Gel'in

[mt155]

Time for another goofy "what if"

What if the south, say Jackson's foot cavalry, had a good solid pair of hiking boots (for everyone), and on top of that they were all gel'in with Dr. Scholls inserts. Assuming that they could march faster and longer what effect would this have if any.

Mike T.

 

[blue_zouave]

Wouldn't work, they'd all be to mellow to fight, and say "whatever," and go get some Starbucks.



Zou

 

[Elennsar]

Well, the marches in the Valley Campaign, which were brutally hard on his troops, would be easier. Thusly, he'd have more troops available. Would he accomplish more? I don't think so...but its possible.

After that, it depends on how the campaigns go.

Definately would make life a lot easier, but it alone might not be enough for a significant effect.

Too many other logistical problems for this alone to turn the war around.

Give me a specific scenario with it at work and I can give you a better answer.

 

[cw1865]

Crazy Show

I actually saw this crazy show where a guy (fairly bright guy) basically opines that the human foot is ideally suited for walking and that shoes are counterproductive.

ASSUMING everything he says is true, then theoretically the barefoot soldiers in the Civil War were better off without them?

I doubt it.....but to answer this one, you would need to know the 'foot attrition' rate. How many men were out of action because they couldn't walk? How many men deserted because they were just fed up walking barefoot?

Difficult to answer those questions from 2008.

 

[timewalker]

Interesting that I was just reading today in Glatthaar's General Lee's Army that a significant portion of the attrition of the AoNV going into Maryland before Antietam was because the men had no shoes. A number of the troops had blisters on both the tops and bottoms of their feet: the bottoms from walking without shoes, the tops because without shoes the tops of their feet got sunburned. Speaking as someone who has actually had the top of his feet sunburned, it is very painful.

So perhaps with decent shoes, Lee has significantly more troops at Antietam.

 

[Elennsar]

Perhaps. Lee's logistical situation in general in that campaign was full of more holes than a slice of swiss cheese as of that campaign.

He had somewhere around at most sixty thousand men when he decided to march North.

He had forty thousand odd at Antietam. Not counting one brigade of under a thousand men (perhaps six hundred) at Harper's Ferry and artillery (perhaps six batteries, tops).

It is possible that he would have fifty thousand with good shoes, but given how bad the supply of food was...I don't think so.

I'm sure it would help. I just don't see it being enough to change things meaningfully.

The huge perk of better shoes is that that problem being solved frees up energy and trains and so on to handle the rest. That might lead to a meaningful boost.

Regarding the idea that the "human foot is ideally suited to walking"...I'll just put it this way. We invented shoes for a reason. I'm reasonably sure it was a good one.


Addition:

According to http://www.tngennet.org/civilwar/tncwindex.html these four regiments of Bushrod R. Johnston's brigade had a not inconsiderable number of men sent to the rear prio to the battle.

17th Tennessee: 371 men. The barefoot men (122 in number) were sent to the rear, thusly leaving only 249.

23rd Tennessee: 207 men. 26 barefoot men sent to the rear.

25th Tennessee: 145 men. No mention of barefoot men sent to the rear.

44th Tenneseee: 350 men. 56 barefoot men sent to the rear.

That means that out of 1073 men, 204 were sent to the rear. Nineteen percent of the brigade's strength. I do not know if this was typical, but if it was, this would mean all the men in his army having good shoes would add a considerable number of men to Bragg's army.

 

[5fish]

Note:

A note: Shaka Zulu trained his men in his army to march and fight in bare feet because the foot wear they had was worthless. My point being, the bottom of our feet will grow calluses thick enough to walk over anything almost. Think about our ancient forefathers, they did not have shoes only bare feet and they migrated all over the world.

If 19% of your army is shoeless would not many of them have grown calluses on the bottom of their feet.

My dad grew up with two brothers who always went bare feet once summer hit until winter and these two boys would grow these thick calluses on their feet. All they did along with my dad(Who wore shoes) was play in the mountains of PA.

I think bare feet may have been a big issue but mother nature has a solution.

 

[PvtClewell]

5fish makes a great point.

In another liftetime, I spent two summers of my high school years working at the community swimming pool. A lot of barefootin' goin' on. By the end of each summer, the bottoms of my feet were so calloused they were virtually impervious to stones, broken glass, weeds, asphalt, whatever.

I feel a little embarrassed that I've never taken my own personal experience in this and applied it to the civil war. Now I'm starting to think there's no big deal about barefoot confederates marching from the Rapidan to Harrisburg looking for a fight. Shoes, except in winter, might be overrated.

And a quest for shoes at Gettysburg? Sheds a whole new light on that ol' chestnut, doesn't it?

 

[mt155]

All very good points. Another argument for the feet growing thick skin are Jorge Posada and Moises Alou. They are two baseball players that do not wear batting gloves. Each year starting in pre season they use pickle juice and urine on their hands which hardens and thickens the skin on their hands, thus no need for batting gloves. I also recall an old WW2 GI telling the History Channel that the Army told them to urinate on their feet during showers while in the field. It is sterile, helps keep athletes foot away, and also will help the soles to become thicker. Who knew?

Mike T.

 

[Elennsar]

So...if all of this is true and valid and wonderful (and I'm not disputing it)...why would 19% of the men in this brigade be sent to the rear for being barefoot?

The brigade is withered down numerically badly enough as is. If it was possible to march and fight Just Fine without shoes...then why would they be sent to the rear?

Unless of course "barefoot" is a polite way of saying something else.

It might well be possible to compensate for being shoeless, but there'd be no point having shoes at all ever unless they were worth something. Waste of good leather.

 

[PvtClewell]

So...if all of this is true and valid and wonderful (and I'm not disputing it)...why would 19% of the men in this brigade be sent to the rear for being barefoot?

Good question. Why would 19 percent of a brigade of apparently healthy soldiers capable of firing a rifle be sent to the rear because they had no shoes? Given the south's manpower shortage, isn't this a bit bewildering? Something else might be going on here.

I am not arguing that shoes for an army on the march are not desirable. But clearly, many soldiers throughout the Confederacy had no shoes and still managed to find themselves in combat. This is so well documented that we sometimes even begin to feel a little sorry for them. I'm just saying being barefoot is not necessarily an impediment to good soldiering and may be overrated as part of the Confederate soldier's condition.

Conversely, many Union soldiers were plagued by shoddy shoes early in the war and no doubt ended up barefooted themselves. And they, most likely, did not have calloused feet.

Given that an enlistee only needed to have enough teeth to tear open a paper cartridge and a finger or two or three to pull a trigger and ram a rod, going to the rear for a lack of shoes seems a little inconsistent. Waste of manpower.

Wait. That's what war is, right?

 

[Elennsar]

Agreement here. I don't suppose anyone can pose a theory on what else it could be (and why it would be refered to like this)?

That's too serious a percentage to be just dismissed as insignificant, and I would not be entirely surprised if other brigades had the same problem, whatever it was.

This might wander off topic, but I'd like to know if anyone has any idas, nonetheless.

 

[timewalker]

I would imagine that those who were left behind as being "without shoes" were not all those who did not have shoes, but rather all those who were rendered unfit for duty as a result of not having shoes. If there are two men who do not have shoes, one who is accustomed to going barefoot and the other who has worn shoes all his life, the first will do all right. The second will quickly be unable to march and after a time will even have trouble walking.

Having spent pretty much all my life in shoes, I can walk outside in my bare feet and feel every little rock in the driveway. Ask me to march 12 miles barefoot and my feet would be cut to ribbons and I would leave a trail of bloody footprints down the road.

 

[Elennsar]

That would make sense. The strange thing is that they were able to keep up with their regiments on the march, the "sent to the rear" is prior to the battle

Sheer stubborness, maybe.

 

[DHPatrick]

So...if all of this is true and valid and wonderful (and I'm not disputing it)...why would 19% of the men in this brigade be sent to the rear for being barefoot?

The brigade is withered down numerically badly enough as is. If it was possible to march and fight Just Fine without shoes...then why would they be sent to the rear?

Unless of course "barefoot" is a polite way of saying something else.

It might well be possible to compensate for being shoeless, but there'd be no point having shoes at all ever unless they were worth something. Waste of good leather.

Elennsar

The obvious answer was that shoes were considered necessary. I can tell you from experience, you can not run in unknown terrain without shoes - if you are use to wearing shoes.

Myself, I can not image an American army without shoes. I have to agree with you.

 

[5fish]

Bare feet are an issue if you are use to walking around in shoes but in time even the softest feet will grow calluses. It will be painful but time will resolve itself with Mother natures solution, calluses.

My thought: Soldiers without shoes was a big issue in the two armies. They must have had a solution for it if shoes were not available(calluses is one). Lee would not let 20% of his army sit out of a fight....

A musing.....

 

[Elennsar]

In regards to Mother Nature's solution, I strongly suggestiton you read these two letters by Washington, quoted in part below:

"To see men...without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with them, marching through the frost and snow..."– George Washington in Letter to John Banister, Valley Forge, Apr. 21, 1778.

"Besides a number of men confined to hospitals for want of shoes, and others in farmers' houses on the same account, we have, by a field return this day made, no less than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men now in camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and otherwise naked ... few men having more than one shirt, many only the moiety of one, and some none at all ...."– George Washington in Letter to President of Congress, Valley Forge, Dec. 23, 1777.

If Washington's Continentals had feet soft enough that they would bleed after the abuse of hard marching without shoes, then I somehow doubt that Lee's or Bragg's men were able to do a whole lot better.

Would Lee let 20% of his army stay out of a fight? Probably not, given any kind of choice or control. But would Lee know that out of say, Brockenburough's brigade (to name one of the worst off in terms of organization and leadership brigades in the army, if not the worst), the men engaged would be 81% of what would otherwise be the case? I doubt it.

Union soldiers were rarely shoeless for long. Confederate soldiers were consistently facing that problem. Not all, by any means. But there were always some.

 

[Borderruffian]

As far as Washingtons letters. He's speaking about Valley Forge. In snow and ice you'd be talking abot the cold and frostbite actually causing the skin to crack and bleed. There would be no time for the foot to repair itself as there might be in warm weather.

As far as barefoot regiments on Lyon's march from St Louis to Springfield nearly his whole command was barefoot by Rolla. According to accounts from the 1st Iowa this caused many of the troops to straggle they would catch up at night continue on and repeat. This would account for bare foot's still being with the regiment up to the point of battle.

 

[Elennsar]

True enough on Washington. But it does seem that the lack of shoes hurt the Continentals dearly.

As to Lyon, I did not know that detail.

But if I'm understanding it right, the result would easily be that you'd have men "present", but very much unfit for duty...which may well be what happened in Johnson's Brigade.

 

[5fish]

Wndering...

Bare feet and hands do not do well in the cold winter months but in the warm months of Spring, Summer and early fall they work fine.

A note: Most if all of us on this board have not grown up with people who walk around in bare feet outside anymore so our judgement is skewed when it comes to going shoeless..

I have searched the web trying to find foot care during the Civil war and have found nothing, except the the union spent 45,000 dollars to take care of foot issues for 15,000 soldiers.

I can not believe no one has not research this bare feet issue during the civil war because I know our modern army makes a big deal out of foot care today.

If 19% of regiments are sending men to the rear because no shoes, this is a big issue then of an army. Now I wonder: How many soldiers happen to become shoeless before a big battle if not having shoes got you sent to the rear?

Wondering out loud....