"Shifting Strategies: Military Theory in the ACW" Topic

"In four years of civil war stretching from the deserts of New Mexico to the valleys of Vermont, more than 620,000 Americans died. Many of those soldiers were victims of violent combat, shot by rifles or pistols, run through by bayonets, or blown apart by cannon fire.[1] However, many of those soldiers were also victims of a combat style that combined nineteenth century technology and weapons with eighteenth century tactics. The devastating effect of rifled muskets and cannons exacerbated the difficulties of developing a workable offensive strategy among generals whose West Point Military Academy (USMA) education emphasized a reliance on defense.[2] The inability to devise an offensive strategy that could destroy an enemy was particularly troubling to the majority of Union generals who, at the earliest stages of the Civil War, seemed reluctant to fight at all. It would not be until Ulysses S. Grant took command of the Union Army that northern strategy was modified with the goal of seeking "the utter destruction of the Confederacy's capacity to wage war."[3]

This essay will analyze the military and political factors related to the Civil War to demonstrate that the evolution of the conflict, from its early emphasis on winning individual battles to the final application of a total war policy, was a reflection of the military theories of Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz. While it would be impractical to analyze every skirmish, the work will focus on battlefield strategy, both militarily and politically inspired, employed by Union and Confederate commanders where there was a clear application of Jominian theory to the fighting. Jomini's theories on war were familiar to most of the generals and statesmen on both sides and taught those leaders how to fight their battles. Clausewitz's theories were not as familiar to either side, but their unwitting application taught the Union leadership something more important than how to fight battles – it taught them how to win the war.[4]

Both Jomini and Clausewitz developed and refined their theories based on their experiences with European warfare as it related to the conflicts of the Seven Years' War, and afterwards as war and society were transformed by Revolutionary France and the Napoleonic Era. Since the United States military would be measured by the standards of European military powers to test itself in matters of security, it was only natural that those European practices be taught at the USMA as a means of building a more professional corps of officers.[5] As such, the earliest military theory taught at USMA was based on the Napoleonic model of warfare. That model relied on the prolific expenditure of manpower to impose significant losses on the enemy in a battle of annihilation. Napoleon's favorite method for winning decisive victory was to employ several divisions in support of one another using some units to hold their position and batter the enemy while he exploited the capabilities of his cavalry to out maneuver and envelope the enemy. The battle of annihilation became the identifying feature for this new model of warfare…"
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Amicalement
Armand

This is something I have been involved with recently, The essay seems more concerned with the strategic situation, which simply put the Union won because of its better industrial base.
But the evolution of tactics was what interested me a couple of months back as I did the research for Fighting Brothers ACW rules. You can see the start of loose order formations but with muzzle loaded rifles predominating, a pure skirmish formation could not put out enough firepower to win the day. But ACW commanders rapidly adapted to the new weapons. Interestingly apart from sharpshooters, there seemed little interest in taking advantage of the rifle. Perhaps because they were still using black powder and any massed fire would produce so much smoke as to obscure the target. ACW should have been the age of the artillery, with longer ranged, more accurate guns.

Once again the same old saw about 'the devastating effect of rifled muskets'. That one's just never going to die.

They were devastating provided you were trained to use them and had the right sights (breech loading helped as well).

Scott- If rifled muskets had no effect, why did tactics and formations change over the course of the war?

Look the casualties compared to the Napoleonic wars. ACW losses lower. I have a feeling that Americans were not so happy to stand up and be killed in formations.

If rifled muskets had no effect, why did tactics and formations change over the course of the war?

How do you see tactics and formations changing? The suggestion is that somehow they changed from what was common before the war.

The intro to the article seems to overlook the fact that about HALF of the 620,000 Americans who died were from disease.

I had two G-G-G-Grand Uncles, brothers, who both died within a year of joining up in September 1861. One at the battles for Yorktown and one from Cholera.

I just finished reading "With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Military Thought in the Civil War North" by Carol Reardon.

There is a podcast from Gerry Prokopowicz's "Civil War Talk Radio" featuring an interview with the author about the book here:

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The author makes a very convincing case that the armies didn't really follow Jomini that much at all.

They certainly didn't follow Clausewitz because he was not available in an English edition until after the war and none of the contemporary American writers who wrote extensively on strategic operations mention him at all. It's really only after von Moltke the Elders victories in the period 1864-1871 that Clausewitz is considered at all. The degree to which von Moltke was a student of Clausewitz is more appropriate to the 19thC board.

West Point prior to the ACW was most akin to a school of civil engineering. Studies in military tactics were not predominant. Cadets were, however, obliged to master the French language and, if they absorbed anything in the way of European military scholarship, it would most likely have been from the school of French Napoleonic studies which was so much an item of interest at that time. Halleck is known to have been a devotee of Jomini.

B

The fact of the matter is that tactics did NOT change much over the course of the war. I have studied the reports in the Official Records extensively and while there was an increase in the use of skirmishers, the battles were still fought and decided by troops in the same close-order formations they used at the start of the war. A modest increase in the accuracy of the weapons could not cancel the fact that they were still single-shot muzzle-loaders. Volume of fire is what really counts and they could not fire any faster than the old smoothbores used in prior wars. There was an increase in the use of trenches and field fortifications, but this was nothing new. What was new was that the use of railroads to supply the armies meant they could remain entrenched indefinitely as opposed to prior armies which had to stay on the move to feed themselves by foraging.

I agree with Scott here. As long as the vast majority of weapons were muzzle-loading the tactics had to choose volume of fire over safety of the soldiers. There simply were not enough breech-loaders and (even better) repeaters issued to bring about a significant change in tactics.

And, of course, the real killer was disease. About 2 men died of disease to every death from battle.

Volume of fire is what really counts and they could not fire any faster than the old smoothbores used in prior wars.

While I agree with Scott overall, didn't the volume of fire increase with the introduction of the percussion cap? I know that the misfire rate on flintlocks was @20%, and that was significantly lowered with the cap… that an loading time was shortened. Probably an increase in effectiveness of around 10-15%. Not massive, but significant, I would think.

Having done both, I can say that priming the pan with powder is no more time consuming than fumbling around for a tiny percussion cap and getting it placed on the cone :) Percussion caps were definitely more reliable, especially in wet weather, but on the other hand, a Minnie ball always needs to be rammed down, especially after a few shots, where a round ball in a smoothbore could, in a pinch be loaded without ramming. Frederick the Great's troops could fire five rounds a minute sometimes by doing that--something you could never manage with a rifle-musket. So I'd have to say that rate of fire would not be significantly different for the rifles.

Don't forget training in loading. It seems that was not good in the ACW.
So better weapons but not used as well?

…of 27,574 muskets picked up on the battlefield of Gettysburg and turned into the Washington Arsenal, at least 24,000 were loaded. About half of this number contained two charges each, about a fourth contained from three to ten charges each and the balance one charge. The largest number of cartridges found in any one piece was twenty three. In some cases the paper of the cartridges was unbroken and in others the powder was uppermost.

Frederick the Great's troops could fire five rounds a minute sometimes by doing that--something you could never manage with a rifle-musket. So I'd have to say that rate of fire would not be significantly different for the rifles.

Good points. Both rifle-muskets and smoothbores fouled easily enough that ramming soon became necessary, that an the ball had a habit of rolling out of the smooth barrel if the ball wasn't rammed down with the paper…

Frederick's Prussians also introduced the conical flash hole which significantly decreased the misfires and rate of fire.

Wow!

Amicalement
Armand

Is it just me or is this thread really wending its way toward the position that the difference between a flintlock smoothbore musket and a percussion rifled musket wasn't really very significant? If so, someone please explain why both sides expended so much time, energy and money to obtain reliable rifled muskets for their respective armies.

B

Ah arms procurement is a funny old business – I used to sell them. First there is what you can get your hands on. Then lets have the latest piece of kit (don't want to get left behind in the arms race). Then you have prejudices, don't let those guys have faster firing rifles, they will use too much ammo.
As has been said the Minie bullet worked wonders for the British and French armies in the Crimea (although they still did not 'win'). But that did not mean that the same weapons in the hands of ACW troops made that much difference. Now the sharpshooters on both sides were lethal.

In 1862 Lee's Army of Northern Virginia ran a series of tests on all the arms in general issue in the ANV. They were tested for accuracy at all ranges out to 1,000 yards. What was learned that out to approximately 500 yards all rifles and rifle-muskets were more or less equally accurate. Past 500 yards their accuracy dropped off. However, they found that the P-58 Enfield Naval Rifle and the P-60 Army Short Rifle-when fired with British made Enfield ammo was accurate out to 900/1,000 yards.

Firing rapidly with smoothbore muskets was recognised as a very ineffective practice, at least in the British army of the time. Deliberate, slow and accurate fire was considered to have far more effect. In various regulations from the Napoleonic wars up to the introduction on the rifled musket, British regulations stated:

File or independent firing should be practised frequently as it is the most essential and usual mode of firing upon actual service. Great care must be taken in file firing, that it is not hurried; and that the men present deliberately, bringing up the firelock gradually and looking at their object before they fire, – otherwise it will lose all its effect against an enemy. The value of a soldier's ammunition, and a jealously of its expenditure without effect, must be carefully instilled; for in proportion as a cool and well directed fire serves to distract and throw the enemy into disorder, so is a wild, confused and hurried fire (which is always without effect), calculated to give him confidence and a contempt for his opponent. According to these principles, file firing must be conducted slowly and deliberately.

Firing even three rounds per minute was considered to be too hurried by some, for example Colonel Mitchell who was a veteran of the Peninsula and Waterloo:

Tacticians talk, no doubt, about firing four or five shots in a minute. Miserable puerilities, not worth discussing. With ball cartridges three shots may perhaps be fired per minute, but the more there is of such fire, the less will be the effect produced.

While very interested in the Civil War, I have not done enough research to say why the potential of rifled muskets was not fully exploited, although I am aware of the arguments. However, I am very familiar (by being fortunate enough to have experimented extensively with original examples) with the weapons used in both the Civil War and Napoleonic Wars and the rifled musket represented such a vast improvement in accuracy and reliability that it is hard to believe that it made no difference, even in the hands of incompetent marksmen.

400 men in a regiment firing 3 black powder rounds per minute = 1200 rounds per minute = 20 rounds per second across the line frontage. How does anyone see?

I've done my share of reading on the ACW and 19thC H&M period. My conclusion is that the argument in favor of the rifled musket in the ACW was never about an average infantryman consistently getting head shots at 500 yds; it was about the ability of the regiment/battalion as a whole to deliver a dense, reasonably well aimed sheaf of fire against targets out to 2-300 yards. Smoothbores could not accomplish this task.

B

An additional limitation on unlocking the potential of the rifle was the availability of gunpowder, and the pursuant lack of training. Prior to the development of industrialized chemical plants producing copious amounts of gunpowder, in the mid-19th centuries, armies simply could not expend large amounts of gunpowder for training. As a result, the average infantryman simply did not have extensive firearms training beyond simple maintenance and loading drills. The infantryman simply did not know how to aim his rifle at long distances—eyewitnesses report entire companies aiming their rifles at a 45 degree angle facing the sky and discharging their rifles at Bull Run (Guelzo p. 59). Such untrained soldiers could not be expected to engage an enemy much further than point blank range with any level of accuracy.

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Yes, the lack of marksmanship training greatly reduced the potential effectiveness of the rifle-musket. If all the troops had been extensively trained in how to fire accurately at long ranges, then yes, the introduction of the rifle might have significantly changed the tactics used. But they weren't and thus it didn't.

As for why the push to get rifles for the troops, well, it wasn't all that strong a push. As late as Gettysburg, large numbers of troops (about 1/3) were still using smoothbores and from the accounts, few of them seemed to feel they were under any huge disadvantage. But no doubt the people in charge of ordnance were keen to get everyone using a standard rifle--it simplified the process of providing ammunition enormously.

VVV –
"eyewitnesses report entire companies aiming their rifles at a 45 degree angle facing the sky and discharging their rifles at Bull Run"

I am sure that the account is, strictly speaking, correct, but do not agree that it necessarily represents an example of weapon-handling ineptitude. For it to be so, one must be prepared to believe (a) that all their officers were so totally inept as to fail to order their men to level their weapons (standard part of the firing order sequence) and (b) that each of those several hundred individual soldiers, not under proper command, independently chose the exact same counter-intuitive method of aim. Much more likely IMO is that the cited formation was actually ordered to do just what they were seen to do. French infantry battalions of the NW era occasionally used this very same technique of firing in unison at a great elevation in order to deliver long range harassing "barrage fire" against targets otherwise too distant to be engaged. French tactics were closely studied by the US military and it perfectly conceivable that this (admittedly unusual)technique was noted and perhaps employed by them.

Can I conclusively prove that? Not at this distant remove. But it is IMO a good deal more likely than a mass outbreak of coordinated irrationality.

To be fair, another possibility (if the context of the reported event could be established) is that scared, nervous and excited soldiers in a fight would be seen firing their rifles "from the hip" – simple fright or a desire to avoid a shoulder bruised from lengthy firing is anyone's guess, but it did occur. See duPicq on this phenomenon.

To put the rifled musket in proper perspective, one has to ALSO deal with the Dreyse and the Chassepot rifles. Both used black powder propellant and, being faster firing breechloaders, must have filled the battlefields of Europe with impenetrable clouds of smoke. But the historical record clearly shows both these weapons as hugely important advances. The Dreyse slaughtered smoothbore-armed Austrian infantry with it faster firing rate and much greater range; the Chassepot in turn later delivered an important range advantage over the Dreyse. Balck's study of 19thC infantry tactics is very illuminating on these points. Smoke IMO did not draw a curtain on longer ranged firing to anything like the degree being suggested by certain authors or inferred by some readers.

One last comment before I shut up. Anyone who believes that the rifled musket, anywhere in its trajectory, was not dramatically more accurate than a smoothbore musket should pick up a copy of "The Rifled Musket" by Claud Fuller and compare the graphical evidence of the physical firing test results. Fuller includes an exact reproduction of the very lengthy US Bureau of Ordnance wartime report covering their immensely painstaking test program evaluating various long arms – everything from pre-war smoothbore to metallic cartridge breechloaders. It's an inexpensive but valuable book that deserves to be on the bookshelf of any student of ACW weapons and tactics.

OK, I'm done now.

B

I am sure that the account is, strictly speaking, correct, but do not agree that it necessarily represents an example of weapon-handling ineptitude. For it to be so, one must be prepared to believe (a) that all their officers were so totally inept as to fail to order their men to level their weapons (standard part of the firing order sequence)

Levelling weapons might not have been a great idea.

While rifling improved overall accuracy of muskets, the rifling also formed a trajectory that caused the bullet to quickly "drop" from where it was aimed (in contrast to the flat trajectory of smoothbore muskets). Thus to hit a target at distances beyond 40–50 yards, the rifleman would require knowledge of trajectory and distance, aiming the rifle at a precise angle above the target. In actual battlefield situations, such precise aiming was virtually impossible. Under the stress of battle, virtually every infantryman asked about aiming on the battlefield replied that in practice, the best one could do was "simply raise his rifle to the horizontal, and fire without aiming." (Guelzo p. 62).

So you needed to know the range to the target and sight accordingly. If you look at my previous posts you will see that sharp shooters were deadly because they were trained to estimate ranges and to shoot. Lack of training being a big part of the inaccuracy of ACW shooting.

No matter what type of weapon we are discussing, a person needs time on a target range to grow accustomed to it and become proficient at hitting a target with it. Few Civil War soldiers were given that opportunity. And considering the relative infrequency of battles, they probably had little chance to learn through actual combat experience.

A note on smoke on the battlefield. The effects of this will vary dramatically depending on the weather conditions. A sunny day with a nice breeze will see the smoke dispersing quickly and having little effect. A still, humid day can see the smoke accumulating in thick clouds close to the ground. I was in one reenactment battle where after only two or three vollies visibility was down to a dozen yards.

Nice to have some practical experience of using the weapons.

A note on smoke on the battlefield. The effects of this will vary dramatically depending on the weather conditions. A sunny day with a nice breeze will see the smoke dispersing quickly and having little effect. A still, humid day can see the smoke accumulating in thick clouds close to the ground. I was in one reenactment battle where after only two or three vollies visibility was down to a dozen yards.

That is very true. It is not called "the fog of war" for nothing.

I do find that the original post concerned the strategic thinking and we're discussing tactical minutia.

I do find that the original post concerned the strategic thinking and we're discussing tactical minutia.

A scan read of the article mentioned shows no inclusion tactics whatsoever.

So,I find you are correct. Mind you, I also find you have made one post on both matters! :o)

I've long thought the T in TMP stands for tangential and I always feel reassured on the frequent occasions I'm proved right!

"So you needed to know the range to the target and sight accordingly."

….. Only true if shooting beyond 200-300 yards. The default "battle sight" (elevation leaf flipped down) of the Enfield, for example, would suffice to engage targets out to 200 yds.

B

in contrast to the flat trajectory of smoothbore muskets

Another myth. The trajectory of a round ball from a smoothbore is anything but flat. A ball fired from a British flintlock musket with full service charge and a level bore held 54" above the ground would usually hit the earth at between 160-200 yards, and this is from period data. Some trials with British percussion smoothbores, which used a smaller charge, record this distance as 120 yards.

I think one of the problems is that the actual effectiveness of rifled muskets over smoothbore was controversial at the time. In the The Atlantic Monthly March, 1862 Boston p.300 "The Use of the Rifle."

"The Enfield rifle, however, is a long step in advance of the old smooth-bored musket, concerning which a veteran British officer has declared his opinion that 'a man might sit at his ease in an armchair all day long while another at two hundred yards' distance was blazing away at him with a brown Bess, on the sole condition that he should, on his honor aim exactly at him at every shot." Per contra to this, may be stated the fact, mentioned by Lord Raglan in his despatches, that at Balaklava a Russian battery of two guns was silenced by the skill in rifle-shooting of a single officer (Lieutenant [pronounced 'luftenant'] Godfrey) who, approaching under over of a ravine within six hundred yards, and having his men hand him their Enfield rifles in turn, actually picked off the artillery men, one after another, till there were not enough left to serve the guns, and this in spite of the storm of shot and shell which they poured around him in reply,…"

The Author goes on to give examples from the first year of the Civil War, such as Edward's Ferry October 22, 1861.

There were any number of tracts written after the Crimean and 1859 wars about the effectiveness of the rifled musket.

The book The Influence of Firearms Upon Tactics. was first written in German and Translated by Capt. E.H. Wickham, RA 1876

About the American Civil War, the author begins by writing:

What stands out most prominently, is the great superiority of the defense when, as here, the assailant has neither trained troops nor generals who had had much experience in war. In fact, owing to the introduction of rifled firearms, the defense than the attack. Owing to the greater distance at which rifled firearms have made it necessary that armies should keep apart, and consequently on account of the greater space that the assailant had to traverse, the defense is in a much better position to counteract the attack, as it gains more time to bring up its reserves to the threatened points. Moreover, it receives timely notice by the concentration of fire upon the point of attack. To this may be added, all the advantages which fighting in a position under cover, and the power of being able to use their firearms to the greatest advantage, confers on the defender. The practice of the Americans to entrench themselves in every postion, and even when forming their camp after the day's march, was kept up in an extraordinary manner.

I'm not suggesting that this proves the increased power of the rifle on ACW battlefields. What this shows is that the question of the increased power of the rifle and changing tactics was alive and undecided during and after the ACW.

McLaddie wrote – "What this shows is that the question of the increased power of the rifle and changing tactics was alive and undecided during and after the ACW."

Not surprising. Neither army possessed any meaningful practical experience with large scale use of rifled arms at the beginning of the war. They were, no doubt, doing their best to come to grips with how their imported tactical doctrine, based upon a century plus of European experience with smoothbore flintlock infantry arms, was being affected by the mass use of rifled percussion infantry arms.

One strong hint pointing to the degree of influence exerted upon the ACW battlefield by the rifled musket is the quasi-religious policy of unbidden hasty entrenchment adopted by the infantry of both sides. Soldiers do not IMO exert that sort of energy on their own initiative unless they see practical value in it.

B

Major Snort (lovely moniker BTW) wrote –
"Another myth. The trajectory of a round ball from a smoothbore is anything but flat. A ball fired from a British flintlock musket with full service charge and a level bore held 54" above the ground would usually hit the earth at between 160-200 yards, and this is from period data. Some trials with British percussion smoothbores, which used a smaller charge, record this distance as 120 yards."

True words. The only thing I would beg to add is that, given the difference in MV – ~1300-1400 fps for smoothbore vs ~1000 fps for rifled musket, the smoothbore musket probably did possess "a flatter trajectory" for the first 50-75 yards or so. But the difference was so miniscule as to be tactically meaningless and the stupendously poor ballistic characteristics of the smoothbore ball compared to the elongated rifle bullet soon reversed that situation in dramatic fashion. A comparison of the trajectories of contemporary smoothbore and rifled muskets would, I think, be very instructive.

B

On the matter of entrenchment. It was not purely a matter of rifle over musket, rather a change in Tactics and a disinclination to get killed.

Speaking of the East here, post Gettysburg those veterans that stayed on had seen more than enough before the commencement of the Overland Campaign. They were then confronted with the Wilderness which started as the same old stand up fight with major losses, all be it in difficult conditions.

If you have read Rhea's books its easy to trace the change of attitude on both sides, at all levels, in a well described manner.

Importantly for me was that Lee had a double shock. Not only the realisation that losses were unsustainable but that Grant wasn't going away. Thus the days of expensive (as they often were) victory were over. The ANV could no longer take the punishment and survive.

The race from one place to another in order to knock up well sited defences of increasing complexity, in unbelievably short time, therefore became a strategic as well as a tactical necessity.

To begin with there was a failure in the AOP to adapt to this need of Grant's Strategic aim. Although it was not universal – Upton at Spotsylvania and the later attack of the II Corps at least showed an attempt at change.

However, this was not a change, unsuccessful or other wise, brought on solely by better infantry weapons. It owed as much if not more to the inability of the artillery of the period to break entrenched positions.

The lack of high explosive ordnance led directly to the shooting gallery effect of 1864 and Infantry Commanders refusing to assault positions they knew were impossible to take. With defenders who were unsuppressed and subject to only limited fire from attacking units. Distances at which attacking units came under fire varied but accounts are clear that the really murderous fire was at close range and more often than not from troops who were in a fit state to deliver it.

If you were stood securely at a breast work with 8 – 10 loaded weapons by your side, I wonder just how much those last ditch volleys would be more or less effective if they were rifles or muskets?

Upton at Spotsylvania and the later attack of the II Corps at least showed an attempt at change.

Even in this, though not used before to my knowledge, they were old tactics. All Upton did was employ the open column [at full intervals] for the attack, something the French did during the Napoleonic Wars.

And entrenchments was something always done by the smaller army on the defensive, particularly when they HAD TO defend specific locations such as Richmond, Petersburg and Atlanta. No different than a number of situations during the Napoleonic Wars. Luckily for them, they were proactive and built fortresses before hand. Americans had never felt the need except on the coasts…

Hi Trajanus –
I was not actually referring to formal entrenchments and prepared positions. I was referencing the habituation of infantry in the latter half of the war to make hasty improvements to their cover wherever they might halt – piling up rocks, fence rails, etc, anything that might stop a bullet.

B

I was not actually referring to formal entrenchments and prepared positions. I was referencing the habituation of infantry in the latter half of the war to make hasty improvements to their cover wherever they might halt – piling up rocks, fence rails, etc, anything that might stop a bullet

.

Blutarski:

Those 'hasty improvements' tended to grow into formal entrenchments and prepared positions, such as Petersburg or around Cold Harbor and Atlanta. Kind of hard to draw a line between the two, even if you attempt to differentiate by how much time was involved.

McLaddie wrote –
"Those 'hasty improvements' tended to grow into formal entrenchments and prepared positions, such as Petersburg or around Cold Harbor and Atlanta. Kind of hard to draw a line between the two, even if you attempt to differentiate by how much time was involved."

I respectfully disagree. Such formalized protective works had been part of the military lexicon since the advent of missile weapons. Formal entrenchments, ordered to be prepared by a senior commander, laid out by engineer officers, with cleared fields of fire and lines of various obstacles to impede attackers had manifested themselves from the earliest period of the ACW: the Confederates employed them as early as the Peninsula Campaign; Washington DC was ringed with a progressively growing complex of earthworks commenced within the first year of the war and accelerated after the scare of Bull Run. Lee's enthusiastic embrace of such fortification work in the Overland Campaign stemmed from strategic facts of life: he had inadequate forces to face Grant in the open field and was forced to morph into the defender in an extended siege operation aimed at Richmond/Peterburg.

Hasty "on the spot" piling of stones, fence rails and other local debris as protection against small arms fire, by soldiers on their own initiative without any orders to do so from their officers, is IMO a distinctly different phenomenon. At that macro level, it had nothing to do with higher tactics or balance of forces. It was, to my mind at least, simply a pragmatic reaction by private soldiers to a vastly increased zone of danger posed by rifled arms.

B

Hasty "on the spot" piling of stones, fence rails and other local debris as protection against small arms fire, by soldiers on their own initiative without any orders to do so from their officers, is IMO a distinctly different phenomenon. At that macro level, it had nothing to do with higher tactics or balance of forces. It was, to my mind at least, simply a pragmatic reaction by private soldiers to a vastly increased zone of danger posed by rifled arms.

Blutarski:

I guess it would depend on how you see that in operation. Does it happen spontaneously regardless of where or when they are located at a spot, or in response to a unit order or mission to defend a particular location. Obviously, doing it at a camp site is a fairly old tradition, though whether it was soldier initiative or a formal practice is something I don't have any information on.

Be clear in your Analysis!

Two (separate) streams of thought under discussion, the original (what we now call "Operational Art") as in Carol Reardon and her book. (Awesome accomplishment btw) and "Minor Tactics"

As has been noted above, under Minor Tactics (the academic source to consult is Earl J Hess, multiple works); He was originally (?) inspired by Paddy Griffiths, Battle Tactics of the Civil War, who is pretty much confirmed. The Improve Your position at the first Opportunity is the key finding.

Also, and poorly investigated, I read one Regimental Officer's memoir who indicated the decisive tactic was to "rise up and give them a volley", i.e. the same first "prepared fire" dating back at least to the Seven years War. IIRC, an Ohio Regiment from Sherman's Army, same division as my GGGGF, different brigade.

Whether or not Jomini was a direct or indirect influence on "Operational Art", (Reardon), I was struck years ago that the Confederate Plan at Pea Ridge (and other ACW campaigns) was straight out of Napoleon's playbook, "Manouvere sur Deriere". Then you engage, and see what happens.

Remember the Higher Command on both sides was dominated by West Point Graduates, who had at least had the short lecture discussed by Reardon. And most of whom had participated in Scott's Campaign in the Valley of Mexico, which while "Decisive" did not end the war immediately, against a much weaker state.

It was the strategic depth of both sides that led to the war becoming a matter of Grinding Attrition, so definitely the first modern war, in the sense that the armies remained in the field for years.

Also, the Steamboat is as important (Especially in the West) for Union Logistics as the Railroad!

When I get my ACW books unpacked and shelved (finally got more bookcases!), I will post more on this interesting subject. I recall having had some questions regarding Griffith's arguments regarding ACW engagement ranges, but do not want to write solely from memory.

B

For interest – This interesting document can be found on the CARL digital library website.

EVOLUTION OF ENTRENCHMENTS DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: A VISION FOR WORLD WAR I LEADERS
BY LT COL JOHN E. GATES
United States Army

B

Hess was originally doubtful of the ideas Griffith as expressed in "Battle Tactics" but came round to agreeing with most of them while writing his own "Civil War Infantry Tactics". Including the short range of firefights and dismissing an assumption that rifles changed everything.

For what its worth, Nosworthy came to the same conclusion in "Bloody Crucible of Courage"

I didn't mention Nosworthy because his data set is quoting Griffith's.

Nosworthy only quotes Griffith once in Chapter 30 (on effectiveness of rifles) of BCC, amongst over fifty others.

Being an idiot, I should have noted that Hess aligned his views with Griffith more in "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat – Reality and Myth" and also "The Union Soldier in Battle".

At least I have an excuse with the latter as I've never read it. The same can't be said of the former!

The key point for me is that Griffith was howled down when his book first appeared thirty years ago but subsequent authors research have confirmed his view. Regardless of that some folks out there continue to believe firefights at 350 – 400 yards were the norm.

One thing I do wonder however is the amount of consideration given to the practical difference between "firefights" and coming under fire. I know my idea of the difference (if I don't get to shoot back, its not a firefight) but people can some times interchange the two terms.

Here I would be more supportive of a view that said attacking units were often brought under fire at those kinds of distances, by defenders of earthworks etc. However the fact that they pressed on until they reached the line of works, or were halted by volleys at say, 150 yards or less, then changes the nature of things and may or may not be viewed in "firefight" terms.