"Size of 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment at Shiloh?" Topic

In Cleburne's Brigade. Unlike the other regiments in the brigade, this was it's first action. So I assume it would be larger than the other regiments in the brigade. I only have the over all strength of the brigade, not regimental strength.

15th (Cleburne's-Polk's-Josey's) Infantry Regiment was formed at Mound City, Arkansas, in May, 1861, and originally was called 1st (Cleburne's) Regiment. Some of the men were raised in Jefferson and Monroe counties. During the winter of 1861-1862, it moved east of the Mississippi River with 506 men and later took an active part in the Battle of Shiloh and the Kentucky Campaign. It then was assigned to Liddell's and Govan's Brigade, Army of Tennessee, and at Murfreesboro was united with the 13th Regiment. In September, 1863, it was consolidated with the 2nd Regiment and during December the 24th joined the command. The unit served with the army from Chickamauga to Atlanta, was with Hood in Tennessee, and ended the war in North Carolina. This unit lost 2 killed and 19 wounded at Richmond, and the 13th/15th reported 68 casualties at Murfreesboro. During December, 1863, the 2nd/15th/24th totalled 295 men and 202 arms. In July, 1864, this regiment was united with the 1st (Fagan's-Colquitt's) Regiment and in the Battle of Atlanta lost 15 killed, 67 wounded, and 3 missing. Only a remnant surrendered in April, 1865. [1]

Thanks, so some what less than 500 at Shiloh than.

Stars and Bars has a pretty extensive series of OOBs in its' appendices. In that listing, 15 Ark shows at 323 and is rated elite. It is a bit anti-intuitive that a unit would be deemed elite in its' first run in with the Elephant.

Odd.

unit wastage was often high between battles due to sickness and desertion.

15th Arkansas, Lt. Col Archibald K. Patton (k) – 400 men

I found this mention in an old OB on the Internet years ago. I can't say what the source was for that number and I suspect it's a rough approximation.
The whole brigade has 2537 men.

HMS Exeter,
the 15th seems to be the only rallied rgt after Cleburne's brigade rout on the 2nd day. Maybe that's the reason why it's rated Elite.

In the Shiloh scenario book, This Bloody Field, by Brad Butkovich, he shows the 15 Ark with 505 Present For Duty (includes many non-combatants) and 498 Engaged (officers and men on firing line). He does show them as estimates.

It is a bit anti-intuitive that a unit would be deemed elite in its' first run in with the Elephant.

If you rate units, it should be based upon actual performance, not whether it's their first action.

At First Bull Run, the Stonewall Brigade performed magnificently in their first outing and would continue being an elite fighting unit for the balance of the war.

At the Battle of Groveton (Brawner's Farm) the untested Iron Brigade would go toe to toe with the Stonewall Brigade and gave as good as they got in a close range firefight without cover and stood their ground.

At Gettysburg, the inexperienced 2nd Vermont Brigade performed far beyond expectations in engaging Pickett's Division showing great discipline in maneuvering, wheeling multiple times to be the key unit in repulsing Pickett's Charge. After the war Meade said of their performance:

"there was no individual body of men who rendered greater service at a critical moment than the comparatively raw troops commanded by General Stannard."

These are just a few, and most obvious of how performance has little to do with actual combat experience and years in action. There are lots of units with combat experience (i.e. veterans) who's performance was questionable to horrible (ahem….11th Corp!).

Rating troops based on performance in the particular battle you are re-fighting, rather then artificially ranking them as "Green" or "Veteran" is what matters for historical accuracy.

Kim

Ah, but the commanders would not yet have known what their units' historical performance would be!

Ah, but the commanders would not yet have known what their units' historical performance would be!

That's true Don, but we do. We also know who won, how they won (or lost) how many troops each had, when they arrived, from where they arrived, who was armed with what weapons, how much artillery and what type was available and the abilities and performance of all the commanders which we rate as such.

When we re-fight these historical battles we are meticulous in all of these details. Accurate orders of battle, unit strengths, correct weapons, even faulty ammo. None of which opposing commanders and possibly their own commanders would have full knowledge of.

Not rating the units based upon actual performance at those battles while being obsessed with all the other historical details seems negligent.

Kim

The old SPI TSS games had regiments as the base unit. Each strength point was 100 men. Bloody April was the Shilo game.
link

If you rate units, it should be based upon actual performance, not whether it's their first action.

I don't agree with this. Quite often the unit performance was based on the course of the battle or decisions made by the unit commander as much as on the inherent fighting quality of the unit. The Stonewall Brigade at First Manassas is a good example. Would the units that fought with Jackson have performed as well if they instead served under Bee in the Matthews Hill fight? Would Bee's regiments have performed as well as the Stonewall Brigade if their situations had been reversed?

Bill,

You make a good point, but the units fighting ability is pretty much tied to their commanders, whether it is the regimental commander, the brigade commander or even a divisional commander.

Would the Iron Brigade have performed as well as they did when they went up against the Stonewall Brigade in their first fight if John Gibbon was not their commander? Maybe not, but the facts are he was the commander at that battle, just as Jackson was in command of the Stonewall brigade at 1st Bull Run.

Our entire perspective of every point of military history is through the lens of know outcomes. When we play larger scale battles, we don't evaluate regimental commanders, that is factored into the unit, and really large battles don't have individual brigade commanders rated, so that gets factored in as well.

The point is, if you re-fight 1st Bull Run, how upset would you be playing the Confederates to see the Stonewall Brigade rout at first fire just because they are rated "Green" and untested, when we know that they were the key unit that gave the CSA this victory? Most gamers would decry that.

Kim

But ratings deal with more than history. Would the stonewall brigade at 1st bull run have stood firm if they got hit by a surprise volley from the flank or rare?
Ratings doesn't just deal with how good they are in a stand up fight. But also deal with surprise shock. And in some rules how well they manoeuvre.

Yes the 2nd Wisconsin and the iron brigade traded volleys in the dusk with the stonewall brigade. Suffering large number of casualties, but through a relatively slow attrition. I doubt they would have stood if they got some sort of shock. Like close range canister in their face for the first time. We know historically while slow attrition can have devastating casualties as an end result. While moral shocks have a much higher chance at breaking a formation. And warfare is first and foremost psychological. That's really why the volley started to be used. A volley has far far lower hit rate than aimed fire( even with a matchlock musket)

But suffering 50 casualties over 10 minutes has far lower moral effect than suffering 6 in a fraction of a second.

I will admit Kim that my wargame philosophy is different from others. To me what the regimental commander chooses to do matters, what the brigade commander chooses to do matters, what the division commander chooses to do matters just as much as what the army commander chooses to do. That may be one reason why I opt for smaller scale actions. I realize that rules which would reflect my philosophy would make it harder to handle a large scale battle. Still when you think about how much the outcome of certain battles depended on the smart or stupid actions of some subordinate commander I think there is a case for it.

Jackson's brigade did well on Henry Hill. That doesn't mean it would have done any better than Bee, Bartow or Evans if it had advanced to Matthews Hill and fought there. Likewise the Iron Brigade did well at Brawners Farm. OTOH it wasn't one of the better controlled actions by the Confederates. If Jackson had carried out his moves better would the Iron Brigade have performed as well? And if we are going to reflect the subordinate commander's judgment in evaluating a unit, what about when that commander becomes a casualty? Chance mechanisms may not be ideal, but I don't see another way to deal with all the variables.

Chance is certainly always going to be a factor no matter what. Assigning a good rating does not mean the unit won't have a moral loss.

I've played hundreds of battles over 45 years and one of the most interesting stories over the years was the Irish Brigade. We rated them veteran/crack troops in many battles base upon their historical performance. Yet in almost every battle, the Irish seemed to fail morale test after morale test at the critical time!

It got to be a running joke, so much that in our group no one wanted to play the Irish Brigade as even though we rated them high, they always skedaddled!. So even historical ratings won't overcome bad dice.

Chance can be a fickle sword of Damocles for any of us. One of our re-fights of the Battle of Chancellorsville saw Robert E. Lee killed on the first turn! Lucky for the confederates they went on to win without him.

Gunfreak and Bill, you have good points to the discussion.

Kim