New Flyer To Hand Out At Events

[Tsalagidave]

I was at the living history timeline at San Pedro the other weekend and I realized just how silly some of the battle scenarios can look without a proper explanation.  Attached is a 2-page leaflet that I wrote up to give spectators a brief overview on the time period while addressing some of the most common questions as well as misconceptions.

This could be changed and used for various impressions but I thought I'd put it up for my pards to check out.

Watching an 1861-65 Civil War Reenactment (What is all this?)

It doesn't take a combat veteran to spot many questionable things demonstrated at modern-day battle reenactments. A good example is "how can so many shoot so much as such a close range while producing so few casualties?"  This form is to help you gain a better understanding of what you are watching here as well as debunking many of the myths perpetuated about the War Between the States.

FAQ

Why are they fighting so close? Event size constraints and crowd control limits the size of the battle reenactments  to a small fraction of what the real battle would have been. Notice that they don't engage in hand to hand combat? That is because you are supposed to imagine that there are at least 200-500+ yards separating the combatants. Once this is understood, the low casualties vs. high rate of fire makes more sense. Weapons with greater range made it rare for soldiers to get close enough for hand-to-hand combat. Fewer than 2% of all CW battle wounds were a result of hand-to-hand combat.

Fighting in a line seems pretty stupid. Why did they do it? It was the best and most effective means to fight using single-shot muzzle loading weapons. The weapons only fired about 2-3 shots per minute. In order to mass the fire of such slow-firing weapons required massing the number of shooters. At 200+ yards, a line of men (in 2-ranks) on a smoky battlefield becomes a much more difficult mark to hit. Organized lines allow everyone to fire at once as opposed to a disorganized crowd where only the front rank can shoot. A disorganized crowd is also a larger, spread-out target to land rounds on. When moving over broken and heavily forested ground, soldiers acted as "skirmishers" using the terrain to their advantage as modern soldiers do today. However, they lacked the individual firepower necessary to hold off massed firing lines advancing on their position and typically relied on massed infantry and artillery to support them.

What's up with the flag guys and musicians in battle?  Musicians like buglers, fife and drum corps were the period equivalent of radio operators. The "songs" they play are actually military commands that can be heard over the din of battle much better than a screaming human voice can be heard. The "flag guys" or Color Guard marks the location of each regiment  on the field like chess pieces so that commanders can see where they are on the confusing field of battle. Other musicians such as the band helped psych up the troops and boost morale while hopefully intimidating the enemy at the same time. They also served as stretcher bearers and assisted the medical staff.

What kind of weapons were used? The war started out with a mix of short-range "smoothbore" and longer ranged "rifled" longarms. The bullets were lead and averaged from .52cal (52/100 inch) to .69cal (69/100 inch) in size. By mid war, a .58cal (58/100) bullet was the norm for infantry weapons. Smoothbores had an effective range up to 100 yards while some rifled longarms were sighted up to 1000 yards. The infantry weapons were typically single-shot muzzle-loaders while many of the carbines used by cavalrymen were single-shot breech-loaders. As the war progressed, repeating weapons  and metallic  cartridges started to become more common. The revolvers you see were not easily reloaded like today's pistols. Each chamber had to be individually loaded with powder, bullet and primer. The cannon were typically muzzle loading as well. They fired shells ranging in size from 3" to 15" in diameter. They also came in smoothbore or rifled with ranges from 1000 to over 2000 yards. Artillery ammunition varied from solid, and exploding to canister* (think giant shotgun round).

Common Myths About the Period

Myth: The Casualties were high because technology outpaced the tactics. This is a common myth that has been perpetuated even by renowned Civil War authors such as Shelby Foote to the point where it has been accepted as common knowledge. The truth is that wartime military manuals explained why they revised the tactics to accommodate the greater range of "modern rifled weapons".  If the technology & tactics myth was true, the casualty rates for CW battles would be markedly higher than those of the Napoleonic wars. However, researching casualty- participant ratios of various sources does not reveal the higher statistical difference needed to substantiate the claim.

Myth: They were ignorant about cleanliness. Numerous CW period publications emphasized the importance of proper hygiene.  Although it was not logistically plausible to have a daily bath before water heaters and indoor plumbing, people still meticulously cleaned themselves from head to toe about twice a day using a cloth, soap and water while trying to have a full immersive bath at least once a week if practicable. The main source of the myth that bathing was "injurious to health" came from a 1917 article written by H.L.Menken and was meant entirely as a joke. Despite Menken's 1926 retraction, the myth has found its way into print and is still cited as fact. The main problem during the war is that life on the march and in large army camps was notoriously filthy and unhealthful despite the best efforts of the armies and dedicated sanitary organizations. To put it plainly, the environment made it extremely difficult to maintain adequate levels of cleanliness and the results were frequent illness resulting in a high mortality rate of approximately 2-3 for every 1 lost in battle depending on statistics cited.

Myth: They were illiterate. This is a modern day contrivance.  America was world renowned for having the highest literacy levels on earth throughout the 1800s. 1850 Census questionnaires revealed  about a  97% functional literacy of free Americans over 20. There were fluctuations in spelling namely because it would not be until the latter half of the nineteenth century when spelling would be standardized. That being said, individuals were fully functional in reading, writing, doing math, and conducting their daily business just like we do today.

Myth: Unlike today, people then were intolerant and racist. By modern PC terms, virtually every person on earth can be classified as racist in some way both then and even now. Documented viewpoints from throughout the US indicate a strong presence of people who both believed in universal equality of humankind whereas others saw the native cultures into which they were born and raised as being overall superior. The same could be said about all cultures around the world at that time.  There was more diversity of opinions then as many of those viewpoints today would not be authorized by modern PC groupthink to be expressed vocally.  That being said, mid 19th c. individuals debated the pros and cons on topics like labor, slavery and government handling of American Indians just as hotly then as abortion, racism,  and military interventions are argued today.

Myth: The war was/wasn't fought over slavery. Either statement is insufficient in telling the full story. The average rank and file soldier did not seem willing to fight and die namely for the opportunity to either keep or free slaves. These were secondary ambitions to the main argument of whether the US was a federal republic or a collective of sovereign nations working as an alliance. That being said, the case and point argument in favor of "states rights" was in fact the perseverance of human slavery. Supporters of slavery saw it as a "humanitarian" means of overseeing people who were mentally/physically inferior and that they are "happier" to be properly managed. Abolitionists saw it as an affront to the sanctity of each human being's individual's right to personal liberty.

[Niederlander]

Very useful!  We do a military firearms display every year at Fort Hartsuff, and I'm always amazed at how little people know about what they're looking at.  Explanations they can read really help.

[St8LineLeatherSmith]

From what I have read about the battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga there was a lot of gurella warfare executed by the Southern combatants and hand to hand combat due to the area being so heavily wooded. most of the battles were in the farm fields along Lafayette road known now as Highway 27
Chickamauga was also the second bloodiest battle of the war of Northern aggression.
BTW if you ever get a chance to visit the park visitors center has a vast collection of  the firearms used in the war and it is free. the visitors center also has a movie that goes in depth of the battle and skirmishes  at Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.

along the trails is a vast amount of info posted about the battles and skirmishes

as a kid I lived on McFarland Gap road, we would go across the road up in the woods which is now an exit ramp on Highway 2A.
a huge tree was cut down to serve as a shield (Not sure which side cut it down and hid behind it but I presume it was probably southern forces trying to sneak in from the back side of Snodgrass hill) when we found the tree it was pretty rotted but the thing was loaded with mini balls we must have dug out at least 50 or 60 projectiles out of that tree
you could still see the stump where it had been cut down by an axe. one of my friends found  a confederate buckle and a couple of other artifacts on the side of the tree they would have hidden behind that is the reason I think it was southern troops.
pretty remarkable find for a bunch of 5th graders.
this is a good read on the battle of Chickamauga.
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/civil_war_series/10/sec1.htm

[St8LineLeatherSmith]

[Tsalagidave]

I know it St8Line. I covered the fact that troops fought in a manner more similar to how modern combat is done today over broken ground. Unfortunately, I have to limit my text to a single sheet and the fleeting attention span of the spectator reading it. I've written more extensively on that subject and how little it is represented in modern reenactments. Although episodes of hand to hand combat is well documented, it still only accounts for about 2% of overall battle casualties. This includes Spotsylvania, Perryville, Shiloh, 2nd Manassas, Franklin, The Crater, Kennesaw Mountain, (and many more) all had documented moments of hand to hand combat but the reality is that medical and death reports indicate the vast majority of lethal wounds by artillery and small arms fire. The highest figures I have ever come across for the entire war is roughly 2% including, bayonet, saber/knife wounds and blunt force trauma, strangulation, etc. Although I don't discount the value of a bayonet and I love bayonet drill, the reality is that it did not inflict the majority of wounds.

-Dave

[St8LineLeatherSmith]

I don't dispute that either .