Alan J. Pitts
Re: Accuracy
Mon Jul 9 12:33:17 2001


A VERY interesting post, Mr. Biggs.

The issue Hayes raises about accuracy of a given weapon assumes the typical CW soldier could sight and fire under actual combat conditions and put a decent spread in a moving target at X distance. I know I couldn't. Acceptance tests for these weapons took place on secluded firing ranges under controlled conditions. Nevertheless, these test results are always used to gauge accuracy of these weapons on the battlefield.

Would I rather use an Enfield than some Tower of London pumpkin-slinger? You bet.

Am I a real danger to a individual skirmisher at 2-300 yards? Not really. I should be able to put a ball into a column or a rank with its flank turned towards me, if i was ever that lucky, but even that's in doubt with an intervening wood or uneven ground between me and my target, quite likely at that distance.

If it was possible to scale casualties in a given engagement, the great majority on both sides would been incurred while troops were engaged at relatively close distances; 200 yards or less.

Lack of training by both officers and men must be taken into consideration. We often forget that regimental and even brigade commanders had no formal military training beyond antebellum experience with militia. Inability to carry out seemingly simple assignments in a competent manner troubled General Lee throughout the war, in part because capable men were often lost in battle.

Lee understood these limitations and expressed his thoughts on the subject to A. P. Hill after General A. R. Wright bungled an assignment while the army was moving from Spotsylvania to the North Anna. Hill went to Lee in a towering rage and demanded that General Wright be cashiered and replaced. Lee took Hill aside and asked in a calm, fatherly manner who Wright's replacement might be and where a more competent leader could be found. He then explained that the people of Georgia would not understand Wright's removal and humiliation. After all, Wright was a lawyer, not a soldier, and the men Wright commanded were not soldiers; they were citizens fighting for their country.

In a statement which reminds me of Lewis Armistead's talk with Lt.Col. Fremantle in "Gettysburg", Lee went on to say, "The soldiers know their duties better than the general officers do, and they have fought magnificently."

If most soldiers North and South had been professionals, I suggest that (1) events of the war would have fallen along more predictable lines and (2) its history would be somewhat less interesting to the average reader today.

The book Greg mentioned will have to go on my reading list.