Greg Biggs
CW tactics - long
Mon Jul 9 02:19:33 2001


Hello,

Being both a student of the Napoleonic Wars and the CW, I can say that the tactics used in the CW for infantry were not truly Napoleonic in nature.

First, the infantry lines had gone to the two rank system courtesy of Hardee's, which in itself was a copy of the French alteration earlier on. The French also faced the rifled musket in their manual and tried to solve it with the "Zouave rush", a tactic where the advancing infantry moved forward in rushes. The Union zouave regiments (some of them anyway) tried to copy this tactic. The answer to longer range (but not necessarily accurate)rifle fire was to advance with more speed. In the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, where both armies used rifles that were breechloaders and had an even higher rate of fire than muzzleloaders, the French manual called for attacks at the run! To do this the army was, for the first time in history, trained in physical excercise to condition the men for such maneuvers.

Most CW regiments did not copy this and moved across a field of fire at a walking pace, or maybe at the double-quick (still slower than the rush). The other problem was, and this is age-old, the habit of troops taking fire of stopping and returning it. This slows or stops the advance entirely - with the corresponding rise in casualties as they stand and take fire rather than moving forward to their objective. You will see this time and time again in CW battles. Troops are highly trained today to maneuver AND fire - troops then were trained to do one or the other. That had a huge effect on casualties. There is safety in speed of movement.

That said, the CW tactics were also still not truly Napoleonic due to the lack of proper combined arms use by CW commanders, for most of the war.

A good French assault in the NWars began with artillery bombarding the area of assault. Next came swarms of infantry skirmishers (tiralleurs - special light infantry regiments trained for such use) with usually some cavalry for protection against enemy cavalry. Behind this came the main infantry assault,at first moving in columns of divisions (8 companies per regiment, two across and 4 deep), with the division and corps formed like this. This was the fastest way to get men from Point A to Point B. This columns movement tactic was in CW drill manuals BTW - but little used.

As they closed with their foe, the columns would break into lines of battle, usually three ranks deep for the cheering (Vive l'empereur!) and musket volleys. Then came the bayonet charge that usually broke the enemy line.

While this was going on, artillery advanced in the spaces between the columns as did cavalry - a true combined arms approach. Nap Wars French Corps D'Armee had three or more infantry divisions, a cavalry division (or two, an artillery brigade and support troops that all answered to the marshal in command. It was a mini-army. CW corps were not organized like this. All of this showed an army whose components fought as a team - and they were well trained to do so.

Since Alexander The Great proved that combined arms assaults were usually successful, the French corps were structered in this manner. Modern corps are as well.

Now - the myth of the rifled musket. British military historian Paddy Griffith in his book "Battle Tactics of the American Civil War" has pretty well trashed this to pieces with lots of citations from wartime soldiers. The gist of this idea is, that most CW troops were not trained to aim their fire at individuals - they were trained to aim at another body of men and fire as rapidly as possible.

He cites several accounts of men that had been in the service for some time stating that in 1863 or 1864 they were finally getting marksmanship training to some extent - and that the target shooting they had been doing was lousy!

In this respect, CW troops we used in the NWars - and he put ten rounds into a target 125 yards away - and he only fired ten rounds!

Griffith points out that many CW battles were fought in a similar range as many Napoleonic battles - 150 yards to 30 yards, before one side or the other broke under fire or the bayonet. Check out the casualties of the later Napoleonic battles and you will find them as bloody or bloodier than CW battles. For example, Gettysburg, 53,000 casualties in three days - Waterloo 48,000 in one day! Borodino in 1812 had 70,000 casualties in one day!

What it came down to was training (the troops did not get it as their respective governments did not want to spend the money), leadership (which, compared to the NWars was not as good) and, most of all, morale of the attacker.

With the rifled musket's superior range though came the biggest test to the latter facet of the attack - the balls were getting out to 300 yards or more (but not aimed) and men were dropping, and more dropped as you got closer. That made for a LOT more ground to cover in an attack - and you had to hope the morale held up over that distance. In the NWars, you had less ground. The typical British versus French infantry fight was this: the above description on the corps attack, and, as the French infantry closed they were yelling "Vive l'empereur!" and moving forward in column. If they got too close and tried to deploy into line the Brits would fire a volley and unit cohesion would usually suffer greatly or even collapse. As the French would advance the Brits would usually stand stone quite and rigid - their "thin red line" outweighing French morale by standing and doing nothing. Then, when the Brits felt the time was right, they would volley. Usually twice was enough, and with a huge cheer, lunge forward with the bayonet. The French usually broke under this (as at Waterloo and battles in Spain).

It was British morale that won these engagements - along with their iron discipline.

Also lacking in CW battles was the proper pursuit phase usually used in Napoleon's era. This was the realm of the cavalry with infantry and artillery support. The ruthless French pursuit of the Prussians after Jena/Auerstadt was the most amazing in history (other than one of Alexander the Great's)- over 200 miles! It destroyed the Prussian Army save for two detachments!

Forrest used pursuit almost all the time after his victories (see Brice's Crossroads. It was the Federal cavalry's pursuit at Cedar Creek, Nashville and in teh Appomattox Campaign that destroyed their respective Confederate foes. This was proper Napoleonic tactics at work. The cavalry by both sides were woefully underused on the battlefield (so long as there was proper terrain).

Finally, there were too many lunkhead commanders that did not do enough military history reading for many of the attacks used to succeed. Deployment of troops was usually faulty and un-massed. When there was proper deployment and massing against a single point, success was usually found. See Upton's atack at the Mule Show or Longtreet/Bushrod Johnson's attack at Chickamauga for examples of well prepared attacks. See Pickett's Charge and Franklin for attacks that were not well prepared or properly massed. Sherman's attack at Kennesaaw was actually very well-planned as it was part of an overall grand tactical scheme designed to pin the CS right, split the center in two spots, and stretch the CS left with a manuever designed to spread the line out while it was being attacked. Very good plan - just didn't work as he did not mass enough forces at his points of decision. That had more to do with its failure than the valiant CS defense.

There were many factors at work in the CW for high casualties, and I have tried to list the most important above. Read Griffith's book - it will change your mind and destroy some cherished myths at the same time. Then do some reading in the NWars and see how those battles were fought. Had CW commanders done so some things would have been di