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BEFORE
and during the Civil War, numerous
manuals used in the instruction of the movements of infantry were
written and utilized by the troops in conflict. There was much
confusion in the early organizational days of each regiment in
regards to drill, confusion that was tragically manifest in the
movements of infantry during the first engagements of the Civil
War.
The
manual that many officers and men were still most familiar with at
the start of the war was Scott's Infantry
Tactics (1835) - the so-called "heavy infantry
manual" - which continued to be utilized by a few units
throughout the War (such as the 41st Ohio Veteran Volunteer
Infantry). Scott's tactics emphasized massed infantry
concentrated on the march and on the battlefield, to maximize the
effect of relatively inaccurate musket fire. Revisions to
U.S. infantry tactics were needed to respond to the move from
muskets to longer-range, more accurate rifles.
Hardee's
Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (1855)
was the result of the realization of the value of skirmishers and
rapidity of movement by American military thinkers in the early
1850s. French military thought had a heavy influence on
American military training and doctrine, and the 1838 tactics of
the Duke of Orleans' Chasseurs a Pied introduced new
developments in musketry and drill that would be the basis for the
tactics used by both sides in the American Civil War.
In
the early 1850s, the Army began developing a new rifled musket to
take advantage of the minie ball - a combination that promised
greater accuracy and range. To go along with this new rifle,
then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis wanted a revised system of
infantry tactics. Revisions were necessary to bring U.S.
infantry tactics in line with the long-range capabilities of the
rifle - revisions that authorities would model on the French
experience with the Chasseurs.
Learning
from French Experience
In France, the first
attempted solution to the introduction on new technologies (like
the minie ball and rifled musket) was sheer speed of movement.
Knowing for some time that something like Minie's system was
inevitable, the French had begun developing a tactical
countermeasure. It was to be a new style of infantry--battalions
of athletes capable of sustained movement at the 'gymnastic pace'
or jog. They were called, appropriately, the Chasseurs and the
first units were deployed in the late 1830's. As Colonel Le
Louterel put it in1848, "The new infantry ... would move so
fast that they would be exposed to relatively few of the enemy's
shots, and would demoralize him by their onset to the extent that
his aim would be spoiled."
There were twenty Chasseur
battalions in the French army by 1853. "They regarded
themselves as a separate arm of the service. No longer was the
infantryman to be fully under the control of his officers. He was
to be master of his own fire--and indeed the Chasseurs had
"dispensed with the word of command to 'fire'
altogether."
The story of the French
Chasseur drill manual then forked into two paths: discarded in
Europe, adopted in the US. In France, the gymnastic pace was
abandoned and they returned to older tactics. They had learned
that men could not outrun bullets, no matter how fast they
jogged. However, as the Europeans were reconsidering the
Chasseur drill by the mid and late 1850s, American officers were
just moving to adopt their version of the drill.
Practical
Effects of Hardee's Infantry Tactics
Brevet
Lt. Col. William Joseph Hardee, then
of the 2nd U.S. Dragoons, was
selected to revise U.S. infantry tactics. Hardee drew
heavily on the contemporary French tactics and doctrine in an
attempt to modernize the U.S. infantry into a faster, lighter
force, capable of taking advantage of the new rifle. Hardee
finished his manual in 1854; it was tested, approved, then
published in June 1855.
Hardee's
Infantry Tactics was a modernization of American infantry
drill at the company and battalion level, incorporating several
important features of light infantry tactics into the field
functioning of infantry. The most important tactical improvements,
which took into account the long-range capabilities of the rifle,
were an increased tempo where quick time (110 steps per minute)
was the norm, and double quick time (165 steps per minute) was
common, along with simplified instructions to deploy a column into
line at the double quick, without first halting. Many of these
innovations could be found in other manuals of the 1850s, but
Hardee's became the official manual for the U.S. Army.
The manual of arms in
Hardee's Tactics of 1857 was based on use of the 1855 rifle
- a shorter 33-inch two-band rifle with sword bayonet.
However, more commonly in use with most of the Regular Army - as
well as the state militias - were 42-inch barrel muskets (like the
1842 musket) or 40-inch barrel rifle-muskets (like the 1855 rifled
musket - predecessor to the 1861 Springfield), both having socket
bayonets.
Officers trained at West
Point since 1855 were intimately familiar with Hardee's
methods, as his new drill manual was first tested there in 1854.
Hardee himself was Commandant of Cadets from 1856-1860, during
which period his manual was the primary infantry drill
instruction.
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Introduction of the 1861
Tactics.
At the start
of the war most Union regiments used some combination of both
Scott's and Hardee's (such as Baxter's
Instructions for Volunteers), Ellsworth's Zouave Manual, and
others) - accepting Hardee's rules for the exercise and manoeuvres
of light infantry, but integrating elements of Scott's that were
more practical for use with the longer 3-band rifles.
J. H. Patterson, then a young officer of the 11th US Infantry,
recalled the manuals in use through 1861-1862:
"I
remember that the War Department issued to each officer the
Ordnance Manual, Wayne’s Sword Exercise, the Army
Regulations, and Scott’s Tactics. Scott was soon changed
for Hardie (sic), the latter for U. S. Infantry Tactics,
a change of title only, Hardie having gone over to the
Confederacy."
The U.S. Army revised its
Infantry Tactics in 1861 (Hardee having since resigned his
commission and gone south to Georgia). Those working on a
revised U.S. Infantry Tactics, including Silas Casey, meant to
replace the 1855 manual with a version more appropriate for use
throughout the U.S. Army by troops typically armed with the longer
3-band muskets and rifled-muskets.
The changes to the tactics
actually were slight. The same basic shoulder movements were
retained, as well as the "light infantry" concepts of
skirmishers, double quick time, etc. However, those parts of his
1855 manual of arms that had been written specifically for the
2-bander were adjusted to suit the 3-bander.
The main differences lie in
the position of the musket during loading, fixing and unfixing the
bayonet, and the method of stacking arms (Casey's uses the
"musket stack", while Hardee's uses the so-called
"Kentucky swing"). Each of these movements was
revised to take into account the greater length of the musket and
rifle-musket over the rifle, and the socket bayonet instead of the
rifle's sword bayonet. Since company and battalion
evolutions are basically the same between Casey's and Hardee's,
the above are the only practical differences in moving from one
manual to the other.
While
numerous manuals persisted among the militia and volunteer
regiments of the Union Army, the War Department attempted to
impose some standardization in mid-1862 with the adoption of Brig.
Gen. Silas Casey's Infantry Tactics
- an update of the 1861 U.S. Infantry Tactics. Procedures
for other practical matters were codified in the Revised
United States Army Regulations.
Many
U.S. regiments adhered to Casey's, while others, continued to
refer to Hardee's. Even within the same state, regiments
were split on their use of manuals - the 4th Mass. Volunteer
Militia used the Hardee manual through its 9 months of service in
1862-63, while the 33rd Mass. Volunteer Militia used Casey's in
its 3 years of service from 1862-1865.
Field
Practicalities
American officers began to
learn the defects of the Chasseur drill through brutal
experience. The carnage of Bull Run, Shiloh, Chantilly,
Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg made the
inadequacy of close-order bayonet assault obvious to nearly
all. Some of the more daring officers began to
innovate. Four innovations that emerged during the course of
the war included successive lines, short rushes, and column
assault.
Successive Lines:
Launching a succession of two-rank lines, about 150 yards apart,
was intended to deliver successive waves of fire and shock.
The problem with this tactic was that the front waves often
stalled and successive lines merged, vulnerably bunching the
assault force.
Emory Upton attempted a
similar tactic at Spotsylvania, Va. on 10 May 1864. While Generals
Meade, Hancock, Warren, and Burnside stationed themselves on hills
from which they could observe the attack, Upton placed his men in
three lines, each four regiments deep. He gave detailed orders for
the first line to break left and right when within the enemy
position, the second to halt at the enemy works and fire straight
ahead, the third to lie down farther to the rear, and the fourth
to stay in reserve at the edge of a wood 200 yards away. Upton
carried the position but, finding himself three fourths of a mile
ahead of the Union line with no prospect of support, he withdrew
with about 1100 casualties on each side.
Attempts to utilize
successive lines in practice demonstrated the difficulty in
organizing attackers so as to saturate a defensive rifle
line.
Short Rushes:
The idea of taking cover just before each defending volley, then
rising and rushing forward a few yards between volleys, occurred
to many soldiers from the start. It was well known in the
trans-Mississippi theater, where raids and ambushes were more
common than set-piece battles, but was also seen farther east. At
Fort Donelson on 15 February 1862, General Morgan L. Smith's
brigade of two regiments was advancing in a succession of lines.
On command, the second line moved up, formed on the left of the
first, and both lay down. Meanwhile, their skirmishers continued
to deliver what today's eye sees as embryonic suppressive fire.
Each time defenders' fire slackened, the brigade would rise to its
feet, rush forward, absorb its skirmishers and lay back down. At
this point their skirmishers would again deploy forward and open
fire. Repeating the cycle--dropping flat when enemy fire waxed,
dashing forward when it waned--Smith's brigade "at length
reached and carried the hostile position with but slight
loss."
The technique had two
problems. First, it failed when defenders refused to cooperate by
firing volleys. Skirmishers could not effectively suppress aimed
fire by people who outnumbered them. Trying to solve this by
deploying more skirmishers, even to the point of comprising the
entire assaulting force, sacrificed cohesion and momentum,
reverting to the deadly but static firefight feared by the French.
Second, the high degree of command control demanded more training
and rehearsal time than volunteers were given. Civil war
regiments, especially on the Union side, lacked collective
experience because they were allowed to evaporate. Instead,
recruits were formed into entirely new regiments, just as
untrained as the last batch of lambs to the slaughter. Finally,
trying to solve command control by adopting close order, so the
officer was audible to everybody, just made it easier for
unsuppressed defenders to cut them down. Despite its flaws, the
technique yielded important rewards. It focused post-war attention
on improving command control, aimed suppressive fire, and
dispersion.
Column Assault:
An attempted solution to the tendency of assaulting troops under
weak command control to lose momentum was the use of Napoleonic
assault in column. In this tactic, men in a column are swept
along, with little opportunity to deviate or take
cover. Hardee's and Casey's tactics were based in
large part on the idea of troops moving from place to place in
column formation, but deploying into line for battle. A line
formation in the assault delivers more firepower since everyone in
both of its ranks can shoot. The column has more penetrating power
since it overwhelms defenders with superior numbers at the point
of impact. Its drawback is that only the first rank or two can
shoot, even though all are vulnerable to being shot. Confronting
only smoothbore muskets or slow- loading hunting rifles, Napoleon
habitually attacked in column. Attacks in column were tried on at
least two occasions during the Civil War. The heaviest Union
column assault of the war seems to have been Hancock's II Corps at
Spotsylvania on 12 May 1864. Twenty thousand Union infantrymen in
close order formed a solid rectangle. To make them to rely on
shock, the men of Francis Barlow's First Division went in with
uncapped muskets. David Birney's Third Division, in contrast, was
deployed in two lines, firing as they advanced. In the end, column
formation was less than successful in solving the basic problem.
Barlow's division took 2,393 casualties and Birney's suffered
1,015.
As with successive lines,
experiments in column assault also demonstrated the deficiencies
in Napoleonic tactics.
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