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Eighteenth century tactics, executed with nineteenth century weapons....

Strange that the Continental army had learned to abandon massed troop movements, then learned European tactics from the Napoleonic Wars.

Like German philosophy and education that ruined us in other ways, European military tactics in the face of the Minié ball was a lethal combination.

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Originally posted by HJrocket:
In 1938 I attended the 75th and final reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic at Gettysburg. My Dad was in charge of transportation of 280 veterans from Ft. Meye,VA to the battlefield and he took me along. The trip shaped my life, USMA grad. a 34 year Army career. three wars and lots of interesting experiences. I walked the route of Picketts charge with a group of Condfederate vets average age 97.Hard to fathom that I am nearly as old as they were then.

THAT is the most incredible thing I've heard or read in ages. Would be quite interesting to read or hear anything else about that experience you might share. Especially, insight into the conversations, thoughts and emotions of those with whom you walked. Thank you for your service, sir.

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Originally posted by sjtill:
The older I’ve gotten and the more I’ve read of the Civil War, the less romantic and the more tragic it all seems.

The Civil War was an intersection of outdated Napoleonic tactics with far more lethal weapons, resulting in horrorific casualties.

Yes, Civi War commanders on both sides were following Von Clausewitz's maxim that to mass firepower you needed to mass men. But since the time when Clausewitz formulated that, a Frenchman, Claude Minie, revolutionized rifles by figuring out how to design a bullet that locked into the rifling grooves and expanded so as to capture the total force of exploding gasses. So, whereas Clausewitz was talking about muskets with very limited ranges-- a couple of hundred yards, max, of effective fire-- the Springfields and Enfields that CW troops carried fired a full ounce of lead at slightly sub-sonic velocities and effective out to 700-800 yards.

The results were devastating. If you were hit by an 18th C musket ball in the upper arm, for instance, the big, "slow" ball would break your humerus and lodge in muscle. A surgeon could remove the ball, set the bone, and you would probably live.

If a 900 fps mini ball hit you in the upper arm, it took out three or four inches of humerus, and left the surrounding muscle and soft tissue infiltrated with bone splinters as it blew out the other side. The term "exit wound" came into usage. The surgeon had only one recourse and that was amputation. Infection was high risk, (bone splinters everywhere, along with foreign matter--bits of cloth, etc.), so death often resulted from wounds that in earlier times were easily survivable.

A single mini ball could hit one soldier, pass through, and hit and kill another soldier in ranks that were packed tight, dressed by touching elbows, and three or four deep.

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Originally posted by stiab:

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Originally posted by Gustofer:
It seems odd that Gettysburg gets the notoriety that it does.

Not odd at all if you are a student of the War. It was the turning point and first significant victory over Lee. The fate of the South was sealed after this. This was world wide news at the time, not just an American event.

This was followed a few months later by another Confederate defeat at Spring Hill TN, where several Confederate Generals were killed, including Cleburne. With the West in check, Grant was able to return to the Eastern front and focus his efforts on Lee while Sherman was free to rampage through the South. Many folks wonder why Lee and the East received so much more attention vs. what was going on in the West. Besides the obvious fact that both Capitals were in the East, there was also the fact that the vast majority of Reporters and journalists were in either Washington or Baltimore.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Graniteguy,

^^^^^^^^^^ Forrest survived the war.

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Originally posted by HJrocket:
In 1938 I attended the 75th and final reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic at Gettysburg. My Dad was in charge of transportation of 280 veterans from Ft. Meye,VA to the battlefield and he took me along. The trip shaped my life, USMA grad. a 34 year Army career. three wars and lots of interesting experiences. I walked the route of Picketts charge with a group of Condfederate vets average age 97.Hard to fathom that I am nearly as old as they were then.

Thank you so much for sharing, and thank you for your service to our great country.

I always cringe when I open threads like this, because I know that someone will start posting some weird, half-remembered alternate history. Graniteguy, you win today's prize. (Although you're right; Cleburne did get killed.... at Franklin.)

Imagine starting to walk a mile into ever how many guns Pickett’s men faced after watching This

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Originally posted by sjtill:
The older I’ve gotten and the more I’ve read of the Civil War, the less romantic and the more tragic it all seems.

That could probably be said for all war...

All you need to know about the horror of our civil war is in the recounting of the engagement that occurred over a four hour time span across a sunken clay road during the battle of Antietam.
"Bloody Lane"

I have verified 2 great grandfathers that fought in the Civil War. 1 from East Tennessee that was a Union Captain & 1 Confederate, a private & from Yancey County NC. Both survived the war.

Last time I was over in Washington DC, I deliberately overstayed my visit by a whole week, so that I could visit the battlefield for all three days that it lasted, ably assisted by a friend, now gone, who was our resident expert on the battle. I, too, walked the route of the charge, and wondered every step of the way what it must have been like to have been there on the day.

After half an hour or so, I decided that it was not possible to grasp the immensity of it all, unless one had also been on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Samuel Barber wrote his haunting Adagio in G after a visit to the battlefield, and it remains a piece of music that has never left me.

The sight, in my imagination, of General Armistead, with his hat on his sword, charging into the dug-in guns, only to fall, and then, to learn that his best friend, in blue, had also been grievously wounded not long before, is very real. The movie of Gettysburg, made even more real by having actors who looked uncannily like their originals, is a must to watch, as I am doing now.

tac

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tacfoley,

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Originally posted by Gustofer:

I've only been there once, and I have to say that it was eerie. I had a very uneasy feeling while I was there and was happy to leave. It was overcast and foggy that day. You could see the fog just rolling across the field in a manner that said, "something really bad happened here..."

When I visited Gettysburg there were lots of others, I did not get that feeling. But I've gotten it many times at Antietam jogging thru the empty park early in the morning. My brother lives a mile away.

I also got that eerie feeling walking up to the the graves at the Little Bighorn Battlefield.

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Originally posted by Horn:
Few people know the largest all cavalry battle of that war__25,000 cavalry, 12,500 on each side__
took place in Kansas at Mine Creek (about forty minutes South of Kansas City, Kansas on today's US 69.

Those numbers are wrong. Mine Creek was 2,500 Union cavalry vs. 7,000 Confederate cavalry. Kansas Historical Society

Brandy Station was the largest cavalry battle -about 9,000 Confederates vs. 10,000 Federals. Link

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Originally posted by Sportshooter:
Imagine starting to walk a mile into ever how many guns Pickett’s men faced after watching This

That's some video.

That Faulkner passage is my favorite in all of literature... It's hard to explain how true that passage rings to me growing up in the South. It's complicated...

As for the War, good men on both sides fighting for their idea of freedom, liberty, right and wrong, and of course, for their homes and the men to their left and right. And of course, on both sides, politics, men with evil intention, and oppression. Its much too complicated to break down in black and white and therefore, I give the benefit of the doubt to the belligerents on both sides. God bless their sacrifices because they and their spirits are the things our great Nation is built upon.

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The sight, in my imagination, of General Armistead, with his hat on his sword, charging into the dug-in guns, only to fall, and then, to learn that his best friend, in blue, had also been grievously wounded not long before, is very real.

I recently told my wife the story of Armistead and Hancock, former best friends, who almost came face to face on Cemetery Ridge. A striking story, well told in Michael Shaara’s “The Killler Angels”.

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In 1938 I attended the 75th and final reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic at Gettysburg. My Dad was in charge of transportation of 280 veterans from Ft. Meye,VA to the battlefield and he took me along. The trip shaped my life, USMA grad. a 34 year Army career. three wars and lots of interesting experiences. I walked the route of Picketts charge with a group of Condfederate vets average age 97.Hard to fathom that I am nearly as old as they were then.

I was so stoked to read this. After marveling on it a bit, I realized my own mother also fits that category. She causally mentioned that her grandmother was there for the civil war. The shocking statement was this: Grandma had told my mom that "she sewed Quantrills black shirts". I quickly started some internet research (believing that fake story the Yankees put out that quantrill's Lawrence raid was a bunch of wild out of control assholes who massacred civilians for no reason) and see that grandmas brother was listed as having been there on the Lawrence raid. In all of my reading, I have yet to see that quantrill had any black shirts, or shirts of any color: no mention. But I don't doubt that grandma met and supported Quantrill during the civil war. There are several books, but the one I like the best is Paul Petersons "Quantrill at Lawrence: The Untold Story". It was the last book out that covers this subject, Peterson drops some of the story that has been widely covered by others and focus's only on what he considers the untold part. So it's not the end all be all, but it's very well researched and a great tale.

https://www.amazon.com/Quantri...0_QL40_&dpSrc=detail

My research clarified a bunch of facts and led me to the belief that Kansas/Missouri conflicts were the direct cause of the civil war.

Here is an extraordinary interview with a Confederate cavalryman, long after the war. It concludes with an answer to the question, "What did you fight for?" Listen to his answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHDfC-z9YaE

If you love this stuff as I do, you will enjoy this video, which contains the earliest motion pictures of Civil War veterans. There is some extraordinary footage here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg85tI0gxmQ

HJrocket, if you pick that video up at the 31 minute mark, you will see extensive footage of the '38 reunion. Some of these men were among those you crossed the field with.