Thoughts On Soldiers Of the War Between the States

thea_447

Cadet
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
Location
The Deep South, Alabama
1568768482712.jpg

This is a long article and will be posted probably in two parts:

Last paragraph: Goosepimples for you Bama Boys guaranteed ...

Losses In The Battles Of The Civil War And What They Mean
Statistics of losses in battles do not furnish an unfailing test of
courage. Mistakes of officers, unavoidable surprises -these, now and then,
occasion losses that soldiers did not knowingly face, and there are
sometimes other reasons why the carnage in a particular command in this
battle or that does not with accuracy indicate steadfast bravery. Such
statistics, however, as all military experts agree, do tell a graphic
story, when exceptional instances are not selected.

Colonel Dodge, in his " Bird's-Eye View of Our Civil War," exhibits
statistics showing the percentage of losses in the most notable battles
fought since 1745, and from them deduces this conclusion, "It thus appears
that in ability to stand heavy pounding, since Napoleon's Waterloo
campaign, the American has shown himself preeminent." Colonel Dodge
would have been justified in going much further. Waterloo itself,
the most famous of the world's battles, does not show such fighting
as Americans did at Sharpsburg (Antietam), Gettysburg, or Chickamauga.
In "Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War," by Lieutenant
Colonel G. F. R. Henderson, a British military expert, is a complete list
of killed and wounded in great battles from 1704 to 1882, inclusive. Since
Eylau, 1807, there has been no great battle in which the losses of the
victor-the punishment he withstood to gain his victory-equal the
twenty-seven per cent. of the Confederates in their victory at
Chickamauga.

The Henderson tables give the losses of both sides in each battle,
but indicate the percentage of those suffered by the victors only. These
show fighting losses. In losses by a defeated army,' those received in
retreating cannot be separated from those received in fighting. If,
however, a defeated army is not routed, but retires, still in fighting condition,
and the foe is so crippled that he cannot make effective pursuit, as was the
case at Chickamauga, or if the defeated army does not leave the field at
all, until, say, twenty-four hours after the battle, as was the case with
the Confederates at Sharpsburg and Gettysburg, the losses on both sides
are to be counted as fighting losses, and their percentage is a fair measure
of " capacity to stand pounding."

Gaged, then, by this standard, which for large armies in a great
battle is absolutely fair, Waterloo is eclipsed by Gettysburg; Gettysburg
is eclipsed by Sharpsburg, and Sharpsburg eclipsed by Chickamauga.

Here are some of Colonel Henderson's percentages, which tell the
story, the percentage of the Federal losses at Chickamauga being
calculated from Henderson's figures. At Waterloo, the victors' loss was
twenty per cent. At Gettysburg, the victors lost also twenty per cent.
But, at Waterloo, the French army dissolved; at Gettysburg, the
Confederates held to their position nearly all the following day,
and the majority of the Confederates did not know they had been
of killed and wounded in great battles from 1704 to 1882, inclusive. Since
Eylau, 1807, there has been no great battle in which the losses of the
victor-the punishment he withstood to gain his victory-equal the
twenty-seven per cent. of the Confederates in their victory at
Chickamauga.

The Henderson tables give the losses of both sides in each battle,
but indicate the percentage of those suffered by the victors only. These
show fighting losses. In losses by a defeated army,' those received in
retreating cannot be separated from those received in fighting. If,
however, a defeated army is not routed, but retires, still in fighting condition,
and the foe is so crippled that he cannot make effective pursuit, as was the
case at Chickamauga, or if the defeated army does not leave the field at
all, until, say, twenty-four hours after the battle, as was the case with
the Confederates at Sharpsburg and Gettysburg, the losses on both sides
are to be counted as fighting losses, and their percentage is a fair measure
of " capacity to stand pounding."

Gaged, then, by this standard, which for large armies in a great
battle is absolutely fair, Waterloo is eclipsed by Gettysburg; Gettysburg
is eclipsed by Sharpsburg, and Sharpsburg eclipsed by Chickamauga.

Here are some of Colonel Henderson's percentages, which tell the
story, the percentage of the Federal losses at Chickamauga being
calculated from Henderson's figures. At Waterloo, the victors' loss was
twenty per cent. At Gettysburg, the victors lost also twenty per cent.
But, at Waterloo, the French army dissolved; at Gettysburg, the
Confederates held to their position nearly all the following day,
and the majority of the Confederates did not know they had been
defeated there until after the war.

At Sharpsburg, their victory cost the Federals not twenty, but
twenty-three per cent., and the Confederates held fast to their position
all the next day. At Chickamauga, their victory cost the Confederates
twenty-seven per cent., and the Federals, inflicting this loss,
retreated; but General Thomas, the " Rock of Chickamauga,"
still held fast to prevent pursuit, and Rosecrans' army was ready
to fight the next day. At Waterloo, the entire loss in killed and
wounded, of the French, was thirty-one per cent. This
loss utterly destroyed the army. The Federals at Chickamauga
withstood a loss practically the same-thirty per cent -and still
successfully defied the Confederates to attack them in Chattanooga.
The percentage of loss in battle by an entire army is, of course,
obtained by including all present--those participating slightly,
or even not at all, as well as those who bore the brunt of the fight.

Bearing this in mind, the reader will note to the credit of these
troops that the dreadful losses sustained at Sharpsburg by the Fifteenth
Massachusetts, Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania, Ninth New York. Twelfth
Massachusetts, First Delaware, and other regiments; at Stone's River,
December 31, 1862, by the Eighteenth United States Infantry, Twenty-second
Illinois, and other regiments; at Gettysburg, by the Twenty-fourth
Michigan, One hundred and eleventh New York, First Minnesota,
One hundred and twenty-sixth New York, and One hundred and fifty-first
Pennsylvania, were all suffered while the Federals were winning
victories-suffered fighting, not in retreating.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Part II
So, also, the losses at the Wilderness of the Second Vermont, Fourth
Vermont, and Ninety-third New York, occurred when the Federals,
for the most part, held their ground. And nearly all the astonishing losses of the
Confederate regiments were suffered when they were either winning
victories or stubbornly holding on to the field of battle.

Altogether, the casualties in the greatest of the battles of the
Civil War, whether considered in the aggregate or in the tragic light of
regimental losses, make up a wonderful record.

In "Etude sur les caracteres generaux de la guerre d'Extreme
Orient," par Le Capitaine Brevete F. Cullmann, Paris, 1909, the percentage
of Federal losses at Gettysburg is given as twenty-three, the Confederate
loss as thirty-two; the Japanese loss at Mukden as 14.1 and at Lio-Yang as
18.5. These were the bloodiest of the much lauded Japanese victories. This
fighting does not compare with that in the American Civil War.

In the great Franco-Prussian war there is but one battle in which
the percentage of the victor's loss is at all in the same class in the
American Civil War, and that is Vionville, 1870, where the victor's loss
was twenty-two, as compared with twenty-seven at Chickamauga.
So it may be said fairly that, for a century, the world has seen
no such stubborn fighter as the American soldier.

In studying the statistics of the various regiments whose losses
are tabulated in this volume, the reader will discover that very
many of these were suffered in great battles, the nature of which
has been told briefly; and he must remember that neither of
the armies suffered at any time any such signal defeat as would
account for very heavy losses. The First Manassas (Bull Run) is
no exception to this. The Confederates did not follow, and their
losses in killed and wounded were heavier than those of the Federals.

What some of the foreign military experts think of us as fighters
we may learn by extracts taken from their writings, italicizing
at will. The late Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson was professor
of military art and history at the Staff College of Great Britain.
He says, in his " The Science of War":

"The War of Secession was waged on so vast a scale,
employed so large a part of the manhood of both North and South America,
aroused to such a degree the sympathies of the entire nation, and, in its
brilliant achievements, both by land and sea, bears such splendid
testimony to the energy and fortitude of their race, that in the
minds of the American people it has roused an interest which
shows no sign of abating."

Further on in the same essay he states:
"Now, if there is one thing more than another
apparent to the student of the Civil War, it is that the
soldiers on both, sides were exceedingly well matched in courage
and endurance."

The forces here credited with these "brilliant achievements" in
1861-65 are now thoroughly united, and would stand shoulder to shoulder
against a foreign foe. Our population has increased threefold, while our
military resources, our capacity to equip and to convey food to armies, to
manufacture arms, and to build ships, even in the interior if need be, has
increased tenfold. Our rivers still traverse the land, but the art of
mining waters, practiced with some success by the Confederates, has developed
until no foe would think of exploiting these rivers with vessels in advance of
troops.

Aye, but the spirit of our people, say the alarmists -- we have
lost patriotism, become commercialized, money-mad, and
have now no militant instinct. To an old Confederate this prattle
about our people being "commercialized " is especially amusing.
It carries him back to 1860-61.

In the hot sectional animosities that brought on the war he had
imbibed that same idea about the North--the "Yankee" now
worshiped "the Almighty Dollar," and in his all-absorbing
struggle for it bad lost the spirit that animated his forefathers
at Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga. When the news of
Manassas came, many an ambitious Confederate who was so
unfortunate as not to have been there, felt like going into mourning.
He was never to have a chance to "flesh his maiden sword."
But the young Confederate was miscalculating.
The exasperated North roused itself, after Manassas, like
an angry lion *****ed by the spear of the hunter, and soon
we were to hear its roar.

In reference to inexperienced volunteers, it must be said, as every
veteran of the Civil War knows, that it was not always the oldest
regiments that were the bravest. In the gallant, though finally
unsuccessful, assault that was made by the Federals at Salem
Church, May 3, 1863, just where the Confederate line was broken
for a time, the official reports show that the One hundred and
twenty-first New York was in the fore front, and its gallant
Colonel Upton in his report says this was the regiment's first battle.

It's loss, as officially reported, was two hundred and twenty-two
killed and wounded.

At Fredericksburg, December 13,1862, Franklin with the Federal left
broke through Jackson's lines. The Confederates restored their line after
heavy losses, and in this counterstroke a North Carolina regiment, fresh
from home, drove headlong through the Northern lines and was with
difficulty recalled. The apology of one of its privates, when it got back
into line, caused a laugh all through the army. " If we had a-knowed
how to fight like you fellows, we could have done better!"

End Part II
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Part III

The work:" Der Burgerkrieg in den Nordamerikanischen Staaten,"
by Major Scbeibert, of the German Engineer Corps, the author says:

"After the European cavalry bad been discredited in the wars of 1854
and 1859, the American mounted troops brought genuine joy
to the heart of every true cavalryman, showing by their service and
bravery that a better future might yet be in store for the European cavalry.
We could not help sympathizing with the rise of the true spirit of knighthood
without fear or blame, and with the many gallant deeds which promised
better results."

We could multiply indefinitely these extracts, but space forbids.
From the preface to the work of Cecil Battine, Captain, Fifteenth, The
King's, Hussars, entitled: "The Crisis of the Confederacy, and History of
Gettysburg and the Wilderness," the following is taken:

"The history of the American Civil War still remains the most important
theme for the student and the statesman because it was
waged between adversaries of the highest intelligence and courage,
who fought by land and sea over an enormous area with every device
within the reach of human ingenuity, and who had to create every
organization needed for the purpose after the struggle bad begun.

The admiration which the valor of the Confederate soldiers fighting
against superior numbers and resources excited in Europe;
the dazzling genius of some of the Confederate generals,
and, in some measure, jealousy at the power of the United States have
ranged the sympathies of the world during the war and ever since
to a large degree on the side of the vanquished. Justice has hardly
been done to the armies which arose time and again from
sanguinary repulses, and from disasters more demoralizing than
any repulse in the field, because they were caused by political and
military incapacity in high places, to redeem which the
soldiers freely shed their blood, as it seemed, in vain. If the heroic
endurance of the Southern people and the fiery valor of the Southern
armies thrill us today with wonder and admiration, the stubborn
tenacity and courage which succeeded in preserving intact the heritage
of the American nation, and which triumphed over foes so formidable,
are not less worthy of praise and imitation. The Americans still hold
the world's record for hard fighting.

This extract brings to mind that what impressed the Confederate in
Lee's army with most admiration for the Army of the Potomac was,
not its brave stand at Malvern Hill following a series of disasters, not
its dogged perseverance when attacking an impregnable position
at Marye's Heights, not its indomitable spirit at the "bloody angle,"
Spotsylvania, but the fact that no mistakes of its generals or of
the authorities at Washington ever caused it to lose heart. Always and
everywhere it fought bravely when given a chance. There never was
but one Bull Run. Three Successive changes were made in its
commanders from Yorktown to the Wilderness, and yet that gallant
army never lost faith in itself, as the following incident
illustrates.

In the winter of 1863-64, the writer, then an officer in
Lee's army, met between the picket lines near Orange Court House, Virginia, a
lieutenant of a New York regiment. During our conversation the lieutenant
said, " Well, we are on the road to Richmond again." " Yes," was the
reply; " but you will never get there." " Oh, yes, we will after a while," said
the lieutenant, " and if you will swap generals with us, we'll be there in
three weeks." Just before we parted, the lieutenant proposed, 'Here's my toast:
May the best man win! " and we drank it heartily.

Major G. W. Redway, referring to the volunteers of the Army of the
Potomac, 1864, writes as follows:

"The American volunteer who had survived such battles
as Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, and the Seven Days' fighting around
Richmond, was probably such a soldier as the world had never
seen before. He needed no instruction as to his duty in the field,
and, in fact, often exercised the functions of instructor both to
officers and men less experienced than himself.

The impressions Federal and Confederate soldiers made on foreign
critics were not lost on themselves. They were testing each other's
courage, endurance, and patriotism, and coming to understand
the situation as well.

Four-fifths of the Confederates had never owned a slave. It was not
slavery -both armies were fighting for the preservation of the same free
institutions, for what each believed to be his Constitutional rights.

The first step toward reunion was being taken when picket shooting
was stopped; and the armies of Northern Virginia and of the
Potomac went far beyond that, when encamped on opposite banks
of the Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, during the winter and spring
of 1862-63. They chatted, traded tobacco for sugar and coffee, and
frequently visited each other across the narrow stream.

A Confederate officer riding along the bank visiting his outposts was
often saluted by a picket across the river, within easy gunshot.
Similar compliments passed between pickets in gray and
officers in blue. These soldiers were testifying their respect for
each other, with little idea, on the part of the Confederates,
that they would ever again be fellow countrymen.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Eventually both generals, Hooker and Lee, issued orders strictly
forbidding all intercommunication. Just after these orders, an incident
occurred which the writer long ago gave to the newspapers in the hope,
which proved vain, that he might hear from the Union soldier.
A Confederate officer rode suddenly out of the woods on to his
picket-post at Scott's dam, just above Banks' Ford. A Federal soldier
was nearing the south bank of the river, newspaper in hand.
The soldier reluctantly came ashore, insisting that he should be
allowed to return; the Confederate pickets had promised
it. " Yes," was the reply, " but they violated orders, and you violated
orders on your side when you came over, and I happen to know it.
Orders must be obeyed. You are my prisoner." The soldier, who
was a big, manly fellow, stood straight as an arrow, looked the officer
in the face, and with tears n his eyes, said: " Colonel, shoot me, if you
want to, but for God's sake don't take me prisoner. I have been in
the army only six weeks. I have never been in battle, and if I am
taken prisoner under these circumstances, I will
never get over it-it will always be believed that I deserted."

The officer hesitated for a moment, and then said, " Give me that
paper and go, and tell your people you are the last man that will ever
come over here and get back." Such an incident at the outset of the
war would have been inconceivable.

It was in this spirit of kindly regard for each other that the war
between the two armies went on, from Fredericksburg to Appomattox. It
manifested itself with increasing tenderness after every bloody battle. It
inspired Grant when be said to Lee, " Your men will need their horses to
make a crop." It animated Grant's soldiers when they gave no cheer at the
surrender, and when they divided their rations with the men who, in tears,
laid down their arms. It did not die when the Confederates accepted the
results of the war.

Time has only hallowed the memory of the glorious manhood displayed
in those days by the men of both armies. The soldiers, had their
sentiments prevailed, would soon have bound up the wounds of war,
as they did those received in battle. But politicians, for a, time, interfered.

Of untold benefit have been the meeting of the Philadelphia Brigade
and Pickett's men at Gettysburg, the visits of Massachusetts soldiers to
Richmond, and of Virginia Confederates to Boston, and many similar
occasions. These, coupled with the strewing of flowers, in 1867, by
Richmond, and of Virginia Confederates to Boston, and many similar

occasions. These, coupled with the strewing of flowers, in 1867, by
Southern women at Columbus, Mississippi, on the graves of Union
soldiers, which brought from a Northern man that beautiful poem,
" The Blue and the Gray," and a thousand similar incidents, have
resulted in those acts that passed in Congress by unanimous votes,
one providing for a Confederate section in Arlington Cemetery,
the other looking to the care of the Confederate dead at
Arlington and around the Federal prisons in the North.

Presidents Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft have each and
all, by deeds and words, bad their full share in the work of perfect
reunion. And all over the land there are monuments to the dead of the
Civil War, bearing inscriptions that will outlast the marble and bronze upon
which they are written. Such is the legend on the monument built by
the State of Pennsylvania to its dead at Vicksburg, " Here brothers fought
for their principles, here heroes died to save their country, and a united people
will forever cherish the precious legacy of their noble manhood."

Another such is on a monument erected by the State of New Jersey,
and the survivors of the Twenty-third New Jersey Volunteers at Salem
Church, Virginia. On one side is an appropriate inscription to their
own dead; on he other, a bronze tablet bearing this magnanimous
tribute, " To the brave Alabama boys who were our opponents on this
field and whose memory we honor, this tablet is dedicated."
That is a tribute, not by a Government, but directly by the men
who fought to the men who fought them. It is truly noble.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top