Was the Civil War the first Modern War.

Was the Civil War the First Modern War

  • Yes

    Votes: 21 28.8%
  • No

    Votes: 27 37.0%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 5 6.8%
  • Insufficient defination

    Votes: 23 31.5%
  • North America Only

    Votes: 3 4.1%

  • Total voters
    73
Per Saphroneth: A division that learned to shoot, had a huge advantage. Didn't Pat Cleburne teach European rifle usage?
Cleburne implemented a division-level corps of sharpshooters (the best shots from his division), however the rest of the men under his command were no better trained than any other. In the latter half of the war you did see sharpshooter battalions formed in every brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia which, for the most part, trained in marksmanship, range estimation, etc., and essentially fought as 'elite skirmishers'. That was also the case with Berdan's U.S. Sharpshooters and other sharpshooter contingents.

Though even with troops properly trained in marksmanship you still have to account for the black powder smoke, terrain, combat experience, etc. With the exception of sharpshooters and skirmishers, I don't think 19th century warfare often allowed for carefully aimed shooting. That wasn't really the case until the implementation of smokeless powder and more open order tactics.
 
I am having lunch with my disable son and then debating with weeds about occupying the space where I am planting my tomatoes. My time to research is limited and so it falls to you all.

Well tell your son whatever you are planting shouldn't be in the vicinity of weeds, period. There should be no debate about it. When is he planting the tomatoes and how close to the weeds is he planting them?
 
I wrote a term paper on this very subject in college. I argued that it was the first modern war and I believe it was in several ways but also not in others. There were technologies used such as aircraft (balloons), first battle of ironclads, extensive use of rifled bullets, railroads and telegraphs. Then there was the total war concept that Sherman employed where he targeted the CS's ability to wage war. Trench warfare was used extensively and resembled that of the static lines in WWI. Tactics of extremely fast moving armies such as Jackson used was studied by German General Rommel much later. There were also repeating rifles such as the Henry. Submarines were used as well.
But things like lining soldiers up shoulder to shoulder several columns deep and marching across an open field with a fife a drum playing music made it feel like a Napoleonic war especially in the first half of the war. And the inability to figure out diseases and fight infection made it seem like it wasn't modern either.
Maybe the correct term was that our War Between the States was the stepping stone that led from the old into modern warfare.
 
Of course, "modern war" will always be a subjective term, however, en masses assaults on fortified positions seem quite primitive by today's standards. Would it be more accurate to suggest the tools and weapons of war were advanced beyond the tactics?
 
Well tell your son whatever you are planting shouldn't be in the vicinity of weeds, period. There should be no debate about it. When is he planting the tomatoes and how close to the weeds is he planting them?
So much for reading comp.
Lunch with son, then solitary debate and modern warfare with weeds.
Poison artillery barrage followed by shock troops of post hole digger and shovel with hand to hand combat clean up.
Regrettably no mechanized infantry rotor tiller I can call up for support.
 
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So far lots of speculation but little in the way of what historians are saying, quoting that and rebutting that.
 
I wrote a term paper on this very subject in college. I argued that it was the first modern war and I believe it was in several ways but also not in others. There were technologies used such as aircraft (balloons), first battle of ironclads, extensive use of rifled bullets, railroads and telegraphs. Then there was the total war concept that Sherman employed where he targeted the CS's ability to wage war. Trench warfare was used extensively and resembled that of the static lines in WWI. Tactics of extremely fast moving armies such as Jackson used was studied by German General Rommel much later. There were also repeating rifles such as the Henry. Submarines were used as well.
But things like lining soldiers up shoulder to shoulder several columns deep and marching across an open field with a fife a drum playing music made it feel like a Napoleonic war especially in the first half of the war. And the inability to figure out diseases and fight infection made it seem like it wasn't modern either.
Maybe the correct term was that our War Between the States was the stepping stone that led from the old into modern warfare.
Good points.
I have seen an article that argues that rifled bullets were not that much more effective than muskets or buck and ball.
 
Of course, "modern war" will always be a subjective term, however, en masses assaults on fortified positions seem quite primitive by today's standards. Would it be more accurate to suggest the tools and weapons of war were advanced beyond the tactics?
Agree, but I would like someone to take the time to quote articles to see what historians are thinking.
 
Another food fight generated by the OP not defining the terms we are to argue about.

"Modern" means "present day," so the English archers at Agincourt thought they were practicing modern war (compared to the Greeks and Romans). The Napoleonic armies thought they were fighting modern war (compared to the middle ages knights). The present armies do fight modern war (by definition).

So, what characteristics of modern/today war do we find present or missing from the CW?

To be included, the characteristic must be wide spread and of great importance. Some have already been mentioned, but I'll offer the following incomplete lists:

Modern war characteristics present in CW and not characteristics of previous wars:
Railroads
Warships not dependent on the wind
Rifled arms

Modern war characteristics NOT present in CW:
Aircraft
Radios
Smokeless powder
A battlefield where it is death to be seen in the open
Submarines
Satellites
Motor vehicles

Characteristics sometimes labeled modern and attributed to CW, but were characteristics of previous wars:
Total war (hard war)
Newspapers

My lists turned out to be shorter than I had anticipated. Comments?
 
Another food fight generated by the OP not defining the terms we are to argue about.

"Modern" means "present day," so the English archers at Agincourt thought they were practicing modern war (compared to the Greeks and Romans). The Napoleonic armies thought they were fighting modern war (compared to the middle ages knights). The present armies do fight modern war (by definition).

So, what characteristics of modern/today war do we find present or missing from the CW?

To be included, the characteristic must be wide spread and of great importance. Some have already been mentioned, but I'll offer the following incomplete lists:

Modern war characteristics present in CW and not characteristics of previous wars:
Railroads
Warships not dependent on the wind
Rifled arms

Modern war characteristics NOT present in CW:
Aircraft
Radios
Smokeless powder
A battlefield where it is death to be seen in the open
Submarines
Satellites
Motor vehicles

Characteristics sometimes labeled modern and attributed to CW, but were characteristics of previous wars:
Total war (hard war)
Newspapers

My lists turned out to be shorter than I had anticipated. Comments?

I have appealed to the better natures of the members to quote what Civil War historians are saying, but no one seems to want to see what modern warfare is described as by the subject matter experts.
 
Warships not dependent on the wind
Crimean War was fought largely with steam ships. This falls into the third category.

Rifled arms
Rifled arms, but used like smoothbores for the most part. I'd argue it was a slight regression - the Irish Brigade used Buck and Ball for most of their famous existence, and effectively; against an European-trained army they'd have been shot down from a range too great to reply.
It's not really "modern" if you're using more technologically advanced weapons but using them like the less technologically advanced ones - a bayonet is more modern than a pike but using bayonets without ammunition is not more modern than using pikes.

In any case, rifled arms were a major feature of the Austro-French war of 1859, and the British (and French) armies in the Crimea were mostly rifle-armed.

Railroads
1859 and Crimea saw them used, though not on the same scale.
 
I have appealed to the better natures of the members to quote what Civil War historians are saying, but no one seems to want to see what modern warfare is described as by the subject matter experts.
I think the problem is that we're addressing the actual question.

Here's the thing - if you ask ten different experts you'll get ten different opinions on what modern warfare is. We're doing much the same thing.



In any case, a quick scan-through of articles does not impress. Some say it's things like photography which make a war modern - I think that's silly, functionally it's journalism and that's Crimean (and there were no combat photos, the exposure times were too long). Others cite things like it being the first industrial war (I'd dispute that too, since Britain's version of the Napoleonic Wars involved industry and since much of what won the Civil War wasn't industry) or the first war with torpedoes and mines (torpedoes maybe, but spar torpedoes were not very impressive in terms of modernity being literally bombs on a stick; mines are Crimean again).
Ironclad ships are often cited (Crimean!) and railroads too (maybe, but there was a rail route built in the Crimean War on the Crimean by the Allies).


This is a typical example of a summary:

Most authorities would agree that the first modern war of major scale, was the
American Civil War (1861–1865). Within it we also see the beginning of a mas-
sive new level of lethality as the rifled musket and the minié ball extend the ef-
fective killing range of the foot soldiers’ weaponry from 50 to 100 yards to over
500 yards, five to ten times greater than that of Napoleonic warfare.

The rifled musket and the Minié ball saw better use in almost every other war of the Rifle Age than in the Civil War. The Austrians and the Danes did better with it, let alone the French or British.
 
Very large citizen armies.
The South fought like a modern police state. No amount of casualties was ever going to be enough. The war did not end until Jefferson Davis was evicted from the capital and the government was on the run.
Democratic elections were pretty new in 1he nineteenth century, and the nerve of the North, to have an election, with the outcome in doubt until 30 days before the election day, with its citizens engaged in deadly combat, was modern.
 
Very large citizen armies.
The South fought like a modern police state. No amount of casualties was ever going to be enough. The war did not end until Jefferson Davis was evicted from the capital and the government was on the run.
Democratic elections were pretty new in 1he nineteenth century, and the nerve of the North, to have an election, with the outcome in doubt until 30 days before the election day, with its citizens engaged in deadly combat, was modern.
I think at least the French side of the Napoleonic wars would take the very large citizen armies title.
 
I think the problem is that we're addressing the actual question.

Here's the thing - if you ask ten different experts you'll get ten different opinions on what modern warfare is. We're doing much the same thing.



In any case, a quick scan-through of articles does not impress. Some say it's things like photography which make a war modern - I think that's silly, functionally it's journalism and that's Crimean (and there were no combat photos, the exposure times were too long). Others cite things like it being the first industrial war (I'd dispute that too, since Britain's version of the Napoleonic Wars involved industry and since much of what won the Civil War wasn't industry) or the first war with torpedoes and mines (torpedoes maybe, but spar torpedoes were not very impressive in terms of modernity being literally bombs on a stick; mines are Crimean again).
Ironclad ships are often cited (Crimean!) and railroads too (maybe, but there was a rail route built in the Crimean War on the Crimean by the Allies).


This is a typical example of a summary:



The rifled musket and the Minié ball saw better use in almost every other war of the Rifle Age than in the Civil War. The Austrians and the Danes did better with it, let alone the French or British.

Summary was not very helpful was it.
 
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