Did the Union or Confederacy Produce Better All-Around Soldiers?

lurid

First Sergeant
Joined
Jan 3, 2019
From my experience in the USMC, the south enlisted the most people but the north and Midwest produced more quality than quantity. I really don't know about the CW, except that maybe at the beginning the south might had the better quality soldier, but during the middle and end of the war it was the north. In all fairness to the south, a lot were conscripted and we all know a lot of times conscription constituted dissent. Subsequently, desertion was prevalent and it started to fall apart. It seemed like morale picked up momentum for the Union rank & file as the war progressed. Nevertheless, at the start of the war who had the better trained soldiers?
 
[QUOTE="lurid, post: 1972354, member: 25565"]Correct me if I'm wrong, the United States did not recognize any Confederates for any awards/medals/citation, but it certainty did for Union soldiers? Therefore, the Confederates were snubbed and we can't analyze heroism individually but more collectively pertaining the confederate soldiers. I think this is rather significant because it reveals and narrows down to a degree the "quality" of soldiers both sides produced. As result, the only measuring stick we have is to combine the subsequent wars the US fought and tally up all the Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and other medals if pertinent. It is clear that New York and Pennsylvania together produced more CMH winners than entire south did in its totality. Factor in the rest of the northeast and the Midwest and it's a landslide x 10, so it's clear that the build up during the CW and after the north adjusted and the tables turned.[/QUOTE]

US Navy's Civil War medal was listed in the “Blue Jackets' manual as late as the summer f 1956 when I was in boot camp. My entire training company was from North Carolina and I remember fellow recruits asking among themselves who is still eligible for that medal.


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Correct me if I'm wrong, the United States did not recognize any Confederates for any awards/medals/citation, but it certainty did for Union soldiers? Therefore, the Confederates were snubbed and we can't analyze heroism individually but more collectively pertaining the confederate soldiers. I think this is rather significant because it reveals and narrows down to a degree the "quality" of soldiers both sides produced. As result, the only measuring stick we have is to combine the subsequent wars the US fought and tally up all the Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and other medals if pertinent. It is clear that New York and Pennsylvania together produced more CMH winners than entire south did in its totality. Factor in the rest of the northeast and the Midwest and it's a landslide x 10, so it's clear that the build up during the CW and after the north adjusted and the tables turned.
CMH were awarded more frugally than in modern wars. They were awarded for capturing or at times picking up a fallen Confederate flag. I tend to view how the deceased were treated (often snubbed) over how many medals were issued.
 
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Correct me if I'm wrong, the United States did not recognize any Confederates for any awards/medals/citation, but it certainty did for Union soldiers? Therefore, the Confederates were snubbed and we can't analyze heroism individually but more collectively pertaining the confederate soldiers. I think this is rather significant because it reveals and narrows down to a degree the "quality" of soldiers both sides produced. As result, the only measuring stick we have is to combine the subsequent wars the US fought and tally up all the Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and other medals if pertinent. It is clear that New York and Pennsylvania together produced more CMH winners than entire south did in its totality. Factor in the rest of the northeast and the Midwest and it's a landslide x 10, so it's clear that the build up during the CW and after the north adjusted and the tables turned.
Er... have you done even the most elementary controls for population?
Notwithstanding that it's a terrible way to analyze 1860s unit quality to look at medal citations starting in the 1890s at the earliest; the only way that would make any sense is if military performance is genetic.



To get back to the point of the question, as all round soldiers both sides were terrible. Their infantry simply did not have a well rounded set of skills, failing badly at marksmanship and steadiness under fire (they could stand well, but not manoeuvre) and also suffering much more badly from desertion than contemporary armies of other powers. Their drill was also generally bad, and European observers noted that their discipline failed in combat - on the attack they would go to ground and return fire instead of continuing the advance, soaking up casualties in the killing zone instead of launching a bayonet charge. (This is common to both armies - Pickett's charge failed because the men stopped short and soaked up casualties for a long period of time, not because they ran into a wall of fire and halted.)
Most of the methods used are actually pre-Napoleonic, largely because the soldiers can't execute anything more complex; Upton's attack on the Mule Shoe was one of the most advanced, but it's decades behind contemporary European operations.

That is to say, the armies were not well rounded, to such a degree that it's hard to tell the difference between the two in terms of how rounded they were.

The only cavalry to get up to European standard was the Union cavalry in the late-war. The artillery was also not up to more than European average, because of the problems with their weapons - they were not capable of effective counter-battery on the same scale as Armstrong or Krupp guns.
 
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Thanks for that larger than usual deduction to Confederate manpower. Given your latest statistic, you have to wonder where were all those Yankees? It can't all be attributed to their more extensive desertion rate.
Not seeing the validity of your point. The Confederacy was loosing territory every year. The Confederacy lost so badly that Southern whites never again tried to secede from the United States.
A win is a win and no the Confederate Army was not overwhelming outnumbered.
Leftyhunter
 
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Essentially, based on the war in the East, there are two possibilities.

One of them is that Union soldiers were generally worse than Confederate ones, based on the occasions when the Confederates scored well in CEV terms despite being outnumbered (That is, the Confederates did better in terms of casualties inflicted vice taken than we would expect from Lanchester Square) and the times when Confederates on the attack outperformed Union troops on the defensive.

The other option is that the soldiers were broadly comparable, and that it was the quality of the generals which changes things around.


IMO... well, a bit of both. If you ignore McClellan you can make a general claim that "when on the attack the Union got a CEV result of 0.2, and when on the defensive the Union got a CEV of less than one"; that is, the Confederates outperformed CEV by roughly a factor of two both attacking and defending. This would imply that either Lee was a thundercracker of a general to a roughly identical extent over every Union general considered (Pope, Burn, Hooker, Meade, Grant) or that Confederate troops were generally substantially better. (If the two armies were equal then the Union attacking CEV times the Union defending CEV should equal roughly one.)
But once McClellan is included the numbers change. McClellan's offensive CEV times his defensive CEV against Lee is somewhat better than one.

The way to explain this that I think makes sense is:

In the Civil War in the East, the Union troop quality overall went down over time and the Confederate troop quality overall went up over time.
The quality of Confederate generalship remained roughly static throughout (it was always Lee).
The Union generals started well (McClellan), went downhill (Pope, Burn, Hooker) and then came back up but did not reach Lee's quality (Meade, Grant).


This would imply in turn that the best Union army was the one led by McClellan early on, and indeed it is this period when the Union army was outfighting the Confederate in both CEV terms and in casualties inflicted for casualties taken; it's also the period when Lee was caught by surprise the most often. Partly this is because of the higher overall quality of the Union army which McClellan built, but the fact that his immediately following generals did much worse than McClellan (despite having more troops in their army than he did against the same AoNV) indicates McClellan's leadership was also part of it.


The quality of an army is dynamic, not static.

A possible confounding variable might be that the AoNV was depleted over time (it started the Seven Days very large and then went up and down in size but on an overall downwards trend), but CEV allows for that. It would be possible to recalculate CEVs based on the linear law, but I've used the square law here (the fact that almost all Union CEV levels are below one means it's unlikely to ruin the conclusion.)


A fun side fact. McClellan's CEV at Antietam is almost identical to Meade's CEV at Gettysburg (both are about 0.7; this means Lee's CEV was in both cases about 1.4). However, at Antietam the Union army was on the attack; either this is a drastic drop in the quality of the Union army from 1862 to 1863 (where they fight only as well behind walls in 1863 as they do attacking the Sunken Road and Dunker Church in 1862) or the general has something to do with it...
I tried to google how to interpret CEVs but I would have to pay JSTOR $30 for that privilege.
I am familiar with kill ratios I.e. for evey X dead there are Y dead.
Not sure how to interpret a zero to the left of the decimal point.
If the Union offensive CEV is expressed as 0.2 then that means what? If a value of 1.5 was used would that mean for ever Union casualty there is half a Confederate casualty?
Leftyhunter
 
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Not seeing the validity of your point. The Confederacy was loosing territory every year. The Confederacy lost so badly that Southern whites never again tried to secede from the United States.
A win is a win and no the Confederate Army was not overwhelming outnumbered.
Leftyhunter

And do you think there was only a 1.86 to 1 ratio in those territories? My point was that the overwhelming outnumbered Confederate army had to withdraw troops from those areas to maintain anything close to 1.86 to1 force on more vital fronts.
 
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If the Union offensive CEV is expressed as 0.2 then that means what? If a value of 1.5 was used would that mean for ever Union casualty there is half a Confederate casualty?
What it means is this:

Lanchester Square implies that a large army will do much better than a small army. That is, a large army can easily overcome a small army because it can overwhelm the small army from more directions than the small army can defend (say) or by defending every direction the small army could attack from with too much force to overcome; the expected casualty ratio is the square of the ratio of the armies. So if army X is 1.5 times as large as army Y, we should expect army X to inflict 2.25 times the casualties that army Y does.

Now, this ideal situation never happens, because one army or the other is always defending. But the effect of one side being the defender shows up in the CEV.

The CEV is, put simply:

Based on the army sizes of armies X and Y, we EXPECT army X to inflict N times the casualties as army Y does.
But we actually SAW amy X inflict M times the casualties army Y did.

M divided by N is the CEV for army X. N divided by M is the CEV for Army Y. If X does better than we expect then M is bigger than N, and X has a larger CEV. (The CEVs for X and Y for the same battle will always multiply to one.)


What a CEV of 0.2 on the attack means is that the Union army took five times the casualties their numbers would suggest (or inflicted one fifth) relative to Confederate casualties; you could also say that the Confederates inflicted five times the casualties their numbers would suggest relative to the damage the Union did them.
What a CEV of 0.7 on the defence means is that the Union army took about 140% the casualties that their numbers would suggest relative to Confederate casualties.

If you have attacking CEVs and defensive CEVs you can multiply them together and take the square root. If the two armies are actually equal in quality then they should multiply out to one - that is, the only reason the CEVs aren't one is because of the effect of attacking or defending.

What actually happens when you multiply the attacking and defending CEVs of "Union that isn't McClellan" together you get significantly less than one, and taking the square root leads you to a number of about 0.5. This suggests that there's a quality issue for the Union; they can't even perform as well as expected relative to the Confederates when they're defending, in fact.

But if you take McClellan's attacking and defending CEVs against Lee, and multiply them together, it comes out a little bit more than one. This implies that during McClellan's tenure either the Confederate commander was worse than later in the war, or the Confederate army was worse, or the Union army was better, or the Union commander was better, or a little bit of all of them.



Without the battle of Gettysburg, and the battle of Antietam, it might be possible to argue that the defensive is just really strong in the ACW period. But Antietam's CEV (about 0.7 for the Union) is dramatically better than other attacking Union CEVs - and Gettysburg's CEV (about 0.7 for the Union, or 1.4 for the Confederates) is dramatically worse for the defender than most of Lee's defensive battles.




Here's a worked example, by the way, looking at Cold Harbor.

Union army size relative to Confederate army size: about 1.85:1.
Expected casualty ratio in favour of the larger army: about 3.4:1. (The 3.4 comes from 1.85 squared.)
Actual casualty ratio: about 1:2.4.
Union CEV: 1/(3.4*2.4) = 0.12
Confederate CEV: 3.4*2.4 = 8.2

Most of this is the effect the defender gets, but not all of it. Analysis which includes most post-McClellan battles in the East (including Gettysburg) suggests that the bonus for the defender is roughly equivalent to a CEV of between 2 and 3.
 
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Er... have you done even the most elementary controls for population?
Notwithstanding that it's a terrible way to analyze 1860s unit quality to look at medal citations starting in the 1890s at the earliest; the only way that would make any sense is if military performance is genetic.



To get back to the point of the question, as all round soldiers both sides were terrible. Their infantry simply did not have a well rounded set of skills, failing badly at marksmanship and steadiness under fire (they could stand well, but not manoeuvre) and also suffering much more badly from desertion than contemporary armies of other powers. Their drill was also generally bad, and European observers noted that their discipline failed in combat - on the attack they would go to ground and return fire instead of continuing the advance, soaking up casualties in the killing zone instead of launching a bayonet charge. (This is common to both armies - Pickett's charge failed because the men stopped short and soaked up casualties for a long period of time, not because they ran into a wall of fire and halted.)
Most of the methods used are actually pre-Napoleonic, largely because the soldiers can't execute anything more complex; Upton's attack on the Mule Shoe was one of the most advanced, but it's decades behind contemporary European operations.

That is to say, the armies were not well rounded, to such a degree that it's hard to tell the difference between the two in terms of how rounded they were.

The only cavalry to get up to European standard was the Union cavalry in the late-war. The artillery was also not up to more than European average, because of the problems with their weapons - they were not capable of effective counter-battery on the same scale as Armstrong or Krupp guns.

What does population control have to do with the price of metal? If I did a paraphrased summation of your posts it would be: both Union and Confederate troops were equally worthless. The only and universal reason the north won was it had more men than the south. They repeatedly did frontal assaults in attempt to overrun the enemy to no avail a lot of times but sometimes they triumphed with astronomical casualties. Sherman ultimately defeated the south because he fought a war of attrition/Carthaginian and because he had the numbers to do it and the south did not have the numbers to withstand it. Grant's army surrounded Lee's army at Appomattox because he had a 5:1 advantage. These are paraphrased examples that you folks repeatedly use in concert with almost every scenario discussing the CW, and it's mind-boggling.

Is athletic potential genetic? Yes. Is athletic performance genetic? No. The genetic potential has to be activated through training/practice and that's why I'll conclude the Union and Confederate troops had poor training or not enough training.

Thank you, your post was definitely interesting.
 
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CMH were awarded more frugally than in modern wars. They were awarded for capturing or at times picking up a fallen Confederate flag. I tend to view how the deceased were treated (often snubbed) over how many medals were issued.

You mean they were more liberal in pre Spanish-American War era and more frugal post. Preventing a flag from hitting the ground doesn't seem all that heroic to me. Agreed on the deceased, that's why the government has been posthumously awarding medals to fallen soldiers/marines.
 
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What does population control have to do with the price of metal?
If you say that region A earns more Medals of Honor than region B without assessing the relative number of soldiers involved, you're not actually measuring anything. It's like saying that California has more millionaires than anywhere else in the US without pointing out that that's because it has more people than anywhere else in the US.

More medals of honour per soldier? More per capita? Those are robust statistics which account for population. Simply "more medals of honour" doesn't.


If I did a paraphrased summation of your posts it would be: both Union and Confederate troops were equally worthless. The only and universal reason the north won was it had more men than the south. They repeatedly did frontal assaults in attempt to overrun the enemy to no avail a lot of times but sometimes they triumphed with astronomical casualties. Sherman ultimately defeated the south because he fought a war of attrition/Carthaginian and because he had the numbers to do it and the south did not have the numbers to withstand it. Grant's army surrounded Lee's army at Appomattox because he had a 5:1 advantage. These are paraphrased examples that you folks repeatedly use in concert with almost every scenario discussing the CW, and it's mind-boggling.
That's not really my view; I think you're conflating me with others.

I tend to view it to be the case that the Confederacy clearly had some performative advantage over the North, but it wasn't actually very large; certainly not enough that the only reason the North won was sheer attrition. McClellan's Peninsular Campaign for example was fought without major numerical advantage and yet it utilized every other Union advantage - control of the sea, logistical advantages, superior artillery and so on.

Honestly I think the biggest single advantage the Confederacy had was that it got lucky in getting Robert E. Lee and he became irreplaceably popular. He wasn't the best general of the war, but he was good and more importantly his long tenure meant that his good generalship was consistent.
 
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If you say that region A earns more Medals of Honor than region B without assessing the relative number of soldiers involved, you're not actually measuring anything. It's like saying that California has more millionaires than anywhere else in the US without pointing out that that's because it has more people than anywhere else in the US.

More medals of honour per soldier? More per capita? Those are robust statistics which account for population. Simply "more medals of honour" doesn't.

And I'm sure California has the most homeless people as well.

Region A is way more populated, therefore, it has the potential to produce more quality soldiers than region b, however, because it is way more populated it has the potential to produce more poor quality of a soldier than region b.

If you do a little study on genetics you will come to the shocking conclusion that the most populated areas have the majority of genetic traits. Narrow it down , a study on African-Americans concluded that they produce the most and best sprinters out all races/nationalities because their body codes actinin faster than the rest. Conversely, not all African-Americans have that gene to fire motor units rapidly, on the contrary, they have very little firing power which makes those one's very ineffective for sprinting.
Consequently, you have a race who has the fastest people and simultaneously the slowest people. Apply that metric to the north during the CW, which would be indicative that north would have had the potential to produce the best soldiers and simultaneously the worst soldiers, that's because they contain more of the genetic pool.

I agree, amount of medals doesn't clearly indicate quality, but it certainty points the evidence in the direction to the law of probability. I was just trying to use metric of 1898-present because the majority in this thread dismissed all other elements and just related everything to numbers.
 
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What does population control have to do with the price of metal? If I did a paraphrased summation of your posts it would be: both Union and Confederate troops were equally worthless. The only and universal reason the north won was it had more men than the south. They repeatedly did frontal assaults in attempt to overrun the enemy to no avail a lot of times but sometimes they triumphed with astronomical casualties. Sherman ultimately defeated the south because he fought a war of attrition/Carthaginian and because he had the numbers to do it and the south did not have the numbers to withstand it. Grant's army surrounded Lee's army at Appomattox because he had a 5:1 advantage. These are paraphrased examples that you folks repeatedly use in concert with almost every scenario discussing the CW, and it's mind-boggling.

Is athletic potential genetic? Yes. Is athletic performance genetic? No. The genetic potential has to be activated through training/practice and that's why I'll conclude the Union and Confederate troops had poor training or not enough training.

Thank you, your post was definitely interesting.

I totally agree , People over complicate what is simple.

North and South furnished the same soldiers their was never any advantage on both sides , You can train all you want but until you see the elephant its pointless speculating who had the better soldiers , Only trial by combat would go to prove that some units did indeed have what it takes to become better soldiers.

Units like Hoods Texans or the Iron brigade formed their identity in the war itself were they better soldiers than the rest? Of course not it came down to having pride in your colours and comradeship this is proved by the huge casualties sustained by the Iron brigade over the course of the war.

If you compare the Iron brigade (Elite) Vs Baxter's Brigade not considered elite on the first day of Gettysburg you will find that Baxter's Brigade completely out performed them because on a battlefield their is a shed load variables involved to many to list and yet Baxter's Brigade is never heard of except to students of the civil war.

The Crimean War proved that European army's were just as bad even with ample training it has nothing to do with training but more to do with men sharing the same experience in battle and then using that experience to gel a unit together.

The one thing I do agree with that people have mentioned in these threads is the Union replacement system and their the CSA did indeed have an advantage of allowing veterans to teach greenhorns the ropes instead of raising new regiments.
 
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You mean they were more liberal in pre Spanish-American War era and more frugal post. Preventing a flag from hitting the ground doesn't seem all that heroic to me. Agreed on the deceased, that's why the government has been posthumously awarding medals to fallen soldiers/marines.
1522 of the current 3464 CMH metals were issued during the Civil War. The following thread briefly discusses the flags: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/gettysburg-medal-of-honor-recipients.73207/page-2. This does not diminish, however, the often heroic acts by the soldiers by both sides.

IMO, determining who the better soldiers were by the number of metals issued is an exercise in futility. Going by stats alone without factoring in other variables such as terrain, leadership, experience, weaponry, supplies, etc. does the same.

As far as soldier burials, I look at them as a matter of treatment rather than the quality. Was a Union soldier buried in the Shiloh NMP national cemetery a better soldier than a Confederate in a burial pit? Better to have the enemy die for their country than your own troops though.
 
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What it means is this:

Lanchester Square implies that a large army will do much better than a small army. That is, a large army can easily overcome a small army because it can overwhelm the small army from more directions than the small army can defend (say) or by defending every direction the small army could attack from with too much force to overcome; the expected casualty ratio is the square of the ratio of the armies. So if army X is 1.5 times as large as army Y, we should expect army X to inflict 2.25 times the casualties that army Y does.

Now, this ideal situation never happens, because one army or the other is always defending. But the effect of one side being the defender shows up in the CEV.

The CEV is, put simply:

Based on the army sizes of armies X and Y, we EXPECT army X to inflict N times the casualties as army Y does.
But we actually SAW amy X inflict M times the casualties army Y did.

M divided by N is the CEV for army X. N divided by M is the CEV for Army Y. If X does better than we expect then M is bigger than N, and X has a larger CEV. (The CEVs for X and Y for the same battle will always multiply to one.)


What a CEV of 0.2 on the attack means is that the Union army took five times the casualties their numbers would suggest (or inflicted one fifth) relative to Confederate casualties; you could also say that the Confederates inflicted five times the casualties their numbers would suggest relative to the damage the Union did them.
What a CEV of 0.7 on the defence means is that the Union army took about 140% the casualties that their numbers would suggest relative to Confederate casualties.

If you have attacking CEVs and defensive CEVs you can multiply them together and take the square root. If the two armies are actually equal in quality then they should multiply out to one - that is, the only reason the CEVs aren't one is because of the effect of attacking or defending.

What actually happens when you multiply the attacking and defending CEVs of "Union that isn't McClellan" together you get significantly less than one, and taking the square root leads you to a number of about 0.5. This suggests that there's a quality issue for the Union; they can't even perform as well as expected relative to the Confederates when they're defending, in fact.

But if you take McClellan's attacking and defending CEVs against Lee, and multiply them together, it comes out a little bit more than one. This implies that during McClellan's tenure either the Confederate commander was worse than later in the war, or the Confederate army was worse, or the Union army was better, or the Union commander was better, or a little bit of all of them.



Without the battle of Gettysburg, and the battle of Antietam, it might be possible to argue that the defensive is just really strong in the ACW period. But Antietam's CEV (about 0.7 for the Union) is dramatically better than other attacking Union CEVs - and Gettysburg's CEV (about 0.7 for the Union, or 1.4 for the Confederates) is dramatically worse for the defender than most of Lee's defensive battles.




Here's a worked example, by the way, looking at Cold Harbor.

Union army size relative to Confederate army size: about 1.85:1.
Expected casualty ratio in favour of the larger army: about 3.4:1. (The 3.4 comes from 1.85 squared.)
Actual casualty ratio: about 1:2.4.
Union CEV: 1/(3.4*2.4) = 0.12
Confederate CEV: 3.4*2.4 = 8.2

Most of this is the effect the defender gets, but not all of it. Analysis which includes most post-McClellan battles in the East (including Gettysburg) suggests that the bonus for the defender is roughly equivalent to a CEV of between 2 and 3.
To my many pro Confederate friends such as @CSA Today ,@Rebforever @Viper21 ,
and any more that you invite our mutual Friend @Saphroneth has given us a reasonable objective way of answering the question of the OP.
I will humbly suggest that when time permits a team effort to post the CEVs of all major battles will answer the OP of this thread. My mat skills are a bit rusty but I am sure their are more mathematically gifted posters who can at their leisure post ACW CEVs.
Leftyhunter
 
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My mat skills are a bit rusty but I am sure their are more mathematically gifted posters who can at their leisure post ACW CEVs.
I've got a big list, mostly worked out by @67th Tigers :


Side Battle CEV
Union Iuka 0.96
Union 2nd Corinth 1.54
Union Stones River 0.65
Union Chickamauga 1.34
Union Mechanicsville 4.5
Union Gaines Mill 3.55
Union Peach Orchard, Glendale and Malvern Hill 1.28
Union South Mountain 0.64
Union Antietam 0.7
Union 2nd Manassas and Chantilly 0.24
Union Fredericksburg 0.2
Union Chancellorsville 0.26
Union Gettysburg 0.88
Union Mine Run 0.22
Union Shiloh 0.37
Union Champion Hill 0.74
Union Missionary Ridge 0.7
Union Wilderness 0.22
Union 10th May at Spotsylvania 0.39
Union 12th May ditto 0.35
Union Cold Harbor 0.09
Union Petersburg 0.15
Union Crater 0.12
Union Franklin 2.69
Union Peachtree Creek 1.15
Union Nashville 0.59
Union Resaca 0.17
Union Kennesaw Mountain 0.4
Confederate Iuka 1.04
Confederate 2nd Corinth 0.65
Confederate Stones River 1.54
Confederate Chickamauga 0.75
Confederate Mechanicsville 0.22
Confederate Gaines Mill 0.28
Confederate Peach Orchard, Glendale and Malvern Hill 0.78
Confederate South Mountain 1.56
Confederate Antietam 1.43
Confederate 2nd Manassas and Chantilly 4.17
Confederate Fredericksburg 5
Confederate Chancellorsville 3.85
Confederate Gettysburg 1.14
Confederate Mine Run 4.55
Confederate Shiloh 2.7
Confederate Champion Hill 1.35
Confederate Missionary Ridge 1.43
Confederate Wilderness 4.55
Confederate 10th May at Spotsylvania 2.56
Confederate 12th May ditto 2.86
Confederate Cold Harbor 11.11
Confederate Petersburg 6.67
Confederate Crater 8.33
Confederate Franklin 0.37
Confederate Peachtree Creek 0.87
Confederate Nashville 1.69
Confederate Resaca 5.88
Confederate Kennesaw Mountain 2.5
Union Atlanta 2
Union Seven Pines 1.6
Confederate Atlanta 0.5
Confederate Seven Pines 0.66



Side Type median mean
1: Union Normal 0.675 0.5850000
2: Union Def 1.540 1.9000000
3: Union Att 0.260 0.3292308
4: Confederate Normal 1.485 2.3466667
5: Confederate Att 0.660 0.8109091
6: Confederate Def 3.850 4.4607692


The average Union defensive CEV times the average Union offensive CEV is less than one. (It's about 0.4.)

If you take only McClellan's battles the Union actually outperforms the Confederacy; if you remove McClellan the Union underperforms. This suggests that soldier quality alone is not sufficient to explain the difference.
It'd be interesting to see how it looks if you strip out all of Lee's battles.
 
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I've got a big list, mostly worked out by @67th Tigers :


Side Battle CEV
Union Iuka 0.96
Union 2nd Corinth 1.54
Union Stones River 0.65
Union Chickamauga 1.34
Union Mechanicsville 4.5
Union Gaines Mill 3.55
Union Peach Orchard, Glendale and Malvern Hill 1.28
Union South Mountain 0.64
Union Antietam 0.7
Union 2nd Manassas and Chantilly 0.24
Union Fredericksburg 0.2
Union Chancellorsville 0.26
Union Gettysburg 0.88
Union Mine Run 0.22
Union Shiloh 0.37
Union Champion Hill 0.74
Union Missionary Ridge 0.7
Union Wilderness 0.22
Union 10th May at Spotsylvania 0.39
Union 12th May ditto 0.35
Union Cold Harbor 0.09
Union Petersburg 0.15
Union Crater 0.12
Union Franklin 2.69
Union Peachtree Creek 1.15
Union Nashville 0.59
Union Resaca 0.17
Union Kennesaw Mountain 0.4
Confederate Iuka 1.04
Confederate 2nd Corinth 0.65
Confederate Stones River 1.54
Confederate Chickamauga 0.75
Confederate Mechanicsville 0.22
Confederate Gaines Mill 0.28
Confederate Peach Orchard, Glendale and Malvern Hill 0.78
Confederate South Mountain 1.56
Confederate Antietam 1.43
Confederate 2nd Manassas and Chantilly 4.17
Confederate Fredericksburg 5
Confederate Chancellorsville 3.85
Confederate Gettysburg 1.14
Confederate Mine Run 4.55
Confederate Shiloh 2.7
Confederate Champion Hill 1.35
Confederate Missionary Ridge 1.43
Confederate Wilderness 4.55
Confederate 10th May at Spotsylvania 2.56
Confederate 12th May ditto 2.86
Confederate Cold Harbor 11.11
Confederate Petersburg 6.67
Confederate Crater 8.33
Confederate Franklin 0.37
Confederate Peachtree Creek 0.87
Confederate Nashville 1.69
Confederate Resaca 5.88
Confederate Kennesaw Mountain 2.5
Union Atlanta 2
Union Seven Pines 1.6
Confederate Atlanta 0.5
Confederate Seven Pines 0.66



Side Type median mean
1: Union Normal 0.675 0.5850000
2: Union Def 1.540 1.9000000
3: Union Att 0.260 0.3292308
4: Confederate Normal 1.485 2.3466667
5: Confederate Att 0.660 0.8109091
6: Confederate Def 3.850 4.4607692


The average Union defensive CEV times the average Union offensive CEV is less than one. (It's about 0.4.)

If you take only McClellan's battles the Union actually outperforms the Confederacy; if you remove McClellan the Union underperforms. This suggests that soldier quality alone is not sufficient to explain the difference.
It'd be interesting to see how it looks if you strip out all of Lee's battles.
My son is about to become an accountant. Next time he comes home and if time permits I will go over the math with him. Americans are more familiar with " body counts" for every US soldier who dies X amount of enemy soldiers die.
Leftyhunter
 
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I've got a big list, mostly worked out by @67th Tigers :


Side Battle CEV
Union Iuka 0.96
Union 2nd Corinth 1.54
Union Stones River 0.65
Union Chickamauga 1.34
Union Mechanicsville 4.5
Union Gaines Mill 3.55
Union Peach Orchard, Glendale and Malvern Hill 1.28
Union South Mountain 0.64
Union Antietam 0.7
Union 2nd Manassas and Chantilly 0.24
Union Fredericksburg 0.2
Union Chancellorsville 0.26
Union Gettysburg 0.88
Union Mine Run 0.22
Union Shiloh 0.37
Union Champion Hill 0.74
Union Missionary Ridge 0.7
Union Wilderness 0.22
Union 10th May at Spotsylvania 0.39
Union 12th May ditto 0.35
Union Cold Harbor 0.09
Union Petersburg 0.15
Union Crater 0.12
Union Franklin 2.69
Union Peachtree Creek 1.15
Union Nashville 0.59
Union Resaca 0.17
Union Kennesaw Mountain 0.4
Confederate Iuka 1.04
Confederate 2nd Corinth 0.65
Confederate Stones River 1.54
Confederate Chickamauga 0.75
Confederate Mechanicsville 0.22
Confederate Gaines Mill 0.28
Confederate Peach Orchard, Glendale and Malvern Hill 0.78
Confederate South Mountain 1.56
Confederate Antietam 1.43
Confederate 2nd Manassas and Chantilly 4.17
Confederate Fredericksburg 5
Confederate Chancellorsville 3.85
Confederate Gettysburg 1.14
Confederate Mine Run 4.55
Confederate Shiloh 2.7
Confederate Champion Hill 1.35
Confederate Missionary Ridge 1.43
Confederate Wilderness 4.55
Confederate 10th May at Spotsylvania 2.56
Confederate 12th May ditto 2.86
Confederate Cold Harbor 11.11
Confederate Petersburg 6.67
Confederate Crater 8.33
Confederate Franklin 0.37
Confederate Peachtree Creek 0.87
Confederate Nashville 1.69
Confederate Resaca 5.88
Confederate Kennesaw Mountain 2.5
Union Atlanta 2
Union Seven Pines 1.6
Confederate Atlanta 0.5
Confederate Seven Pines 0.66



Side Type median mean
1: Union Normal 0.675 0.5850000
2: Union Def 1.540 1.9000000
3: Union Att 0.260 0.3292308
4: Confederate Normal 1.485 2.3466667
5: Confederate Att 0.660 0.8109091
6: Confederate Def 3.850 4.4607692


The average Union defensive CEV times the average Union offensive CEV is less than one. (It's about 0.4.)

If you take only McClellan's battles the Union actually outperforms the Confederacy; if you remove McClellan the Union underperforms. This suggests that soldier quality alone is not sufficient to explain the difference.
It'd be interesting to see how it looks if you strip out all of Lee's battles.
I have felt for years that the failure of the Union to beat the CSA in two years was not due to soldiers or generals but Lincoln.
Had Lincoln allowed McClellan to do what he thought was needed in early '62, I think the war would have been beyond the CSA's abilities to cope by the summer of '63.
 
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