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The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth

Earl J. Hess
University Press of Kansas
September 2008
288 pages, 8 illustrations, 6 x 9
Modern War Studies
Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1607-7, $29.95

How do the tools of war affect its outcome? Earl Hess, a history professor at Lincoln Memorial University and author of ten previous books on the Civil War, has written an entire book on effects of the top casualty-producer of the Civil War, the rifle musket. It promises to be a “convincing assessment of the rifle musket’s actual performance on the battlefield and its impact on the course of the Civil War,” as well as “the most complete discussion to date of the development of skirmishing and sniping.” Unfortunately, although it is in many ways an interesting study, the book misses this ambitious target by a considerable margin.

The book generally follows the thesis first articulated by British military historian Paddy Griffith in his revisionist 1988 book Battle Tactics of the Civil War, in which he argued that:

· While the rifle did have a much longer range than the smoothbore musket (500+ yards vs. 100 yards), this advantage was for several reasons more theoretical than real, and in fact engagement ranges in Civil War battles differed little from those of the Napoleonic era fifty years earlier.
· Casualties in Civil War battles were roughly comparable to those in European ones during the period 1800-1859.
· Given the above, Napoleonic warfare was still possible. Tactically there was no revolution.
· The American Civil War was not the first modern war, as is often asserted, but the last Napoleonic war (and a “badly fought” one at that). The first modern war was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.

Hess comes down firmly on Griffith’s side, marshaling a vast array of data to show that engagement ranges remained much closer than prewar advocates of the Minié rifle (or its latter-day defenders) would have predicted. In this he joins tactical historians like Brent Nosworthy and Joe Bilby, who have also done detailed studies of engagement ranges in various battles and have come to similar conclusions. Personally I don’t have a dog in this fight, having come late to the controversy. I read Griffith’s book shortly after it came out but was not particularly interested in the topic at the time. Hess and I have had some very cordial email exchanges—he quotes my sharpshooter book extensively and was one of the first to order it, and has been very generous with sharing his sources. While on that subject, let me say that he found some sources, like the order book for Rodes’—Battle’s brigade in the National Archives, that I had overlooked.

There were, says Hess, three main reasons why the rifle musket failed to live up to its long-range promise—a low muzzle velocity, which caused a looping bullet trajectory that made misses easy and range estimation critical; the almost total lack of marksmanship training in both armies; and the wooded battlefield terrain that restricted long range target acquisition.

At this point I’d have to say that Hess, Griffith, and their adherents have the better of the argument—that engagement ranges did remain fairly close, at least for the line of battle; that there was no real tactical “rifle revolution,” at least on the line of battle; and that casualties for Civil War battles were comparable to those in European battles fought primarily with the smoothbore musket.

Still, this doesn’t mean that rifles didn’t make a real difference on the battlefield, or that tactics did not differ from the days of Napoleon. Although Hess and I disagree on many issues (more on that later), we do agree that the rifle did cause something of a revolution on the skirmish line, where soldiers took aim at individual targets. Everyone quickly realized that a rifle was far superior to a musket there, something the British had already proven in Spain.

Hess deserves credit for writing one of the few books so far that treats scouting, skirmishing, and similar activities in some detail. Most other tactical and campaign studies mention it only in passing, if at all. However, he characterizes skirmishing as a “marginal” activity. While it’s true that the decision on the battlefield was still made by the massed lines of battle, surely a better term for skirmishing would be “secondary,” which also applies to other arms like cavalry and artillery, or technical services like medical, signal, ordnance, and the like. It does not mean that these arms and services weren’t vitally important. In fact, he concludes that skirmishing became more important as the war went on, and that the American Civil War marked a high point of skirmishing in military history, which makes his comments about its supposed marginal utility seem all the more unusual.

Most of the revisionist arguments stem from a study of engagement ranges based on text sources, which has become much easier in recent years with the the digitized OR and other resources. Thus while Griffith had a very limited data set, later researchers like Nosworthy and Hess were able to do extensive computer searches. Yet as Drew Wagenhoffer pointed out in a recent review, there is a contradiction here. The revisionists claim that few soldiers got any training in distance estimation, yet accept their range judgments more or less uncritically for their data sets.

The other factor I think gets too little attention is the distances at which a target could be acquired. Due to the wooded nature of the American landscape, this was often quite close. This is one problem I had with Griffith’s book—he compares American battles fought in densely wooded territory to Napoleonic fights in much more open terrain like Spain, Poland, Russia, and the like. As one English historian noted: “No European general has yet been called upon to carry on a campaign in a wilderness of primeval forest, covering an area twice as large as the German empire, and as thinly populated as Russia.” Thus one has to question the utility of an undifferentiated averaging of engagement ranges. Was the engagement made at close range because the troops were poorly trained in marksmanship, because of the tactical situation, or because they simply could not see each other, as in the Wilderness, until they were very close?

To make a true estimation of the situation, one would need to first determine what weapons the unit in question had, walk the ground (or use something like Google Earth), estimate the tactical situation, and measure the distance. So far the only one I know who’s actually done this is Joe Bilby in Small Arms at Gettysburg. It seems odd that Hess did not do at least some of this, since he did a great deal of tramping and on the spot inspections in his books on fortifications.

Bilby found that the average engagement range at Gettysburg—the first battle in which both sides were  armed almost entirely with rifles—to be about 200 yards. If we compare this to Griffith’s average of 75 yards for British forces in Spain, this still amounts to a tripling of the average engagement range—far short of the rifle’s potential of 500+ yards, but a hardly a “marginal” improvement either.

The other factor I think most historians overlook is the effect of riflemen on the skirmish line upon the line of battle, which was considerable. The conventional wisdom during Napoleonic times was that a body of infantry in the open was safe from most direct fire (except for round shot) if they were over about 250 yards from their enemy, and completely safe at 500. This was certainly not the case in the Civil War. Riflemen routinely riddled formations in the open at these ranges, as did the new artillery pieces.

Overall, Hess is at his best when amassing data and anecdotes from the printed record, and at his weakest when analyzing firearms and tactics. There are, unfortunately, numerous mistakes of fact showing an unfamiliarity with period firearms. None are too bad by themselves, but the cumulative effect seriously undermines the book’s credibility.

Some examples: Hess begins by defining the rifle musket as a “weapon that had spiral grooves…inserted during the initial manufacture.” This is so vague that it could refer to just about anything, including a heavy target rifle. It actually meant that the rifle was the same size and length and the smoothbore musket it replaced. He describes the bullet of the Thouvenin stem rifle as having “a wooden sabot at its base that stuck on the pin to hold it in place until firing,” apparently confusing this with earlier Delvigne or Pontchara system, which did use a wooden sabot (but did not have a pin or tige), and states that the Minié ball had a wooden plug inside the base “to help expand the ball when rammed.” The whole point of the Minié ball was to avoid having to expand the bullet skirt by ramming, and to use a cup-shaped culot (variously made of iron, boxwood, or burnt clay) to expand the skirt when the weapon was fired. Hess lists the caliber of the Whitworth rifle as .40 instead of .451, and claims that “at 1,500 yards a skilled marksman could guarantee a hit on a man-sized target.” This is doubtful (even a modern sniper would hesitate to claim it), as is his statement that the telescopic sight was only used for distances over 1,200 yards.

In his chapter on “The Art of Skirmishing” Hess lists both Union and Confederate sharpshooter units and tries to come up with an estimate of their strengths and the proportion of sharpshooters to ordinary infantrymen, which is a useful exercise. However, he seems unable define exactly what a sharpshooter unit was. He rightly notes that there were many units that carried the title but did not operate as sharpshooters, but then lists some anyway.

For instance, he does not list the 64th Illinois (Yate’s Sharpshooters) or the 66th Illinois (Birge’s Sharpshooters) because, he says, he has no evidence that they were ever used as sharpshooters (I would disagree, at least for the 66th) but then lists the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters, even though he quotes a soldier saying that they always served as line infantry. For some reason he does not list (or even mention) four independent Michigan sharpshooter companies—Brady’s and Jardine’s (attached to 16th Mich.), and Vosper’s and Perrin’s (attached to 27th Mich.), nor the 2nd Company Minnesota Sharpshooters. Nor does he mention the Pennsylvania Bucktails, who had some Sharps rifles and often fought as light infantry. Hess states that Berdan’s 1st and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters were “raised by the Federal government” when in fact they were an amalgamation of volunteer companies from different states raised by Hiram Berdan, who held a volunteer commission, and that “two companies were armed with James rifles,” which were “issued.” I don’t doubt that some of the men used target rifles made by Morgan James, but each man provided his own rifle (all of which were hand made by individual gunsmiths) and there was never any attempt at standardization. Berdan promised to have the government pay the men for their rifles, but this was never done. As far as I’ve been able to determine, the Federal government never bought or issued any target rifles, although some state governments may have.

Confederate sharpshooter units are even more confusing, and unfortunately Hess does little to clear it up. He lists the Palmetto Sharpshooters (which he states incorrectly as having 10 companies instead of 12) as a sharpshooter outfit, but although it was intended to be a counterpart to Berdan’s regiment, it was never used that way. The 1st Battalion NC Sharpshooters had a similar history. Some of the other units he lists, like the 23rd Battalion Alabama Sharpshooters and 30th Virginia Sharpshooter Battalion, very little is known about, so it’s difficult to say whether they were customarily used as sharpshooters or not. Other units, like the 3rd SC Battalion, were used as sharpshooters, but never had the title and did not make the list.

There are like problems with his characterization of prewar Army target practice when he says “the army had adopted a short manual for target practice written by Capt. Henry Heth of the Tenth U.S. Infantry just before the onset of the Civil War, but it had never been used in training. Heth based his book entirely on the English School of Musketry at Hythe.” Neither statement is true—Captain Heth was quite clear that his book was “chiefly a translation from the French Instruction provisoire sur le tir, à l’usage des bataillons de chasseurs à pied” used at their musketry school at Vincennes, and he did use it in a comprehensive prewar marksmanship program with the 10th Infantry at Carlisle. Some volunteer organizations also had very good prewar marksmanship programs, and it’s strange that the author does not mention them in his chapter on gun culture. Similarly, although Hess talks a lot about European practice, he does not discuss American rifle units except in the Revolutionary War. The U.S. Rifle Regiments in the War of 1812, rifles in the Mexican War, and the Regiment of Mounted Rifles all go unremarked.

Speaking of the Revolutionary War, Hess gives the impression that all American skirmishers were armed with the rifle. This was somewhat true in the beginning of the conflict, but the importance of the rifle declined as the war went on, leading to mixed rifle and smoothbore skirmish units. The Light Corps, considered the elite of the army, was armed entirely with smoothbore muskets. This incidentally undercuts his statement that there was little light infantry in the 18th Century.

Hess bases most of his conclusions about skirmishing on the Atlanta and Overland campaigns. In these two campaigns, he says:

skirmish lines became stronger and commanders tended to rely more heavily on them. Skirmishers not only sought locate the enemy and provide information on his position, but they also tried push opposing skirmishers away and try to break or move opposing battle lines. The real reason for this is not the use of the rifle musket but the policy continuous contact that Grant introduced in the spring of 1864, which resulted in extended campaigning that kept the armies in contact with each other for months at a time. This extended contact encouraged aggressive brigade and division commanders to push the capacities of their skirmish lines farther than ever before, proving the worth of loose-order tactics for specialized tasks.

Odd, then, that he would not at least look at the 1864 Shenandoah campaign (which does not rate even a mention). As one of the most mobile campaigns of the war, it is the perfect counterpoint to test his “continuous contact” theory. Sharpshooters, particularly on the Confederate side, played an even more prominent part in the Valley than in the Overland and Petersburg campaigns. Two of the largest open order battles of the war, Charles Town and Fort Stevens, were fought in that campaign, and were bigger than any of the “mini-battles” around Atlanta. So perhaps commanders relied more on heavy skirmish lines because they were more flexible and effective.

In no other campaign did skirmishing become as intense as during the Atlanta campaign. For four months, from early May until early September 1864, the Union and Confederate armies were in constant contact with each other. The skirmishing increased in intensity as the campaign progressed, until it reached level similar to a never-ending minibattle as the troops were locked in static positions north and west of the city for more than a month. Nothing like this evolved during the Overland or Petersburg campaigns in Virginia, despite the presence of Lee’s dedicated skirmish units and the longer period of contact. The best possible explanation for this is the larger presence of gun-adept soldiers in the western armies.

A more likely explanation, I think, is the different style of warfare practiced in the two theaters. Johnston, who had a theater with a great deal more depth, avoided battle and tried to preserve his army. Lee, who had little room to fall back, sought a decision on the battlefield, and the relative casualty lists reflect this. In Georgia the pattern was a Union maneuver followed by intense skirmishing, followed by another Union maneuver and a Confederate withdrawal, the only real exception being at Kennesaw Mountain. This allowed the Federals to perfect their skirmishing technique at relatively low cost. In Virginia the pattern was a collision between Grant and Lee leading to a major and extremely bloody battle, followed by a Federal maneuver and another sanguine encounter. Skirmishing thus assumed a more secondary, though still vital, role. If Western soldiers were more “gun-adept” than Easterners, wouldn’t engagement ranges have been at least somewhat longer there? Why would Yankee Westerners be so much more adept than their Southern counterparts? Would this include Western units like the Iron Brigade that served in the East? And what about “less-adept” Eastern units that transferred west, like the Union XI and XII Corps? This conclusion needs a lot more proof to be convincing, and is characteristic of the author’s tendency to overgeneralize.

Still, his section about skirmishing in the Atlanta campaign is one of the best in the book, and to my knowledge this is the only recent study that has looked at it in any depth. I would like to have seen more specific examples and a discussion of innovative Federal tactics like “compressing no-man’s land.” Hess’s overall verdict is that the ordinary Union infantryman served admirably as a skirmisher, and that this should have been a model for the rest of the armies.

This leads to Hess’s next conclusion about the Army of Northern Virginia’s sharpshooter battalions. In spite of doing an excellent job of describing their organization and training (“superbly trained” and “unique and impressive examples of … specialist units”), he concludes that “there is no convincing evidence that they consistently dominated the skirmish line or regularly outshot their opponents during the Overland or Petersburg Campaigns.” His examples seem rather weak, however—that one sharpshooter battalion (out of thirty-something) was “roughly handled” in two battles and that the sharpshooters “lost a huge chunk of skirmish line on March 25 [1865]. This last example is simply not appropriate—the sharpshooters had been withdrawn to support the attack on Fort Stedman. The men who lost the line were ordinary infantrymen. When the sharpshooters returned later that day they were involved in a number of bitter fights (including McIlwaine’s Hill) that took back portions of the picket line. One would expect some better illustrations before simply dismissing the ANV sharpshooter battalions as ineffective. Yes, the Federals did win the war, but at no time does Hess mention that the Confederates were considerably outnumbered and outgunned.

There is a strain in the historiography, a kind of mystique about skirmishing in the Civil War, that portrays it as the wave of the future. Writers who yearn to see some degree of innovation, especially to see signs of a commitment to loose-order tactical formations for entire armies, tend to grasp onto every straw they can find in Civil War accounts to argue that a few wise men were beginning to get away from the foolishness of fighting in close-order lines.

Now I confess to never having seen any sort of mystique in skirmishing, but I do think it’s fairly obvious that the major development in infantry tactics in the 19th Century was the gradual loosening of the close-packed line of battle into the open order of the turn of the century. Some of this, for whatever reason one cares to attribute, came during the Civil War. He continues:

Some type of loose-order formation did lay in the future of infantry warfare, but skirmishing would rapidly decline in significance as a result. The Civil War not only represented the high point in the history of skirmishing, it was also among the last major wars in which large-scale skirmishing took place.

I would suggest that he gets it exactly backwards here. What happened was that the elbow-to-elbow line of battle gradually disappeared and was absorbed by the skirmish line. By the latter part of the century all armies fought in what were essentially “strong skirmish lines,” and this certainly had something to do with the available firepower, not just in its effect on the attackers but on their ability to inflict casualties as well.

A Civil War skirmish line armed with single shot muzzle-loading rifles just could not put enough lead down range to decide the issue, although there are examples of skirmish lines holding off lines of battle under favorable conditions. The use of the line of battle was not due to foolishness but to the fact that it was the only way, given the weapons of the time, to pack in enough firepower to force a decision. We do see a change later in the war as skirmish lines become more important and, at least on the Union side, begin carrying either breech-loading Sharps rifles or Spencer repeaters. Colonel Oliver Edwards of the 37th Massachusetts was of the opinion that a skirmish line with Spencers was “fully equal to a line of battle armed with the Springfield,” and this was eventually what happened.

My opinion is that the loosening of the line of battle was a gradual process, and I really don’t see an outright revolution as posited either by the conventional historians during the Civil War or the revisionists at battles like Königgrätz or in the Franco-Prussian War. Further, it seems to me that the revisionists have become as dogmatic as those they condemn, and have locked themselves into the Civil War-as-badly-fought-Napoleonic War paradigm. One does get the impression at times when reading Griffith, for instance, that if the Yanks had just done it like the Iron Duke they could speedily have solved all their problems.

My biggest issue with the book is that Hess muddies the definitions of skirmisher, sharpshooter, and sniper by using modern terms. The term sharpshooter was a much broader term in the 19th Century than we think of it today, covering the roles of precision marksman, light infantryman, and skirmisher. The problem with using terms like “sniper” (of British origin, that did not come into wide use until WWI), and the reason I tried to avoid it, was that it tends to make us mentally fit 19th Century tactics into a modern framework. I’ve had a great deal of trouble, for example, trying to explain to people that Confederate sharpshooters were not snipers in the modern sense. Still, if we’re going to use modern terminology, then one would expect to see the term “designated marksman,” which is the closest modern analogue to the sharpshooters of the Civil War era. It might also be worth mentioning that the French term tirailleur, usually translated as “skirmisher,” literally means “sharpshooter” and that’s how most of the them operated.

Much of what Hess describes in the chapter on sniping were really just riflemen with some special training using their skills on the enemy. For example, Sergeant Wyman S. White of the 1st U.S.S.S. made it clear in his diary that he often used a target rifle because he was good with it, but carried his Sharps most of the time and did not operate independently. Similarly, Hess quotes extensively from the letters and memoirs of 18th Corps sharpshooter Daniel Sawtelle, who at one point used a target rifle but eventually took up a Spencer repeater. Division sharpshooter companies like Sawtelle’s typically had two sections—one of light infantry armed with Spencers and another smaller one armed with target rifles. Sawtelle’s memoir makes it clear that he spent much of his time acting as a light infantryman, not as a sniper in the modern sense. There were times that the “sniper” section acted tactically in a supporting role as well, something you would not see a modern sniper outfit doing.

Because of its emphasis on the rifle musket, the book suffers from a sort of split personality. On the one hand the author must highlight the role of the rifle musket, yet when discussing skirmishing and sharpshooting has to consider specialty weapons like target rifles and the Whitworth, but then can’t really get into a detailed look at breechloaders and repeaters on the skirmish line, which increased markedly in 1864-65 and had a major tactical effect.

As for the book itself, it is handsomely done, well written and edited. The $29.95 price is very reasonable in this era of outrageous book prices from university presses, especially if you buy from Amazon where it’s under $20. There is a section of photos, most of which do not seem particularly relevant, but not a single illustration. This is a major omission considering that Hess expends considerable ink taking about subjects like dangerous zones and bullet trajectories. Even a couple of illustrations would have been very useful to help the lay reader understand these concepts.

Overall it’s an interesting book with some excellent sections, such as skirmishing in the Atlanta campaign, and some original research. It’s also the only modern book that takes a comprehensive look at scouting, skirmishing, and associated activities in the Civil War. However, this has to be balanced with the many mistakes of fact, overgeneralizations, and questionable methodologies. As such it’s probably more suitable for the specialist who is able to sort this out than the general reader.

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Review: The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat

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Those Damned Black Hats! The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign
by Lance Herdegen

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Savas Beatie (October 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932714480
• ISBN-13: 978-1932714487

The Iron Brigade was one of the premier combat units of the Army of the Potomac.  Comprised of western regiments their distinctive headgear made them stand out in any formation.  Headgear is not a combat record but the Iron Brigade compiled a very distinguished one in a very short time.  They bore the proud designation of First Brigade, First Division, and First Corps, a heavy responsibility that they never shirked.

I expected a history of the brigade and the book provides a good one.  There is enough history to allow us to understand how the brigade received its’ name and designation.

I expected a history of the fighting on July 1, 1863 and the book provides an excellent account of that day.   There are sufficient tactical details to make an understandable account without being bogged down and losing sight of the overall battle.  The author is able to focus us on the Iron Brigade without losing sight of the bigger battle, keeping us in both the sharp tactical fighting details and making clear the general course of the battle.

I expected a history of the regiments that made up the brigade to the end of the war.  The book provides a clear account of the different paths each of the regiments took after Gettysburg.  These three-year regiments had to reenlist in 1864 to maintain their regimental designation.  We have an excellent account of what happens first to the Iron Brigade after the devastation of Gettysburg and after I Corps is disbanded.  This gives the reader a look into the problems associated with maintaining regiments over time.  This is the saddest part of the book and we understand the heartache of these men when associations built in battle were broken.

I expected a post war history too.  Again, the book does not disappoint providing an excellent look at the associations formed and the histories written after the war.  A secondary story is how a Western Brigade fared in an Eastern Army.  We have very little about the politics of Union veteran associations and this is a valuable contribution.

What I did not expect was the author’s ability to make Gettysburg a personal experience!  The fighting is a combination of the standard “Company F fired a volley” and the words of the men firing that volley.  I have never read a Gettysburg book that rendered the battle in such personal detail.  This was almost talking to these men and hearing them describe what they did.

This is an excellent book, full of historical details and personal experiences.  The author has done an excellent job in pulling this all together in a very readable and enjoyable book.  Bradley M. Gottfried’s excellent maps both complement and support the text.  This is another excellent Civil War book from Savas Beatie and is entitled to full membership in that exclusive club.

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Review: Those Damned Black Hats! The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign

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1. Civil War Book Review: THE MAPS OF GETTYSBURG: An Atlas of the Gettysburg Campaign, June 3 – July 13, 1863 (FULL COLOR)
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3. How To Read Three Gettysburg Books At Once

Drew Wagenhoffer has a short review up of Earl Hess’s The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth. Although he calls it “the best single volume treatment of the subject so far,” he does raise some significant questions, including one I hadn’t thought of (showing, again, the value of distributed intelligence).

There is also something of an inherent contradiction to be considered. If a primary contention is that the vast majority of Civil War soldiers received little or no specialized training in range estimation, how much useful data can we really derive from the range estimates provided in reports, diaries, letters, and other primary sources written by these very same men so badly untrained in the art of doing so? Of course, one must work with what’s available, but that, combined with the small sample sizes used, certainly leaves room for further inquiry.

Good point! Of course the obvious counterargument is that while exact range estimation is critical for hitting a target, range data for the purpose of figuring engagement ranges is much less critical. Still, speaking from my own military experience, I can tell you that people without training can often make very big errors, especially when under the stress of combat. Wagenhoffer also wonders if the author has actually checked the unit’s records to see what they were armed with (it’s not evident in the book), and:

Sample sorting by environmental constraints is needed. Only open terrain truly offers the full gamut of range options (short, medium, long) for initial fire, while other terrain features can restrict firing to point blank range only. The latter situation comprises useless data for thesis application.

Also true. One of the arguments that Hess and Griffith made was that most combat was at well under the theoretical ranges of the weapons. But was this due to poor training, as he maintains, or to environmental considerations? At the Wilderness, for example, units often could not even see each other until they were literally on top of one another. Thus even a superbly trained sharpshooter battalion could use their rifles only at point blank range (and this is in fact what happened). I would add that there has to be some sorting by the tactical situation as well.

Overall, I think there has been perhaps too much emphasis on engagement ranges almost to the exclusion of everything else. This went through a couple of stages, and needs to go through another one before it really becomes useful.

The first stage was the initial look at the problem, and the assumptions by earlier historians that because the CW-era rifles had a longer theoretical range that they were actually used that way and were thus more deadly.

The second stage was when British historian Paddy Griffith challenged that assumption, and I think he and his intellectual followers have had the better of the argument, at least for the line of battle. Griffith had very limited information to work with (this being before the arrival of the PC and the digitized OR), but later researchers like Brent Nosworthy and now Earl Hess have accumulated some impressive data on the issue. Still, as Wagenhoffer points out, at least a portion of the data is suspect, especially if one of the props of one’s argument is that the writers were poor judges of distance.

The third stage, which is now just beginning, is to actually get out and check the data (i.e. the engagement ranges) on the ground. So far the only one who’s done this is Joe Bilby. I mentioned this earlier in a review of his book,  Small Arms at Gettysburg,  which I would recommend to anyone interested in this controversy. Gettysburg is probably the most studied battle in history, and thanks to generations of interpretation the positions of the troop units are known with a great deal of accuracy. Using these, Bilby checked the engagement distances with a hand-held laser rangefinder, so as of this moment his figures must be considered the gold standard. The next obvious step is for Hess or his successor to go out and, so far as is possible, confirm those old estimates on the ground. When (and if) that happens we will have some solid data on which to base our conclusions.

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Rifles and Ranges

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Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James McPherson

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (October 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594201919
• ISBN-13: 978-1594201912

Lincoln is always right, the generals always wrong.

“James M. McPherson is, without any second thoughts, the premier author of the civil war, the battles, and the Generals that fought them.” This is a quote from one of the Amazon reviews of McPherson’s newest book Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. This a widely held view of the author of Battle Cry of Freedom and one that a reviewer disputes at great peril. James McPherson has been doing basic Civil War history for some time now. His books are something we would expect from a graduate student or a gifted amateur. I am not sure Professor McPherson would accept his last three books as a Doctoral Thesis from one of his students. This book, because of the subject and lack of coverage should have been a detailed scholarly treatment of Lincoln’s growth into the role of Commander in Chief. The author has failed to provide any insight or to question the Lincoln is always right school of thought. In doing so, he accepts the role of the Radical Republicans and ignores all military considerations. This school of thought holds that brave men ably lead will triumph. Logistic, training, communications are all nonsense or of little consequences. The French in 1914 and the Americans in 1918 killed thousands unlearning this lesson.

Lincoln is always right! With the exception of US Grant, all the generals are wrong. These two ideas are never questioned and form the foundation of every event.

1) Lincoln’s “all green together” statement to McDowell is passed off as an astute observation. This ignores the very real problems of moving a semi-trained mob from Washington to Manassas. First Bull Run may have been a close battle but the Union lost.

2) Jackson’s Valley Campaign of 1862 contains no over reaction in Washington. Lincoln turned a defeat in a secondary theater into a major strategic victory. If you want a reasonable understanding of this, read Peter Cozzens or Gary Ecelbarger.

3) The appointment of General Pope, a darling of the Radicals, and removal of the Army of the Potomac from a secure base on the James River is not considered.

4) Burnside given command with the express understanding that he would attack. Washington was unable to support his movement, resulting in the Battle of Fredericksburg. Burnside continued trying to attack and the Mud March resulted. The book contains no discussion of logistics or supplying armies via wagons. Lincoln’s February 1862 order to advance is considered a good idea destroyed by unwilling generals.

5) By 1863, Lincoln had established in the primary eastern army a lose a battle lose your job mindset. Little is said about this or the chilling effect it has on sr. commanders.

6) Nothing is said about Lincoln’s unreasonable expectations for destroying the Army of Northern Virginia in September 1862 or July 1863. In both cases, McClellan and Meade are faulted for not meeting those expectations. However, no Civil War army is destroyed after one battle. Several managed to reorganize after a disaster defeat and even worse retreat. It took Grant almost a year of continuous contact to force Lee to surrender. The author says nothing about Lincoln have unreasonable expectations.

The book is firmly grounded in the interpretation of the American Civil War of the 1970s. The author writes very well and is easy to read. However, his ideas are dated, his conclusions questionable and his commitment to doing excellent work missing.

Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln’s first vice-president observed, “no man ever grew in the executive chair in his lifetime as Lincoln did.” This book ignores and/or minimizes that growth.

Author’s note:  This should be on Amazon by OCT 31st. I expect to be savaged by the author’s fans.  My current ranking is 581, with 1,669 helpful votes out of 2,041 total votes.  Take a check next week and see how much damage can be done an Amazon reviewer if they speak their mind.

Read more Civil War Book Reviews here at TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog!

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Review: Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

Related posts:

1. Review: 1858: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and the War They Failed to See by Bruce Chadwick
2. Top 10 Amazon.com Abraham Lincoln Bestsellers: April 2009
3. The Words of Abraham Lincoln

There have been quite a few mentions of the Gettysburg Visitor Center over the past few weeks in the Civil War blogosphere, and some of this has spilled over into the question of what type of interpretation should be seen at our Civil War battlefield visitor centers.

John Hennessy, National Park Service Chief Historian at the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania Military Park, recently made some comments over at Civil War Memory on the ongoing debate about battlefield interpretation.  John stressed that “Every word, every twitch of our muscles ought to help visitors understand what happened, why it happened, and why it mattered (and matters).”   He believes battles should be placed into context, but that specific aspects should be viewed through the lens of the battlefield in question.  I can’t say I disagree with anything John said.  He makes a lot of valid points.

What troubles me, however, is the growing trend to want to do too many other things at battlefields, prominent among these a desire to highlight slavery, rather than interpreting the actual battle itself.  Too many battlefields really don’t lend themselves well to the non-military aspects of the war.  Recent blog entries on the subject by Eric Wittenberg at Rantings of a Civil War Historian and Paul Taylor at With Sword and Pen are concerned with this growing trend as well.  The basic views are these:

• John believes all aspects of the Civil War should be taught at all battlefields.
• Paul believes some aspects of the Civil War should be taught at various battlefields, but that all aspects of the Civil War do not belong on every battlefield.
• Eric believes battlefields should stick to the military aspects of the war and leave other aspects to more appropriate venues such as the forthcoming U.S. National Slavery Museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

While I can see that John and Eric’s views are mutually exclusive, John’s comments and Paul’s ideas from his blog entry are not necessarily so.

At this point you are probably wondering where I stand on this issue and you more than likely think I agree 100% with Eric on this subject.  You would be wrong.  To me, there can and should be a place for non-military aspects of the war in the interpretation of some, *but not all*, battlefields.  For instance, battlefields where the war started and ended, specifically Fort Sumter and Appomattox in the East, are good places to look at the causes of the war and place an emphasis on this aspect.  Battlefields which saw USCT units participate such as New Market Heights, the Crater, Fort Wagner, and Olustee, to name a few, are perfect places to highlight African-American contributions to the Union war effort and atrocities committed against these soldiers.  Battlefields such as Antietam, which played such a crucial role in Lincoln’s release of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, should include interpretation which highlights the cruelties of slavery and its large role in starting the war.  And Gettysburg should obviously have a portion of the Visitor Center space dedicated to the Gettysburg Address, a much more logical subject of interpretation than say, slavery.  How many slaves were freed at Gettysburg?  How many people in the surrounding area owned slaves?  How many had even seen slavery close up?  With all of this said, I think at almost every battlefield the military aspects of the battle in question should be the primary method of interpretation.  In some cases, especially at places like Fort Sumter and Appomattox, the military history of the battle should share the primary slot with the causes of the war and all other aspects of the conflict.

So tell me readers.   What is your opinion?  Are you with John Hennessy?  Eric Wittenberg?  Paul Taylor?  Me?  Or are do you fall somewhere else on the spectrum?  As I see it, there are different degrees of focus.  It’s never all or nothing. 

Dimitri had it right months ago.  The NPS is ignoring its best customers, the people with an unending desire to learn more about the war their entire lives.  Instead, they cater to the one time visitor and ironically, the new and increased focus on slavery does little to “educate” people who forget everything other than the horrendously simplified and incorrect “Meade beat Lee and the Civil War was pretty much won for the North”, if they even remember that much.

Let me throw out several hypothetical questions.  Should the new U.S. National Slavery Museum in Fredericksburg devote exhibit space to Civil War battlefields?  Should the primary exhibit at the U.S. National Slavery Museum be on Civil War battlefields?  Should EVERY museum or site in the United States which deals with slavery or slaves contain exhibits on the Civil War?  Should a place such as Lincoln’s Cottage north of Washington, D.C. have exhibits on battlefields?  Should a museum dedicated to the home front include detailed tactical discussions of battles?  If not, why not?  These are in some ways similar to the one going on now.

Certain areas of the Civil War blogosphere would have you believe that slavery, along with its eventual eradication as a result of the conflict, are the only important reasons to study the war.  Paul Taylor points out race as the elephant in the room and gets to the real heart of the matter in another recent post at With Sword and Pen.  This argument isn’t really about the need to view the Civil War through multiple lenses.  It’s about the desire of some to force feed the Emancipation Cause on the general public just like the Lost Cause view of the war was force fed on the same public in the past.  Neither is the right way to go.  While the study of the Civil War’s advancement of race relations (and the subsequent setbacks of Reconstruction) is a needed and worthwhile endeavor, it is most certainly NOT the only reason to study the conflict.  To do so, and to tell the public to do so, would be as wrongheaded and misguided as the Lost Cause view of the Civil War that was foisted on the unknowing masses for the better part of the last 150 years.  Unfortunately, some people with a public platform are intent on just such misguided action.

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Are Slavery and Emancipation the ONLY Things Worth Studying from the American Civil War?

Related posts:

1. Juneteenth, Slavery and (lack of) Forgiveness
2. Bruce Levine – Confederate Emancipation
3. John Day Smith on Slavery as the Cause of the War

American Scholar takes a look at the Lieber Code, formalized in 1863 by the US Army as General Orders No. 100. This was one of the first formal codes concerning the conduct of war, and is the basis of the modern ones such as the Hague and Geneva conventions. The author, Francis Lieber (1798–1872), was an interesting character in his own right. He was a Prussian, a former soldier who had fought at Ligny and Namur (preliminaries to Waterloo), where he had been severely wounded. An academic by trade, Lieber spent considerable time in the South at Charleston. Though he despised the institution, he bought several slaves to run his household. A Unionist (though he kept it concealed to protect his position), he left for New York’s Columbia University in 1857. In 1862 Gen. Henry Halleck tapped him to write a legal code for military operations, primarily on how to deal with irregular forces. Lieber’s family exemplified the divisions the war brought on. His eldest son Oscar joined the Confederacy and was killed in 1862 at Williamsburg. Another son, serving with the Union, was badly wounded.

Yet it is debatable what effect Lieber’s code had on the war. There were, under the rubric of military necessity, loopholes big enough to march an army  through.

“Union generals showed scant interest in the code and soldiers none,” concludes the historian Harry S. Stout. What influence it did have, he continues, leaned in the direction of latitude. The code “gave Lincoln and his generals what they needed as they contemplated a new war that would deliberately invade civilian lives and properties.” Another scholar is even harsher. “Often touted as a humanitarian milestone,” writes Mark Grimsley, “Lieber’s code was thoroughly dedicated to providing the ethical justification for a war aimed at the destruction of the Confederacy.” This may be too harsh. A Union hardened to war and bent on victory needed no scholarly treatise to clear the way for Sherman’s march.

Speaking of Sherman, the Lieber Code did little to inhibit him, as I detailed in my review of Deborah Petite’s The Women Will Howl. By 1864 the Federal government was making war on the people of the South with few holds barred, code or no.

Worth reading, especially since as it relates to the wars we are fighting today.

Lieber’s Code had immediate credibility with politicians and warriors, in no small part because it was written by a man who knew war, understood its occasional necessity, and believed deeply in the justness of his cause. Today, by contrast, the task of monitoring and developing the law of war has often fallen to—or been taken up by—a host of nongovernmental organizations. Many of these activists believe that the use of force has little place in world affairs and hope to legislate it out of existence. As the legal scholar Kenneth Anderson has argued, “The pendulum shift toward [nongovernmental organizations] has gone further than is useful, and the ownership of the laws of war needs to give much greater weight to the state practices of leading countries.” What’s more, these activists have a strong preference for supranational mechanisms to supervise the behavior of states. Nongovernmental organizations, for example, played a critical role in the development of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which promises regular international prosecutions for many war crimes.

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The Lieber Code

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Update: Welcome to TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog for those of you who have found this page through a Google Search!  If you enjoy what you’re about to read below, feel free to Subscribe to TOCWOC’s RSS feed.  Be sure to check out the Civil War Book Reviews which have been posted here and browse through TOCWOC founder Brett Schulte’s Civil War Books collection.

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Black Confederates

by James Durney

No Civil War subject creates the upset of Black Confederates. For many, the idea that slaves would stay with and be loyal to the Confederacy is unacceptable. The lack of documentation, CSA laws restricting enlistments, racial prejudices and the Emancipation Tradition all stand against the idea of Black Confederates.

Four regiments of blacks served in the West after the Civil War. Two regiments of cavalry and two regiments of infantry made up the United States Colored Troops on active duty in the American Army. According to the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, blacks were about 10% of the Army on the western frontier. However, Hollywood westerns seldom had blacks as cowboys or soldiers. This is not a denial of their existence but shows that they were not acceptable on the silver screen from the 1930s to the 1970s. During this time they disappear from our view and are all but forgotten. The Ninth & Tenth Cavalry USCT charged with the Rough Riders on San Juan Hill. Eyewitness accounts credit the “Negro Cavalry” for saving the Rough Riders that day. Read about it? No. See it depicted in the press? No. Did it happen? Yes.

About 200,000 blacks served in the Union armies during the Civil War, inducted into service as members of the United States Colored Troops. The USCT served with almost every Union army and in almost every campaign from late 1863 to the end of the war. Burnside’s Corps, The Department of the South and the XXV Army Corps had large numbers of USCT units. All together, members of the USCT fought in 410 engagements and 39 major battles. However, the USCT disappeared from the history of the war in the 1870s. They remained largely invisible until 1989, when Joseph Glatthaar published Forged in Battle. A number of books have followed his groundbreaking work on the USCT. The public’s introduction to the USCT is the movie Glory about the 54^th Mass. This regiment has become the poster child for all black men that fought for the North during the war.

Black Americans participated in all aspects of American Life in a separate but equal environment. From 1900 to 1945, the Negro Baseball League functioned alongside the American and National Leagues that were white. Was the Negro League reported? No. Did they exist? Yes. About 30 years ago, we started to recognize them and included them in baseball’s history.

Black Americans entered organized crime along the Mississippi river and controlled a number of towns. During the 1930s, Kansas City and Memphis were the biggest cities controlled by black organizations. They held their turf against the Irish, Jewish and Italian mobs of the upper Midwest. Except for Robert Altman’s movie Kansas City, these groups are invisible.

Starting with the Philippines War from 1899 to 1902 through to the 1916 Expedition to Mexico, World War I, and World War II; from four to twelve percent of the US forces involved were Afro-Americans in the USCT. They do not show up in most history books, photographs, drawings or movies. These were independent black units in a segregated military. President Truman integrated the military by Presidential order after World War II, ending the history of the USCT.

I have provided this background to show that American history has often been “Colored Blind”. Not color blind but Colored Blind. This is defined as the inability to see Afro-Americans outside of the roles White America assigned them. Willing service with the Confederate States of America is NOT an approved role and subject to Colored Blindness. These men suffer from the same problems the Negro Baseball League and USCT units in the American West did. We simply do not see them, colored blindness.

Just over 475,000 free blacks lived in the United States in 1860. 226,000 lived in the Free States with 193,000 living in Slave States. Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia account for about 90% of the South’s free black population. New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania contain about 75% of the North’s free black population. The states that secede have a population of about 75,000 free blacks in 1860.

Slave owners account for about one to thirty percent of the free black population. Twenty percent of the taxable property of Charleston’s free black community is slaves. Sherrod Bryant owned at least 20 slaves working 700 acres in Middle Tennessee. This was a larger plantation than that of Andrew Jackson. Bryant was one of the richer men in middle Tennessee and was a free black. Six free black families in Louisiana owned over 65 slaves each. The Richards family, owning 152 slaves, was the largest of the group. In North Carolina about 69 free blacks owned slaves. South Carolina was the home of William Ellison, one of the richest men in the state and one of the larger slave owners. Ellison owned over 900 acres of land, manufactured cotton gins, and lived next to Dr. W. W. Anderson, the father of CSA General “Fighting Dick” Anderson. His grandson served in the First South Carolina Artillery and was wounded in 1862. At his grandson’s funeral in 1895, a former commander praised the man for being a “faithful solider”. Ellison’s wealth in 1860 was 15 times greater than the average white person and he owned more slaves than 99 percent of the White population. One of the largest black slave owners in Louisiana was part of the state’s Reconstruction Government after the war. Free blacks in Southern states assumed the attitudes of the society that they lived in. They had no more objections to slavery than that of other Southerners and owned slaves whenever possible for the same reasons white Southerners did.

Slaves were the investment of choice for Southerners. The South measured wealth not in land, stocks & bonds but in slaves. Slaves were a very profitable investment and one that increased in value every year. The slave states with less than one third of America’s free population had sixty percent of America’s wealthiest men. The 1860 per capita income of the South was $3,978 almost twice the North’s per capita income of $2,040. Slave ownership was common. In the states that seceded first, about 37% of the population owned slaves. Of the states that seceded after Fort Sumter, about 25% of the population owned slaves. While the average for owning slaves is about 31% in the Confederate states, this masks the true picture. In Mississippi and South Carolina, ownership approached 50%. In Florida, Alabama & Georgia ownership was above one third of the population. Other than Arkansas, the Confederate states ranged from 25% to 30% of the population being slave owners. In the 1950s only two percent of American families held stock equal to the value of a single slave in 1860. In other words, owning slaves was more common in the South in 1860 than owning stock was in the 1950s.

When we think of slavery, the “Gone with the Wind” style plantation is the image that comes to mind. This is the standard image of slavery in the South passed down as part of the Lost Cause Tradition. However, this is not the correct image. Eighty eight percent of all slave owners had no more than 20 slaves. Fifty percent of all slave owners had no more than five slaves. The majority of slaves were in smallholdings with the largest group of owners having two slaves. The majority of slaves were almost members of the household. These owners were unable to provide separate, distinct living quarters, meaning that slave and owner lived in close proximity.

Slaves labored at all levels in Southern society. The “Gone with the Wind” image of unskilled cotton pickers is true only for a minority of slaves. Most provided general labor on farms or cities. Many became skilled workers acquiring a trade and providing essential services in their community. The only area truly closed to slave labor was the professional fields requiring extensive schooling. These were generally limited to teaching school, medicine and law. However, many slaves worked as nurses and/or hospital stewards during the war making one question how closed medicine below the level of doctor was.

Slaves lived in an environment that was both trusting and suspicious.

Slave revolts, while rare, terrified Southerners. In August 1800, Richmond slaves gave up the leaders of a slave revolt. Rumor says over a thousand slaves planned on taking the city, plundering the arsenal and starting a full revolution. Charleston is the site of the next major revolt in 1822. Planning included the mass murder of whites. Once again, the revolt was discovered when members of the plot betrayed the leaders. While much planning was in place and some preparations made, no white person was harmed in these revolts. This changed on August 20, 1831. Nat Turner and about 60 followers murdered 55 whites in the most violent slave revolt in America. Turner and company were quickly identified and hunted down. At least 15 of his band died during the pursuit and capture. Nat Turner eluded capture for six additional weeks. In November 1831 Turner is captured, hanged and skinned, ending the most serious of the slave revolts.

John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry may have had more impact than Nat Turner’s revolt on the Southern mind. Brown’s raid convinced many that Northern abolitionists were willing to see Southerners slaughtered in their beds. The fact that Brown was white added to the revulsion gripping the South. The slave revolts and Brown’s raid fueled an active rumor mill throughout the South. In response to the rumors and fear, the local militias became more professional, the position of slave catcher was created, and restrictive laws governing slave conduct were passed.

In spite of the rumors, revolts and raids, slaves were a fixture in society and homes. Many slaves achieved the status of almost family based on years of shared experiences and association. Owners had to trust their slaves with their lives while fearing a slave revolt at the same time. Rumors of attempted revolts, stories of runaways and occasional violence against an owner all contributed to the need for security while eroding confidence. A dual level of trust and suspicion seems to have developed, where the closer the slave was to the owner the higher the trust level. In practice, this created a class system among the slaves. House servants and skilled workers occupied a higher class than the semiskilled worker or unskilled field hand. With the majority of slaves in smallholdings, slave families often belonged to multiple households. In practice, this allowed for a regular movement between houses on Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening. Owners gave slaves passes that allowed them to visit their families on the Sabbath. This practice was very common throughout the South and seems to have allowed some freedom to slaves. Slave churches were a major source of community. While some owners attended these churches, the majority seem to have allowed slaves to attend with little or no oversight.

Runaways were constant. However, most fell under the current military AWOL rules as opposed to desertion. [Note: AWOL assumes the person plans on returning to duty, while desertion assumes they do not plan on returning.] Not returning from a family visit or trip to town as expected, hiding out until anger cools over damaging something were far more common than trying to escape north. The average person never went 50 miles from where they lived. Slaves normally had an even smaller area that they lived in. Chronic problems resulted in being “sold south”, a complete severance from the slave’s family, friends and world.

Owners and slaves existed in a complex multi layered relationship that could be very close but was always defined by race. America defined all contact between the races in very hard terms. In many ways, the South was more accepting of blacks and blacks were better integrated into society than in the North.

In 1861, America formally split into two nations and went to war. The South fought to break away and maintain their society and values in a second American Revolution. The North fought to preserve the United States and force the South back into the nation in the War of Rebellion. The 75,000 free blacks and just over 3,000,000 slaves were about thirty-five percent of their Southern population. While the North refused to consider enlisting any of their black population, the South had no such problems. Free blacks enlisted in the army as musicians from the outset of the war. The Confederate Congress passed a law giving black and white bandsman the same pay. Another law limited blacks to no more than one-twentieth of a ship’s crew. In 1865, Stephen R. Mallory stated the Navy needed over 1,100 black seamen.

Enlisted bandsmen and seamen do not comprise the major percentage of Black Confederates. Nor do the large numbers of black men slave and free working on fortifications. In terms of gross numbers, short term conscripted black labor is the largest category of blacks that saw Confederate service. However, these men seldom traveled with an army, were not normally involved in long-term service and almost never came under fire or participated in a battle. Body servants, cooks and teamsters make up the majority of Black Confederates. These men, while never enlisted, traveled and served the army. They came under fire just as often as support elements in an army. When we talk about Black Confederates, we are talking about this group. Men that chose to stay and travel with units in Confederate armies; that chose not to slip away, serving as faithfully as any enlisted soldier. This is the Black Confederate.

While their existence is in question and smirked at now, their existence was accepted during the war. In the late summer of 1861, Frederick Douglas stated the following: “There are at the present moment many Colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers, having musket on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government and build up that of the rebels.” No one questioned his statement and it helped justify the creation of The United States Colored Troops. Harper’s Weekly often contained stories of armed Negroes in Confederate service. Much of the groundwork for the USCT came from the Union Army’s experience with blacks serving in Confederate armies. These stories, few of which were questioned, helped build acceptance for the USCT.

The most accepted example of Black Confederates comes from Nathan Bedford Forrest. In 1861, Forrest received authorization to raise a mounted regiment. As part of the process, he offered freedom to any male slave who would serve with him during the war. Over 25 volunteered, forming a pioneer company within the regiment. These men stayed with Forrest throughout the war. However, they did not have to wait until 1865 for emancipation. While recovering from one of his many wounds, Forrest freed these men. He feared that being killed could create unexpected problems and keep these slaves from being freed.

In the movie Gods and Generals, Stonewall Jackson hires a slave to be his cook. This sequence generated a large numbers of comments, most of which were negative. The objection was to the idea of a slave being willing to serve the Confederate General Jackson. However, the new Robert E. Rodes biography tells the following story: Lt. Robert Park’s black cook is being reassigned from the 12^th Alabama to brigade as a teamster. Lt. Park confronts General Rodes, the division commander, stating this is an attempt by Major Bryan to steal his cook. General Rodes declines to get involved. Lt. Park refuses to obey the order. This is 1863, the unnamed cook has been with the 12^th Alabama long enough to develop a reputation that brigade hears about. If he were the only black man in the Army of Northern Virginia, General Rodes would have taken steps to remove him. The story shows the acceptance of black men as cooks and teamsters in 1863.

William Marvel in Lincoln’s Darkest Year: The War in 1862 recounts the following well-known story. Lewis Steiner was in Frederick Maryland when Jackson’s command marched through the town. A member of the Sanitary Commission, Steiner closely observed the Confederates making note of the condition of their equipment, uniforms and numbers. Among these observations was the presence of no fewer than three thousand black men, wearing a mix of Confederate, Union and civilian clothing and armed with a variety of firearms and cutlery. Many were riding on horses or mules. Others rode with the artillery or ambulances. Many were teamsters driving wagons bearing United States marking. Jackson was officially commanding an army of about 12,800 men. Three thousand black men would increase Jackson’s numbers by about twenty-five percent. If we apply these numbers to the Army of Northern Virginia, in September 1862 just over seven thousand black men would have taken part in the Antietam Campaign, based on CSA numbers from Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle by John Michael Priest.

In July of 1863, we have another chance to gauge the presence of black men in Lee’s army. Arthur Fremantle, a Captain in the Coldstream Guards who has the rank Lieutenant Colonel in the regular British army, managed to enter the Confederacy and travel with Longstreet’s command during the Gettysburg Campaign. He was an observer at the battle of Gettysburg but not in uniform as depicted in the movie. Back home, he published Three Months in the Southern States; April-June 1863, an account of his travels and observations. An edited version of his book, published in the 1950’s, remains in print. This version is a source used by many books on the battle of Gettysburg. Fremantle recounts an incident where an armed black man, dressed in Confederate and Union uniform items, escorts Union prisoners of war to the rear. He states that every regiment and battery has from 20 to 40 black men traveling with it. His description of their dress and arms is similar to the description of Jackson’s command in 1862. This indicates that Lee’s army had not changed any policies and still contained a substantial number of black men. Longstreet had 72 regiments and batteries with just under 21,000 men carried on the rolls. If we use 20 black men with each battery and 30 with each regiment Longstreet’s Corps in July 1863 had just under 2,000 black men embedded in the units, an additional 9.4% above the official muster rolls.

Teamsters are not included with this number; they are not considered regimental assets. The Antietam percentages for Jackson’s command included Teamsters. Using these percentages for the Army of Northern Virginia in July 1863 adds about 17,500 men in regiments, batteries, and working as teamsters. This would give Lee an army of about 92,500 at Gettysburg. This is almost 7,500 more men than Meade. If we take only the I Corps numbers, Lee and Meade are almost equal in strength. One possible explanation for why Confederate armies always fought much bigger than their paper strength is the presence of uncounted black men. These men freed whites to man the firing line by filling positions that soldiers filled in the Union army.

As related in General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse, of the 1861 volunteers that filled the ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia, 36% owned slaves or were members of families that owned slaves. When jobs based on slavery are included almost 50% of the 1861 army had a connection to slaves. For the period of the entire war two out of three officers and four of nine enlisted men owned slaves or came from families that did. What does that mean in terms of numbers? At the start of The Seven Days, Lee had an army of about 92,000 men. 46,000 of those men had access to slaves. If 10% of these men had a body servant, the AoNV increases by 4,600 or about five percent. If 20% of these men had a body servant, the AoNV increases by 9,200 or about ten percent. These numbers do not include hired teamsters. If we apply Lewis Steiner’s 25%, the AoNV going into The Seven Days contained 23,000 black men serving in that army. Lee’s army would have had 115,000 men black and white moving to battle.

An individual black man enlisting as a Confederate soldier was uncommon but not unknown. Confederate Emancipation is the best account of the contentious path to accepting the idea of a Confederate States Colored Troops. In 1865, a couple of black companies were drilling in Richmond. There is no evidence that any of these men saw the elephant or were more than a last ditch effort at reversing defeat. The tens of thousands of black men assigned to work details during the war should not be considered Black Confederates. Their service was not more than a couple of months and most worked for only a few weeks. Their most common task was to dig fortifications. This activity was very unpopular with slave owners, who objected and often obstructed the drafting of slaves in every way possible. A common observation in the CSA was that slave owners were more protective of their slaves than their sons.

Black Confederates and Black Southerners in Confederate Armies are a collection of incidents and facts about blacks serving the Confederacy. As previously stated, the official CSA war records do not support Black Confederates. They exist in a multitude of photos, letters and pension records. The authors worked with these items producing two books which, while not readable, were very thought provoking. The United Confederate Veterans included many black men at their meetings. It is common to find pictures of a group of elderly white men in UCV dress with an elderly black man. At the 1913 Gettysburg reunion, no provision was made for black accommodations. When Black men started to appear in large numbers, the UCV welcomed them and made room for them within their encampment. There were no USCT units at Gettysburg, so any black men had to be members of Lee’s army.

As veterans aged pensions became an issue. The United States Government pensions system dated from the war and continually expanded to meet the needs of aging Union veterans. Confederate veterans enjoyed no federal support. Forced on local charity they got by as best they could. As things improved in the South, veterans were able to force pension bills into law in the states that had made up the Confederacy. Never as comprehensive or as good as the Federal pensions, they provided some compensation. In the years between 1915 and 1920, states extended CSA pensions to black men who had served in CSA armies. For 20 years, black men applied to these states for a pension based on their service. Local UCV posts supported many of these applications and specified that the applicant was a member in good standing. In 1920s, the average American male lived 55.5 years. The time between the end of the war and 1915 was almost the average male life span. The state of Tennessee received 267 applications for a pension from black men. York County, South Carolina recorded 30 applications. Keep in mind this state did not accept pensions from blacks until 1923. Virginia approved almost 1,000 pensions. 387 of the applications contained a regiment and company, indicating they were in combat units and possibly combat situations. Every Southern state with the exception of Missouri received applications and granted pensions to Black Confederates. The state of Missouri was notorious for not granting pensions to citizens that fought for the CSA. The fact that they granted no pensions to black men is not an indication black men did not serve in Missouri units.

Grandville Moody was commander of Camp Chase outside of Columbus, Ohio in 1862. From 1861 to the end of the war, Camp Chase was a POW camp. The web page states, “The camp received its first large influx of captured Confederates from western campaigns, including enlisted men, officers, and a few of the latter’s black servants.” Grandville Moody’s autobiography says he refused to treat black and white POWs differently. He reported that, “No small measure of indignation was aroused in the public mind, in relation to the status of the ‘colored population’ held in confinement at Camp Chase”. A Senate committee in their report upon the subject inquired, “Why are those Negroes there at all?” The question was certainly a most appropriate one. Upon investigation, they found that they were placed there as prisoners of war – a position as dignified as that enjoyed by their masters. “The Negroes were taken as participants in the rebel cause, some with arms in their hands against our loyal troops, and against our flag, others aiding their rebel masters in camp duty. This being the case, they were sent by General Halleck to Camp Chase in the same category as their masters were; namely, as prisoners of war taken in battle.” The Confederate Burial Mound for Camp Morton at Indianapolis, Indiana has a bronze tablet listing the 1,616 Confederates who died at that camp. Among those names are 26 Black Southerners. Most of the Union POW camps held black men that were exchanged with and for Union soldiers.

Whether these Black Confederates saw the elephant, engaging in combat, is an open question. The Confederacy contained no organized Black combat units, in spite of the reports in Harper’s Illustrated Weekly. However, consistent reports of black men seen on the firing line should not be discounted. During the Peninsula Campaign, a black sniper inspired fear and respect until killed by artillery fire. At the battle of Perryville, Union troops reported black men fighting in Louisiana regiments. We have covered Arthur Fremantle’s Gettysburg experience indicating that black men escorted Union prisoners to the rear. The best-known example of black men fighting occurs on July 7, 1863 at Williamsport, MD. General Imboden stopped the Union cavalry from occupying Williamsport and destroying the Confederate trains. For many years, this was known as “the Wagoner’s Fight” in honor of the teamsters who left their wagons, secured arms and fought alongside of Imboden’s men.

The states of the Confederacy contained about three million slaves in 1860. During the war, many of the men became part of the USCT. We need to remember that the free black population of the Northern states was about 400,000 and they joined the USCT too. An indeterminate number fled into Union lines, especially after 1862. However, the majority passively supported the South by continuing to live their pre-war life. This is not to say they were unhappy with emancipation, but that they simply stayed home living their lives. The men that stayed with the armies actively supported the South. It is easy to view these men as fighting to remain slaves. Physiological terms, from our times, like Stockholm syndrome and Identifying with the Oppressor are often used to explain away their motivations. One author suggested that the term Black Confederates is incorrect and they should be called “Confederate Slaves” instead. This assumes these men were so lacking in intelligence or so brutalized that they were incapable of making decisions. It makes the assumption these men lacked the intelligence or were so closely watched that it was impossible to for them escape. “Confederate Slaves” ignores the men who chose a Union POW camp rather than be freed. If you view the Civil War as a great battle between the “good Abolitionist North” and the “evil slave holding South”, these explanations are a comfort. The simple explanation is that these men felt they were there defending home and family. Accepting this idea requires us to see these men not as black but as Southerners who identified with defending home and family. This is the same idea that motivated White Confederates and kept these men in the field.

The last question is always “How many?” We do not have a good count of how many white men enlisted in Southern armies. How could we have a good count of how many body servants, cooks, hospital stewards, musicians and teamsters were in Southern armies? The most accepted estimate for white men enlisted or drafted is 880,000. The estimate for Black Confederates is 30,000 to 80,000. The most used figure is 50,000.

Black Confederates will not go away. In spite of all the educators’ official denials of their existence, scholarship is starting to admit they exist. Once they are no longer considered a myth, we can start working on numbers.

Bibliography

MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT E RODES OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA: A Biography by Darrell L. Collins

Lincoln’s Darkest Year: The War in 1862 by William Marvel

Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle (Paperback) by John Michael Priest

Three Months in the Southern States; April-June 1863 by Arthur J. L. Fremantle

Brigades of Gettysburg: The Union and Confederate Brigades at the Battle of Gettysburg by Bradley M. Gottfried

The Artillery of Gettysburg by Bradley M. Gottfried

General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse by Joseph Glatthaar

Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War by Bruce Levine

Black Confederates by Charles Barrow, J. H. Segars, and R. B. Rosenburg

Black Southerners in Confederate Armies by J. H. Segars and Charles Kelly Barrow

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Black Confederates

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1. Black Confederates at the Siege of Petersburg?
2. Review: Those Damned Black Hats! The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign
3. sfcdan: Milliken’s Bend to the Big Black River (Vicksburg)

Staying with the theme of recent book reviews for another day, let’s take a look at the comments section from my recent review of Phil Myers’ new book Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations.  Fellow TOCWOC blogger Fred Ray and long-time TOCWOC reader Stephen Graham had a discussion about the merits of Myers’ findings in the book in the comments section.  I wanted to point Fred, Stephen, and all TOCWOC readers to the last comment, from author Phil Myers:

Thanks to Brett for taking time to review my book. I enjoyed the review and the subsequent comments about the book. I’d be happy to engage in further discussion about some of the point Brett and the responders brought up. I’m working on the sequel that will continue the argument through the end of the century. It is tentatively entitled: “Collapsing Tension: The Resolution of British-American-Canadian Disputes After the Civil War.” It will be another three years though with more archival trips coming up. Thanks again to all.

If you’ve read Caution and Cooperation, here’s your chance to interact with the book’s author.  Feel free to ask Phil anything you want about the book, either in the comments below or in the comments section of the book review.

Note: British Scholar also recently nominated Caution and Cooperation as its Book of the Month for August-September 2008.

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Phil Myers on British-American Relations

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1. Review: Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations
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In my last post I looked the attacks on the attacks on Battery IX and Fort McGilvery in the northern sector, where I concluded that Gen. Walker got three brigades into action (Lewis, Kasey and Ransom) but failed to make a coordinated attack on Battery IX and any ground attack at all on Fort McGilvery. Within a short time of learning of the Confederate attack Col. Ralph Ely, whose Michigan brigade defended the northern sector, threw up a defensive line behind the grade of the Southside railroad that stopped any further Southern advances.

At some point while these attacks were in progress, someone “probed” Fort Friend, which lay roughly a mile due east of Fort Stedman. It was a small enclosed work without an infantry garrison, holding only the 3-inch rifles of Lieutenant Edward Jones’ Eleventh Massachusetts Battery. Both I and B&G article author William Wyrick credit Jones with six guns, but this may not be correct. Brig. Gen. Tidball, the sector artillery commander, does say that Jones has six guns in his report, but OTOH his recapitulation of his artillery made on May 28 states that Jones had four guns (so did the two gun sections at nearby Meade’s Station). Major Jacob Roemer, who was at Fort McGilvery, says “this command had relieved Captain Jones’ four pieces of 3-inch rifle ordnance guns with four pieces of the same kind at 8 p.m. on the 24th of March.” This makes me think that Jones had four and not six 3” rifles.

If Walker’s men were fully occupied with trying to take Battery IX and Fort McGilvery, then who probed Fort Friend? The B&G article (and this apparently is the view of the Petersburg park staff as well) credits the 6th and 57th NC regiments with approaching the fort until driven back by Jones’ guns. Wyrick cites the capsule history of the 57th NC in Clark (1901) written by its former commander, Col. Hamilton Jones, and an article in Confederate Veteran by J. D. Barrier in support. Since Jones was in command of the 57th NC at Stedman his account carries considerable weight. He says that the 6th and 57th led Walker’s attacking column, and that Lewis’ brigade attacked “an earthwork diagonally to the left” and was thrown back with loss.

Barrier’s account, however, is a bit more problematic. He wrote it (the original typescript copy is in the NCDAH) in 1923 and it was published in Confederate Veteran in 1925, nearly sixty years after the event. If Barrier was twenty in 1865 then he would have been 78 when he set his memories down, so his account should be used with caution. Barrier was the color corporal of the 57th and has a fairly detailed description of the attack. He says that three regiments of Lewis’ brigade, the 25th, 6th and 57th, went “over the top” into Fort Stedman, but then immediately switches to describing two regiments, presumably the 6th and 57th. He says “the 57th was ordered to deploy and capture a battery in front, located on Hare’s Hill. After advancing well away from other troops then arriving…” This is taken, apparently, to mean that the 6th and 57th were the units approaching Fort Friend.

I’m not so sure. It would mean that two of the five regiments of Lewis’ brigade detached themselves and headed due east almost a mile away. This is, to say the least, an unusual tactical arrangement and would have left Lewis with only three regiments to deal with Battery IX and Fort McGilvery. The only real support for this is Barrier’s statement that the regiment(s) were “well away” from the “other troops.” This statement is so general as to be impossible to decipher. How far is “well away?” Who are the “other troops?” Lewis’ brigade or the rest of Walker’s division?

Overall, I think both Col. Jones and Cpl. Barrier’s accounts can be reconciled with a coherent tactical picture. Union eyewitness accounts have the left Confederate column (i.e. Walker’s division) crossing the lines and then turning north. In my reconstruction the head of the column, led by the sharpshooters, bumps into the 2nd Michigan and is repulsed. The column recoils. Lewis’ brigade, in the lead, shifts east in an attempt to outflank Battery IX. This is the column that Major Roemer sees from Fort McGilvery. Kasey’s Virginia brigade, next in line, deploys and attacks the 2nd Michigan, driving it back to Battery IX. Lewis is now ordered to attack Battery IX, “diagonally to the left” but fails. This shift would also account for Barrier’s description of being “well away” from the other troops—the rest of the division. He also mentions attacking a battery “in front, located on Hare’s Hill.” If taken literally, this would have put the battery on top of Fort Stedman. Walker’s column passed to the left of Fort Stedman and turned north, which would not have put Fort Friend “in front,” altho it would fit for Battery IX. Similarly, If the 57th was advancing east toward Fort Friend, then Col. Jones’ description of an attack “diagonally to the left” is meaningless since the fort would be to his front. Jones also never says anything about the brigade being split up, and Barrier’s account can be read that way as well. Overall, I think this is much more likely than having two of Lewis’ regiments off a quarter of a mile away.

We also need to look at the descriptions of the attack itself. In his memoir Barrier describes what sounds like a conventional line of battle i.e. he is standing up with the colors under artillery fire. The Union accounts, however, all describe a skirmish line approaching Fort Friend, but a conventional line of battle attacking Battery IX and For McGilvery.

Maj. Gen. Orlando Willcox, who commanded the division under attack (and who was an eyewitness) says:

The enemy’s skirmishers now came down the hill directly to the rear of Stedman, and moved toward my headquarters at the Friend house, the Dunn House Battery, and in the direction of Meade’s Station….I ordered the Seventeenth Michigan to deploy as skirmishers on his right. This regiment, with only 100 men in its ranks, under command of Major Mathews, moved forward at the same time with General Hartranft’s line, capturing most of the enemy’s skirmishers in their front, about twenty-five in number, and inclining to the right, connected with the skirmishers of Ely’s brigade.

Captain Edward Jones, in command of Fort Friend, says:

at this hour it was not sufficiently light to distinguish friend from foe, but as the day broke the enemy were discovered moving from Fort Stedman toward Fort Haskell, and I immediately opened fire on them, and at the same moment they advanced their skirmish line rapidly toward the height upon which this work is situated, and as this line arrived on the ravine, about 500 yards in our front, we directed on them a quick fire of canister which at once checked the advance.

Significantly, both Jones and Willcox describe the enemy as coming from Fort Stedman, and not from north of it where Walker’s division would have been (the B&G map would have had them advancing from the direction of Battery IX) and that it was skirmish line, not a line of battle, that approached the fort.

Captain Samuel McClellan, commanding the reserve artillery brought up from Meade’s station, tells how his fire caused “their advance skirmishers, who were near the base of the hill [on which sat Fort Friend], to fall back in rear of our old line of rifle-pits, about 200 yards in rear of Fort Stedman.”

So it’s pretty clear to me that the only force that got anywhere near Fort Friend was a skirmish line. That late in the war, for the Confederates, this almost always meant their sharpshooters, since that was the task for which they were organized. True, there were times and places that the Confederates fought their line regiments in open order, but this was fairly rare. One of the major problems at Fort Stedman was, as Maj. Gen. Clement Evans noted in his post-battle report, that the line regiments were badly in need of drill and were difficult to maneuver. Then too, the sharpshooters, as an elite force, represented the ANVs best remaining soldiers. I think it unlikely, especially given the fact that they were seen advancing from Fort Stedman, that these were the 6th and 57th NC advancing in open order. If it were the skirmishers for these two regiments, then a line of battle should have been close behind.

Who, then were they? The middle column described in Federal sources was Grimes’ division, less Cox’s brigade. At this point in the war Grimes’ Division Sharpshooters, a demi-brigade composed of the sharpshooter battalions of his four brigades (Cox’s sharpshooters were present even though the brigade was not), were about 500 strong. These were the men who had taken Fort Stedman and who would have been the logical choice to continue advancing forward toward Fort Friend. Grimes’ Division Sharpshooters advanced east from Fort Stedman to the base of the hill on which Fort Friend sat, to within about 500 yards of it. Jones opened fire on them with his four (or six) 3” rifles, then they began to be pressured from the north by the 17th Michigan, and by the south by the remnants of the 57th Mass., both fighting in open order. Two full-strength Pennsylvania regiments and the Union reserve artillery soon appeared, forcing the sharpshooters back to a line of old trenches behind Fort Stedman.

This is certainly a better fit for both the tactical scenario and the available information. It is possible that the 6th and 57th NC led Walker’s column initially, passed through Battery X and kept going east toward Fort Friend while the rest turned north, but it seems unlikely since Walker’s job was to widen the breach and Grimes was in the center.

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B&G Article on Fort Stedman: Who Probed Fort Friend?

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1. B&G Article on Fort Stedman: the Attacks on Battery IX
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Author Earl Hess was kind enough to write to TOCWOC and provide some information on his important new book The Rifle Musket in the Civil War.  He had the following to say:

Was Paddy Griffith right when he suggested in 1986 that the rifle musket had relatively little impact on changing the face of battle during the Civil War?

Most historians rejected his idea then, but slowly a few of them have begun to take the suggestion more seriously.

I have looked at the issue from many different perspectives, and have written a book, The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth, to share my conclusions with interested readers. – Dr. Earl J. Hess. The book is now available through the University Press of Kansas, at http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/hesrif.html

Here is some preliminary information on the book: Historians have told us for years that the Civil War’s single-shot, muzzle-loading musket revolutionized warfare. Earl J. Hess forcefully challenges that claim, and presents a new assessment of the rifle musket, contending that its impact was much more limited than previously supposed, and confined primarily to marginal operations such as skirmishing and sniping. He argues further that its potential to alter battle line operations was virtually nullified by inadequate training, soldiers’ preference for short-range firing, and the difficulty of seeing the enemy at a distance. He notes that bullets fired from the new musket followed a parabolic trajectory creating two killing zones between which troops could operate untouched. He also presents the most complete discussion to date of the development of skirmishing and sniping in the Civil War. Drawing upon the observations and reflections of the soldiers themselves, Hess offers the most compelling argument yet made regarding the actual use of the rifle musket and its influence on Civil War combat. Engagingly written and meticulously researched, his book will be of special interest to Civil War scholars, buffs, re-enactors and gun enthusiasts alike.

Dr. Earl J. Hess holds the Stewart W. McClelland Chair in History at Lincoln Memorial University and has published ten previous books on the Civil War, including The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat, also from the University Press of Kansas, and most recently Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign, from the University of North Carolina Press.

I’ll be reviewing Dr. Hess’ new study some time in the upcoming weeks, and it is one I am GREATLY looking forward to reading.  I’m sure you will hear quite a bit more about it here and elsewhere in the Civil War blogosphere.

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Earl J. Hess on His New Book The Rifle Musket in the Civil War

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