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The Military Conflict - Coggle Diagram
The Military Conflict
A Soldier's Life
Medical Care
- Far fewer soldiers died from disease than in the Napoleonic, Mexican or Crimean Wars. The US Surgeon General wrote that the Union army's death rate from disease was 'lower than has been observed in any army since the world began'
- This was largely because, by the standards of the time, medical care was good
- Trained ambulance corps were established to give first aid on the battlefield and remove the wounded to dressing stations and field hospitals
- Both sides quickly constructed a network of hospitals of astonishing size and commendable efficiency
- Soon over 3,200 women were working as nurses
- The US Sanitary Commission did splendid work in improving sanitary arrangements in camps. Various relief societies in the South did a similar but less well-co-ordinated job
- The main problem was the state knowledge of medicine and public health, rather than the lack of competence on the part of army doctors and nurses
- Doctors were still working in the 'medical Middle Ages', the revolutionary developments which were to transform medicine came a decade or so later
- Treatment of disease was still largely guess work because some drugs worked and some were harmful
- Surgeons' skills improved with practice but gangrene was a constant problem
- A Civil War soldier was 8 times more likely to die of a wound and 10 times more likely to die of disease than an American soldier in the First World War
In the Union army 67,000 men were killed in action, 43,000 died of wounds and 224,000 died of disease
Disease
- Disease was the main killer of Civil War soldiers
- Two soldiers died pf disease for every one killed in battle
- Many men went down with childhood illnesses which they encountered for the first time
- Though rarely fatal, epidemics of mumps and measles could put whole regiments out of action and severely disrupt military operations
- The soldiers suffered from camp and campaign diseases caused by bad sanitation, bad water, bad food, exposure and mosquitos
- The main killers were dysentery, malaria, typhoid and pneumonia
Motivation
- Wiley, who examined thousands of soldiers' letters, was left with the impression that most soldiers had little idea of what exactly they were fighting for
- Reid Mitchell had a similar conclusion, 'American soldiers of the 1860s appear to have been about as little concerned with ideological issues as were those of the 1940s' and the soldiers 'may well have fought during the Civil War for reasons having less to do with ideology than with masculine identity'
- Certainly solidarity with one's comrades was an important motivator in combat
- Many men fought bravely not for a cause but simply because they did not want to let their close comrades down
- Southerners believed that they were defending hearth and home against an invading, barbarous army and saw the conflict as a second War for Independence
- Northerners saw themselves as patriots fighting to save the Union and preserve the great experiment
Age
- The average age of soldiers in both armies was 25
- Although 80% of then men were between 18 and 30 years old
- Drummer boys were as young as 9 signed on (the youngest boy killed in battle was 12) and there were also some private soldiers over the age of 60
Camp Life
Training
- Following enlistment and muster into an official unit, recruits underwent basic training
- This involved learning the rudiments of camp life, weapon training, and drilling
- Drilling took up hours of a soldiers day and the goal of drill was to move disciplined manpower quickly and effectively into position on the battlefield to deliver maximum firepower at the enemy
- Men had to be trained to follow orders automatically that even amid the fear and frenzy of battle they would respond to orders
- Soldiers in cavalry and artillery units had to perfect their own distinctive drill and weapon training
Equipment
- The common soldier carried on his back nearly everything he would need to fight the enemy and survive the elements
- The assorted gear of a fully equipped infantryman might weigh as much as 50lbs
- The minimum the soldier had to carry was a rifle with a bayonet, a cartridge box, a haversack, a cape, a blanket, and a canteen
- Many also carried a razor, towel, soap, comb, knife, writing implement, mess kit, Bible, family portraits, an oil cloth groundsheet that doubled up as a tent floor and as a poncho, money, socks, tobacco and more
Diet
- Union soldiers were better fed than the Confederates
- The only criticism that British observers could make of the standards of the Union army ration was that there was too much of it
- Although soldiers received generous quantities, army food was dull, often vermin-ridden and not particularly nutritious
- Confederate soldiers were less well fed because supply problems meant that Southern troops frequently had to scavenge for whatever they could get and hunger was a constant companion
Diversions
- In camp there was a constant search for diversions to overcome the tedium of army routine
- One of the most popular pastimes was letter-writing to loved ones back home
- Music played an important role in sustaining morale
- Robert E. Lee said 'I don't believe we can have an army without music'
- Regimental bands welcomed recruits, provided entertainment in camp and inspired the troops both on the march and in battle
- Sports such as boxing, basketball, wrestling and running was very popular and competitive which often ended in gambling
Desertion
- 1 in 7 Confederate soldiers and 1 in 10 Union troops eventually deserted
- They did this for a variety of reasons: boredom, fear, concern for families at home, poor food, terrible conditions, and often simple lack of commitment
- The fact that the odds were in their favour of the escape attempt being successful also encouraged desertion
Capture
- Union and Confederate authorities did their best to lure deserters back into the ranks with periodic pardon proclamations
- There was little consistency in the punishment meted out to those deserters who were caught
- Some were dishonourably discharged, others were branded on the hip, hand, chest or forehead with the letter D for deserter or C for coward, some were sentenced to hard labour and some were shot
- Neither side in 1861 had made any provision for taking large numbers of prisoners
- All the Confederate prisoners were traitors and could face the death penalty
Lincoln condoned prisoner exchange or parole in the first 2 years but in 1863 the Union suspended further exchange of prisoners because the South had more to gain from exchanges than the North
- Both sides in 1863-64 had to now deal with thousands of captives; warehouses, school buildings and open fields were commandeered as prison camps
- Most were badly over-crowded, inadequate food, shelter, clothing and medical services resulting in high mortality rate
- By 1864 the Confederacy was having difficulty feeding its own soldiers and people, never mind captured Yankees
- Over a quarter of the camp's 50,000 inmates died from malnutrition and disease
- During the war 194,743 Northern soldiers were imprisoned and 30,128 died
- Out of the 214,865 Confederate prisoners, 25,976 died
Battle
- Actual fighting took up only a small part of the soldiers time
- The campaign season was usually in the Spring or Summer and men often marched for weeks without encountering the enemy
- Most men, initially shocked by the thick smoke, crash of musketry and cannon-fire, the shouts and screams of the living and dying, fought well -usually with little idea of what's going on around them-
- Men in the early part of the war often begged for the privilege of carrying their regiments colours in front of the ranks, knowing full well that in battle colour bearers were usually among the first to die
Communications
Railway
- The Civil War was the first great railway war
- Both sides used railways to move masses of men to the from and keep them supplied
- Although railway lines were hard to defend and rails could easily be torn up, they could just as easily be repaired
- The Confederacy found it difficult to maintain its railway system and optimise its line of inferior communication
Intelligence Units
- Both sides set up elaborate intelligence units, which made significant contributions to the Union and Confederate war efforts
- Allan Pinkerton ran the Federal Secret Service until 1862
- The Bureau of Military Information, set up in the spring of 1863, was much more efficient
- The Confederacy had a variety of intelligent and information-gathering agencies operating in different times and places
- . By 1864 its spy network extended as far North as Canada
Rivers
- On the Mississippi and its major tributaries, steamboats were to play a vital role in terms of both combat and supply
- One ordinary river steamboat, in one trip, could carry enough supplies to support an army of 40,000 men and 18,000 horses for 2 days
Telegraph
- The telegraph enabled commanders to communicate directly with units on widely separated fronts
- This ensured co-ordinated advances and/or rapid concentration
The Weapons of War
Artillery
- In 1861 artillery was regarded as crucial to battlefield success
- Artillery batteries generally had limited effectiveness against an entrenched enemy
- The terrain did not help the artillery as the rugged country and extensive forests made mobility difficult
- Union armies almost always had greater artillery strength than Confederate armies
Rifle Muskets
- They were accurate at up to 600 yards and could kill at 1,000 yards
- The production of the weapon had been so limited that not until 1863 did nearly all the infantry on both sides had rifle-muskets
- The Confederacy relied mainly on European models, especially the British-produced Enfield rifle
- The rifled musket became the commonplace battle tactics favoured by the defending force, which could now fire several rounds at the attacking enemy
Smooth-Bore Muskets
- In previous wars the smoothbore musket, which had an effective range of less than 100 yards, had been the main infantry weapon
- Only the employment of massed volley fire could compensate for its lack of accuracy
- Given the range and inaccuracy of the smooth-bore musket, mass infantry charges could often overwhelm an enemy defensive position
- However, in 1855 the smoothbore musket had been replaced technologically by the rifle-musket
The Battlegrounds
North Virginia
- Both Lincoln and Davis regarded the fighting in North Virginia as crucial to the outcome of the war
- In this area a flat costal strip gave way initially to rolling hills and then to the Appalachian hills
- Richmond, the Confederate capital, lay on the coastal plain and it was only 100 miles away from Washington and was the principal target for Union forces
- From 1861 onwards Richmond was to be the scene of bitter fighting
- The fighting area between the mountains and the sea was relatively small
- The geographical factors -dense forests, swampy areas and half a dozen major rivers running wet to east- very much favoured the defender
The West
- Given the sheer size and the fact that there were very few natural lines of defence, the West was the Confederacy's 'soft underbelly'
- The main rivers flowed into the heart of the Confederacy and this could be used for supply purposes by Union forces advancing southwards
- The Union's greatest strategic objective at the start of the war was to win control of the of Mississippi which would divide the Confederacy in two
- Both sides had difficulty organising their forces in the West
- One problem was that the Confederate armies were split into various departments, commanded by different generals, who often found it hard to to co-ordinate strategy
Trans- Mississippi West
- West of the Mississippi was a massive but thinly populated area
- The fighting that took place here was relatively small scale due to none of the numerous minor campaigns having a major effect on the war's outcome
- In the Trans-Mississippi area the the Confederacy had the support of the Native Americans (the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles and Cherokees)
- The Union had some Indian support
Strategy and Tactics
Infantry
Attack
- In 1861-62 troops tended to attack in mass formations, with officers leading from the front
- Attackers were often shot to pieces before they could get close enough to use the bayonets
- Bayonets were abandoned and were replaced by combat revolvers or spades of muskets
- The attacking army stood a reasonable chance of success if it achieved surprise
- Due to the South being heavily forested, there were a lot of opportunities for an army to sneak up on its opponents
- In large-scale battles attacking infantry usually approached the enemy in one, two or three lines of 2 ranks each, in close order
- The attack usually broke down into an 'advance by rushes'
- Battles usually disintegrated into a series of engagements
Defence
- The defenders stood in line formation ready to return volleys.
- Infantry attacks were more likely to fail if the defenders had dug trenches and or were protected by breastworks.
- Most Civil War generals understood the immense power of defence.
- The defenders response to frontal assaults was to keep the flanks so well guarded that the enemy's turning movement was ineffective.
Cavalry
- The accuracy of the rifle meant that the cavalry were no longer a major force on the battlefield
- The main role of the cavalry was to scout, make raids against supply lines, guard an army's flanks, cover retreats and more
- The only large-scale cavalry battle of the war which involved 10,000 men was at Brandy Station in June 1863
- At the start of the war Confederate cavalry proved themselves to be superior to those of the Union
- Throughout the war Confederate cavalry were admired for their ability to strike quickly and deeply into Northern territory and against Northern supply lines
- However, by 1863 Union cavalry were certainly as good as Confederate cavalry and probably better as men grew in confidence, were better armed and had better horses
The Nature of War
A modern War?
- The Civil War is often considered the first 'modern war'
- It reflected the impact of industrial growth because factories and machines, with their capacity to produce great amounts of arms, ammunition and equipment, transformed warfare
- Outproducing was as important as outmanoeuvring and outfighting the enemy
- Given the industrial dimensions, railways, the telegraph, mass armies, and the new tactics that resulted from the effectiveness of the rifled-musket on land, and iron, steam driven ships on water
- However, it is possible to exaggerate the war's 'modernness'
- Although large numbers of men enlisted, there was no battle in the entire war when there were more than 100,000 men on each side
- During the war there was less technological innovation than is claimed
- Horse-drawn transport and mounted despatch riders remained the norm
- Experiments with machine guns, submarines and underwater mines were basic and made little impact on the war's outcome
- Given the state of communications, Civil War generals could barely command their men on battlefields
Total War?
- Historian Mark Neely has claimed that the war was never total
- He stresses that the Union government never tried to control the North's economy or to mobilise all its resources
- Unlike the Second World War, neither side resorted to the wholesale killing of civilians
- The 'hard war' policies adopted by Union Generals Sherman and Sheridan in 1864 were designed to damage property, not kill
- Atrocities did occur, for example, black prisoners of war were occasionally massacred by Confederates but events like these were very rare
- On the whole civilians were safe due to both sides applied the same relatively 'civilised' standards of conduct
- However, James McPherson points out, 'The Civil War mobilised human resources on a scale unmatched by any other event in American history except, perhaps, World War II'
- The war was much more total in the South than in the North
- A quarter of white men of military age in the Confederacy lost their lives and a similar number were seriously wounded
- The Union eventually did all it could to destroy the Confederacy's economic resources as well as the morale of its civilians
The Naval War
Union
- As soon as the war began the North bought and chartered scores of Merchant ships, armed them, and sent them to do blockade duty
- By the end of 1861 the Union navy had over 260 warships on duty and a hundred more were under construction
- A lot of this expansion was due to the dynamism of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Assistant Secretary Gustavus Fox
- They were helped by several factors: first most naval officers remained loyal to the Union; second the North had a proud naval tradition; and third the North had the industrial capacity to build a colossal fleet
- The Union navy was able to use its naval supremacy transport its troops for major strategic purposes and to strike at Confederate coastal targets
- River gunboats played a crucial role in 1862 in helping Union troops capture a number of key Confederate fortresses such as Fort Henry
- In June 1862 Northern vessels blasted their way through a Confederate river fleet and captured Memphis and in August 1862 Union gunboats operating from New Orleans in the South and others accompanying Union forces advancing from the North controlled all of the Mississippi except a 150 mile stretch from Vicksburg to Port Hudson
Confederacy
- The Confederacy started the war with a lack of men and ships, little in the way of a naval tradition and few facilities for building a navy
- Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory had the unenviable job of creating a Confederate navy from scratch, he realised that the Confederacy could never out build the Union and that the only hope was the adoption of new weapons and methods
- Their greatest moment in the Naval War was on the 8th of March 1862 when the Merrimack sank 2 blockading ships in the Hampton roads
- Unfortunately for Mallory, whatever the Confederacy could do, the Union could do better
- The South had to stretch its resources to build one iron clad: the North was able to mass produce them
- Even at its height the Confederate navy never had more than 40 vessels in service
- Confederate ironclads played a useful role in defending Southern ports but never inflicted serious damage on the enemy
- Torpedoes proved to be the most successful Confederate naval weapon as more than 40 Union ships were sunk or
severely damaged by torpedoes during the war
- In 1861 James Bullock was sent to Britain to purchase ships for the Confederacy and he managed to evade British neutrality laws and a purchase a number of fast raiders such as the Alabama and the Florida
- These raiders proceeded to inflict serious damage on Union merchant ships, sinking or capturing some 200 during the course of the war
- The raiders exploits helped Southern morale