 500 man regiment with 50 sharpshooters beats an 800 man regiment in damage output.

 

[Saphroneth]

When defending units had time to prepare, I think the best shots moved to the front and the loaders moved to the back.

Which is a fairly good method, if you actually know who the best shots are (which you won't know if you haven't done the minimal paperwork/training to identify them).

 

[Sbc]

Not really. Let's take a look at the deadliest battle of the war, Gettysburg, and compare it with a few major Napoleonic battles - Borodino, Waterloo, Leipzig and Salamanca. I'm going to count the whole of the Waterloo campaign and also the day of the main battle only, because Gettysburg was a three-day battle.

Battle​	Combatant​	Combatants​	Casualties​	Percent​
Gettysburg​	Union​	105000​	23000​	21.90%​
Gettysburg​	Confederate​	75000​	25000​	33.33%​
Waterloo B​	Allies​	118000​	24000​	20.34%​
Waterloo B​	French​	73000​	41000​	56.16%​
Waterloo C​	Allies​	230000​	61000​	26.52%​
Waterloo C​	French​	125000​	63000​	50.40%​
Salamanca​	Anglo-Portugese​	50000​	5173​	10.35%​
Salamanca​	French​	52000​	13000​	25.00%​
Borodino​	Russians​	133000​	45000​	33.83%​
Borodino​	French​	152000​	34000​	22.37%​
Leipzig​	Allies​	300000​	54000​	18.00%​
Leipzig​	French​	185000​	73000​	39.46%​

Gettysburg is not especially out of the ordinary. In fact it's quite similar to Borodino in terms of casualty rates, and it certainly doesn't stand out (unlike Waterloo, in which one man said "I never heard of a battle in which everybody was killed, but this seemed likely to be an exception" - though these casualties include wounded and MIA).

Lest it be thought that the death rate was high at Gettysburg, though, I should note that the Battle of Waterloo itself (which is very comparable in terms of number of men engaged with Gettysburg) saw 4,700 Allied dead as compared to 3,150 Union dead at Gettysburg. Borodino sees the French suffer at least 6,500 dead and possibly more since the count of dead officers at least is incomplete.

I realize you enjoy counting bayonets and thanks for doing the work for me. However the first battle listed proves my point. A numerically inferior force attacks for three days suffering as high a percentage of loss as the losing side at Borodino. The Russians retreated post haste, the Confederates stared down their opponents the next 24 hours. Shows the stubborn fighting quality of the American soldiers.

 

[Saphroneth]

I realize you enjoy counting bayonets and thanks for doing the work for me. However the first battle listed proves my point. A numerically inferior force attacks for three days suffering as high a percentage of loss as the losing side at Borodino. The Russians retreated post haste, the Confederates stared down their opponents the next 24 hours. Shows the stubborn fighting quality of the American soldiers.

It doesn't - not when it derives from the chronic lack of a pursuit corps in American warfare, along with the different results of the fighting.


At Borodino (like at Second Bull Run) the defending force is badly battered enough, and owing to the tactical circumstances of the battle, that they pull back rapidly because the attackers still have a heavy force in hand (the Imperial Guard) to exploit that the line has been broken - Napoleon doesn't throw the guard in, but he could have done, and it is this risk which is why the Russians pull back.
At Gettysburg, the attacking force is the one that suffers more heavily, but before this happens it's done enough damage to the defending force that the defenders are effectively out of reserves. This is why both armies can remain on the field the next day - neither force has enough troops left to exploit the damaged state of their opponents. (At Waterloo, for example, the defending side - because of their reserves and because of the arrival of the Prussians - have enough strength left to make a push at the end of the day and exploit the damaged state of the attackers; at Gettysburg there is no formed body able to do this, as 6th Corps has been parcelled out.)


This derives partly from the lower quality of American Civil War units (because they've had less training and drill, owing to how they're not being trained by experienced NCOs etc) as it means that units are less able to successfully attack relative to their ability to successfully defend, in general.

 

[A. Roy]

It doesn't - not when it derives from the chronic lack of a pursuit corps in American warfare

I thought this was an interesting detail. I'm no expert in military history and strategy, so maybe this is common knowledge, but I'm wondering whether a specifically appointed 'pursuit corps' was a standard component of 19th century warfare. I can think of Gettysburg and Chickamauga as examples where pursuit operations could have achieved a great deal. If this was a known strategy at the time, was there some reason it was underutilized during the Civil War (if it actually was)?

If this is off-topic and a distraction from the current discussion, don't worry.

Roy B.

 

[Saphroneth]

I thought this was an interesting detail. I'm no expert in military history and strategy, so maybe this is common knowledge, but I'm wondering whether a specifically appointed 'pursuit corps' was a standard component of 19th century warfare. I can think of Gettysburg and Chickamauga as examples where pursuit operations could have achieved a great deal. If this was a known strategy at the time, was there some reason it was underutilized during the Civil War (if it actually was)?

It's not so much that there was a specifically appointed pursuit corps decided before the battle as that generally speaking many battles were decisive, and the way in which they were decisive was:

1- The defeated force was broken, and it was broken in a situation where it no longer had formed reserves available to intervene (this does not mean the whole force was exhausted, just that there were no uncommitted reserves to resolve the situation - for example at Antietam the Union line in the north is broken by a Rebel counterattack, but commitment of 6th Corps on the right resolves the situation and so it doesn't lead to a disaster)
2 - the victorious force still has available sufficient formed troops (either reserves or still-coherent troops who have been committed to the battle but not "fought out") that they can follow up - usually with cavalry - closely enough to prevent the defeated force from re-establishing coherence.

The force engaged in the second role is the pursuit corps. Even keeping an enemy force harried and disrupted for a few hours is incredibly draining to the morale and fighting spirit of the defeated enemy (after a night's pursuit at Waterloo, Napoleon considered his army basically unsalvageable in less than a few weeks even with a fresh corps to build it around), which is why a pursuit is such a factor in a decisive battle - it's about the best way to wreck an army short of putting it in a box with no way out and then launching concentric attacks.

You can find examples of this sort of situation all over the 19th Century, though this doesn't mean all battles are like this (as the defeated power has to be out of reserves before this can happen - otherwise they can just put in the reserves and plug the gap). In the Civil War however no battles are like this, though there are some close calls (I think Second Bull Run would have had this effect had 2nd and 6th Corps not been close enough that Pope's defeated army could fall back on them) and this suggests that there are factors making it less likely.

 

[Saphroneth]

To clarify the situation further with Waterloo, it would perhaps be helpful to zoom in a little at Waterloo - specifically, to look at the British-Dutch force, rather than the Allies combined.

<content unrelated to the Civil War deleted by moderator>


Really the difficulty in the Civil War is in getting past the "break the enemy" phase in the first place - it was rarer - and when it did happen there was usually no pursuit force left (not helped by the dearth of effective cavalry). At Nashville for example Thomas even had to dismount and put in his cavalry to break Hood, and so there was nothing left for him to pursue with; at Gettysburg Meade had committed his whole reserve before Pickett's Charge (which would have also left him in massive trouble if the Charge had worked, as he'd have been the one facing a pursuit); in the Overland battles Grant can never get Lee to break from his positions (though Grant didn't have the cav corps around to exploit anyway).

 

[A. Roy]

In the Civil War however no battles are like this, though there are some close calls (I think Second Bull Run would have had this effect had 2nd and 6th Corps not been close enough that Pope's defeated army could fall back on them) and this suggests that there are factors making it less likely.

Thanks for taking the time with that explanation. This explains some things I've wondered about in reading about battles. What do you think might be some 'factors making pursuit operations less likely'? Characteristics of the commanders and their training and strategic orientation? Features of the American setting like terrain and logistics? Or did these battles just tend to become so unexpectedly fierce for the first few years of the war that the victors were too depleted?

Roy B.

 

[A. Roy]

Really the difficulty in the Civil War is in getting past the "break the enemy" phase in the first place - it was rarer - and when it did happen there was usually no pursuit force left (not helped by the dearth of effective cavalry).

I see that our messages crossed in the post. This partly responds to my question about what the factors were during the ACW that somehow mitigated against successful pursuits. Thanks for taking the time to focus a bit on this question. I'll be thinking about it as I study battles.

Just as an aside: Recently I visited the Bentonville Battlefield near where I live in Raleigh, NC. At the end of the three-day battle, Johnston had to squeak the Army of Tennessee out the back door over a bridge to get away toward Raleigh. Sherman, with greatly superior forces, declined to pursue -- I think mostly because his next step planned was to consolidate and re-supply his forces at Goldsborough before driving north to join with Grant against Lee. In other words, pursuit might have destroyed Johnston's army, but there were simply larger-scale objectives involved.

Roy B.