I first wrote this series of lectures while a history instructor in the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. Kansas from 1989-1992. My boss at the time, Dr. Glen Robertson, assigned me the task of creating a course of study to examine Civil War campaigns in order to analyze the war at its rational, rather than tactical, level. These lectures formed the first two lessons in that course. Dr. Robertson allowed me to use his notes and they were invaluable. Although I take full credit for the content of what follows, much of its organization came from Dr. Robertson's notes. It was my great honor and pleasure to be on his team and learn from him. I also have to give credit to Dr. Hermann Hattaway at The University of Missouri in Kansas City. I first began to write about the Civil War under his guidance in graduate school.

Warfare in 1860

This was a time in which changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution began to have marked effects on operations and logistics. Yet, it was also a time in which there remained many holdovers from the Napoleonic period. especially in tactics. Most European nations (but not Britain) maintained armies of several hundred thousand soldiers backed up by additional thousands in reserve systems filled by varying forms of conscription.

Rifled shoulder weapons were finally becoming standard for the infantry. The Prussians developed the Dreyse Needle Gun, a rifled breechloader, in 1841, but tested it for years and did not complete distribution to all units til 1864. The British adopted a rifled muzzle-loader in 1851. The first war in which both sides used rifles as the Franco-Austrian war of 1859. Except for the Prussians, no one had a breech-loader in active service in 60.

There had been much experimentation with breech-loaders for many years. British Major Patrick Ferguson (killed at Kings Mountain), had produced one during the American Revolution. The benefits were great, creased volume of fire and use of prone position to reload, but breech loaders were hazardous due to adequate gas seals and lack of robustness. The cheaper, simpler, safer, muzzle-loader remained the standard infantry shoulder weapon in all westem armies. There was a notion that soldiers would waste ammunition if using breech loaders and repeaters. This is important to understand and comes from the Napoleonic tradition in which infantry is not the overwhelming killer on the battlefield. Once that became clear in the Civil War, the breech loaders and repeaters found increasing acceptance.

Cavalry still carried lances or sabers. There was some experimenting with firepower and dragoons were pected to dismount and fight with carbines -- smaller versions of the infantry's muzzle-loader. Most cavalry, wever, expected to fight from the saddle and trained for that alone. European armies kept large formations of cavalry for use in reconaissance, battlefield combat, and pursuit. In the United States Army, the five cavalry regiments represented less than 20 percent ot the total force, and was scattered in company-sized packets mostly along the western frontier. Its primary duty was to provide security for western expansion. There was attempt to train for large-scale battlefield combat. This was a significant difference from the European Model, but represented the realities of the American military requirements. During the Civil War, both sides raised large cavalry formations and became quite competent in their use. Cavahy even found its way back onto the battlefield in large numbers, but not in the way most envisioned at the beginning of the war and not in the way Europeans would continue to use cavalry for another fifty years.

Artillery still used muzzle-loading cannon made of bronze or wrought iron, however,there were some new developments. Foundries, such as Krupp in 1847, had used steel in gun tubes, but it had a tendency to fracture. William Armstrong developed a rifled breech-loader for Britain in 1855. It was adopted soon after, but the British soon returned to rifled muzzle-loaders. The French also used rifled breech loaders at the Battle of Magenta in 1859. Rifling was first done successfully by an Italian named Cavelli in 1846. This promised a great improvement in accuracy. Still, artillery had a long way to go because it placed a recoil system, sights were rudimentary, no indirect fire, and black powder propellants created much smoke and fouling. Smokeless powder was not produced until 1884.

Infantry still operated in close order using either columns. Iines, or squares. Command and control of these formations was limited to the range of a leader with a small group of aides using voice and gestures to move their commands. Much reliance was given to the bayonet which, after all, was not much more advanced technologically than a knife on the end of a stick. Cavalry expected to use shock action and pursuit. Its prime contribution on the battlefield was psychological. Artillery was even more so. Whenever possible, it peppered the target from close range with canister.

Imagine it. Cannons just outside defender's musket range fired golf ball sized lumps of iron at them like a giant shotgun. If the defenders stayed in place, they'd all be killed. The enemy became disorganized and demoralized from this fire and at the key moment, infantry charged. Defenders might get off one or two volleys at ranges less than 100 meters. If the enemy broke, cav could pursue killing the fleeing defenders with swords and lances. The rifle-musket changed that equation.

Other technologies were emerging at the operational level that also changed the art of war. Steam locomotion in ships and railroads began to move soldiers and supplies over vast distances. Railroads began in 1895 with steam power and by 1860 were just coming into general usefulness for moving troops and supplies. The first large scale movement of troops was in the Franco-Austrian War of 1859 in which the French found that with planning and coordination, railroads didn't help much. The Prussians taught the French and the world how tc use railroads in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The railroads freed armies to travel greater distances and sustain themselves more easily, but also bound armies to the railroad lines themselves by dictating patterns of advance.

The telegraph first came into use in war in the Crimean War (1853-56) during the siege of Sevastopol when the British and French ran lines back to their home countries. The effects were predictable. Commanders ke in touch with their governments allowing the politicians to meddle in thetechnical military issues. Reporters used the telegraph lines to quickly provide news at home. This threatened security, but also promoted the welfare of the common soldier. The telegraph enjoyed little tactical usage until the Civil War when commanders. especially during the last two years of the war, laid telegraph line right down to corps and division.

Europeans made no serious effort to wage war on civilian populations. Perhaps, they had evolved away from that as they certainly practiced it in centuries past. They would come back to it. Nor was there serious use of field fortifications except in sieges. and no real understanding of the advantages given the defense by rifled shoulder weapons.

Napoleon's successes led military theorists to explain and interpret reasons for his success. Two European theorists produced significant works in the years between the Napoleonic Wars and 1860. Jomini was a Swiss staff officer in the French army under Napoleon. Later, he served in the Russia. army. His most important work was Summary of the Art of War published in 1836. Clausewitz was a Prussian staff offficer who became director of the Kriegsakademie. His most important work was On War published in 1832, but not translated into English until 1873.

Jomini was less philosophical than Clausewitz and confined himself to strictly military questions of strategy, and logistics. Clausewitz probed deeply into the relationship between war and society. Clausewitz saw war in its extreme manifestations as increasingly chaotic. Jomini described it in terms of near geometrical relationships. Order out of chaos. Clausewitz recognized degrees of intensity in war and violence while Jomini used terms universally applicable in rules of military science. Clausewitz emphasized the revolutionary implications of Napoleonic warfare and its tendency toward unlimited violence while Jomini linked Napoleonic warfare to that of the 18th Century limited wars and tried to confine Napoleonic strategy and tactics within 18th century constraints.

Since West Point developed under French influence. Jomini was the author read and emulated by US Army commanders. Jomini's principles were simple. Bring the maximum possible force to bear against the decisive point a theater of operations where the enemy can muster only a part of his force. The best way to accomplish this is to order one's lines of communications properly and operate on interior lines where possible. The symmetrical nature of his theory is apparent here. Jomini's emphasis on the decisive point tended to turn warfare away from the enemy's armies as goals and toward geographic objectives as in 18th Century warfare. Still, Jomini was most Napoleonic in his emphasis on the offensive and the decisive form of war.

The US in 1860 had a military system developed from the first settlers, slightly modified by the experience of wars with Britain and one with Mexico. The successful war with Mexico had provided practical experience many young officers who would lead the Civil War military. Lee, Grant, Beauregard, Johnston, Jackson, kett. Bragg. Early, Thomas. Davis. Halleck, McClellan, Meade, Sherman, Kearney, and Porter all saw action the Mexican American War. However, the years between the Mexican War and the Civil War were not noted major innovations. There was little pressure for change as the army had done so well in Mexico and growing sectional crisis was a good reason to maintain the status quo. Both sides wanted to keep the regular infantry from being involved so that neither side would have a particular advantage. The South did not want to e the central government an instrument for suppression.

The Army had demobilized afler the Mexican War to its authorized strength of 10,700 in 1849. There was an improvement during the administration of Franklin Pierce who's Secreatry of War was Jefferson Davis. Under Davis' leadership the Army's authorized strength raised to about 18,000. Davis sponsored a new rifled weapon - the Springfield -- and a new tactics manual written by Captain W. J. Hardee. That manual, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics published in 1855 became a Civil War standard in both armies. It addressed tactics for ividual soldiers as well as squads. companies and regiments, but it did not go far enough. Brigades and isions became the basic maneuver units in the Civil War.

Such loss was accomplished by the Buchanan administration. John Floyd of Virginia was the Secretary of War and his tenure was tainted with scandal. The Army found itself increasingly involved with conflicts in the West such as the Mormon disputes in 1857-58, and the undeclared war in Kansas between pro slavery and free supporters. Worried about sectional agitation, the Southern states demanded their full quota of arms for the militia as promised in the Militia Act of 1808. Floyd agreed and complied with the South's demands. Northerners were outraged.

American military theory was most heavily influenced by Jomini whose American disciple was Denis Hart Mahen. Mahan graduated from West Point in 1824 and served on its faculty from 1832 to 1871. He committed suicide upon being informed of his forced retirement by jumping off the Hudson River Ferry. During his tenure, he conveyed three themes to his students. He stressed the need for professional study, especially military history; the need to be flexible in applying textbook rules to actual situations; and, the need to adopt the prudent offensive as a means to victory. Mahan was the principal interpreter of Jomini to generations of cadets. He established his own work in 1847. Its very long title is simplified to Out-Post.

Mahan's essential theory was a belief in the offensive and the notion that only regular troops, professionals, could conduct successful offensives. Offensives should be conducted by maneuver using indirect means. Victories should be won at the smallest cost (this was a minor criticism of Napoleon's extravagance). He phased caution with reconnaissance, advanced guards, outposts and in real life carried an umbrella every day. Jomini's aggressive notions of the offensive were diluted by Mahan's emphasis on wise use of fortifications. caution in the advance, and setting of limited objectives.

Henry W. Halleck, 'Old Brains' was his nickname, graduated from West Point in 1839; served in Califomia til 1854: resigned to become a lawyer; and resumed to active duty in 1861. He published a book entitled Elements of Military Art and Science in 1846 and translated some of Jomini's works. His work has considerable originality and is broader in scope than Mahan's. He credited Napoleon by praising the value of the offensive and was decidedly Jominian. His most important principle was concentration at the decisive point with geographical goals rather than enemy armies as objectives. He gave much concern to developing and protecting lines of communication -- geometrical influence. He held that concentration of forces was more important that speed of movement. When he commanded the Union Army of The Tennessee during the period immediately after the Battle of Shiloh. He advanced his army 21 miles from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth in 30 days entrenching every day. In sum, he praised the Napoleonic idea of the offensive but actually believed in a cautious, defensive approach to warfare with limited geographical goals.

Mahan's West Point, along with the writings of Halleck and a few others were the main influences on the professional officer corps of the United States by 1861. The best of this group were interested in military history, adaptable to circumstances, skilled in fortifications and gunnery, and dedicated to the offensive. Yet, they were not prepared for the size and scope of the war. West Pointers thought in terms of skilled regulars and had little confidence in unskilled citizen soldiers and the Civil War would required just that kind of mass army.

Prewar American did not have an expandable army and even the Mexican War experience did not convince professional officers of the need for one. The officer corps expected society to adapt to their methods of warfighting and made no attempt to adapt their warfighting to society. Thus, the professionals were not prepared for civil war -- a war of mass armies of citizen soldiers that would be total as foreseen by Clausewitz but not by Jomini. The result was that when the war came, some officers demanded too much from their conscript soldiers while others reverted to excessive caution due to lack of confidence in their troops. Either way, the results formed the basis for the way Americans went to war in 1861.

We profess to a belief in combined arms warfare. The Napoleonic model of combined arms warfare died during the American Civil War, but a new model emerged before the war ended. It continued to evolve during the world wars and finally came to a point of equilibrium in the last half of the twentieth century. The lesson is that combined arms warfare can be disrupted by the advent of a new technology or doctrine and that it may take a long time to regain the combined arms balance.

American Civil War Tactics

The American Civil War represents a decline in combined arms warfare. It was the last of the Nupoleonic Wars and, at the same time, the first of the modern wars. Leaders tried to apply doctrinal principles learned during the Napoleonic Wars and validated during the Mexican American War, but the balance between infantry. artillery, and cavalry was no longer valid. Why?

In terms of mortality. thc Civil War was America's greatest conflict. There were about 600,000 total deaths during the war -- that's more than America suffered in World War I, II, and Korea combined. In terms of sacrifice, the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava is often cited as a standard. The Light Brigade lost 39% of its force on that day. That figured was equaled or bettered by at least 120 Union and 70 Confederate regiments during the course of the Civil War.

Why were these battlefield casualties so staggering? One reason is that officers on both sides fought, or tried to fight by the books -- and the books were outdated. Vvrhat were the major aspects of Civil War tactics were and how did they come into being? What were the effects of technological change before and during the War. What lessons were learned and is there any modern relevance for students of the American Civil War?

The greatest influences on Civil War tactics were the Napoleonic Wars fought 1795-1815 and, most proximately, the Mexican-American War fought 1846-48. The latter was a splendidly successful lime war in which the United States won a nearly unbroken string of victories on Mexican soil with its small regular army augmented by state volunteers. On the surface, tactics in Mexico were not very different from Napoleonic warfare. The doctrine was combined arms and maneuver and, although the armies were small (normally less than 10,000 per side), the battles they fought were the largest fought in North America since Cortez and his Indian allies conquered the Aztecs. Although the lessons that future Civil War leaders such as Lee, Grar.t, and Davis learned in Mexico seemed to validate Napoleonic doctrine, we have to remember that the scale of these battles was very small by Napoleonic standards.

Infantry marched in column and deployed into line to fight battles. Once deployed, one or two companies would go forward to act as skirmishers. After exchanging volleys with the enemy line, the infantry would charge with a yell and give them the bayonet. Artillery would support the attack by blasting the enemy line with canister from ranges as short as 200 yards. It could do this because the standard infantry shoulder weapon, the musket, was effective only to about 100 yards. The artillerists were quite safe. Cavalry guarded the flanks and stood ready to pursue the fleeing enemy. It could conduct shock attacks of its own with lance and sword if necessary. Thus, the tactics found so successful in Mexico were based on the same combined arms equation that had worked in the Napoleonic Wars. That equation changed between 1848 and 1861.

The Bible of the period was Winfield Scott's three volume work titled Infantry Tactics published in 1835. It went through ten editions by the start of the Civil War and was never revised. Its concepts were based on French tactical systems. It stressed close order formations in two or three ranks and a march rate "quick time" of 110 steps per minute.

Artillery had no technical manual, only a drill book that described how the crew was to service the gun. Cavalry had a manual published in 1841 based on French sources that stressed close order, mounted tactics in two ranks.

In the mid-1850s, a new weapon was introduced into the American infantry -- the rifle-musket. A Captain Norton of the British Army had invented a cylindro-conoidal bullet as early as 1832. When fired, the bullet's base expanded into the rifling of the barrel giving the bullet ballistic spin and greater accuracy and range. This system was further improved by Captain Claude Minie of France resulting in the American term 'minie-ball' which' in reality, is neither mini nor a ball. The rifle now became a dominant battlefield weapon that could be loaded as fast as a musket but had better range and accuracy. Rifles were first used in significant numbers by the British in the Crimean War. The Franco-Austrian War of 1859 was the first in which both sides used rifles extensively.

The United States adopted a rifle-musket in 1855 under the Springfield patent. The new weapon required a new manual and Major William Hardee wrote one titled Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics first published in 1855: Hardee's work was largely a copy of Scott's earlier book based primarily on then existing French tactics. Hardee did try to deal with the improved range and accuracy of the rifle by increasing the pace of advance to something called "double quick time." His idea was to have the attacking formation cross the killing more quickly, but the rifle made the killing zone much larger than the new pace could cross quickly enough. The result was that the tactical balance shifled in favor of the defense.

The rifle had an even more profound effect on combined arms warfare because it totally disrupted the successful Mexican-American War equation. Cavahy and artillery could not approach infantry so closely. The rifle-musket was effective to 500 yards and particularly so at targets as large as cavalry and artillery horses. Artillery canister range was 400 yards maximum which put artillerists at much greater risk than before. The effect was that artillery got pushed back from the Close range work and practically left the battlefield altogether.

Rifling also appeared in artillery in the inter-war period. Bronze guns could not hold the rifling so well but were practically foolproof against bursting. Iron and steel guns took the rifling much better, but did burst occasionally. Rifled guns had much greater accuracy and better range than smooth bores, but smaller bores and, therefore, smaller munitions. The real problem with rifled artillery was range and ammunition. Except when firing solid bolts at point targets. the additional range gained by rifling was of little value. To have effect against area targets such as infantry, artillery, or cavalry formations. the munitions needed to explode and spread destruction upon the target. This meant some sort of fusing. Also, artillery could not always take advantage of its greater rifled range in most Civil War battles. What the artillery needed but didn't have was an effective indirect fire system. That didn't come along until World War I.

The rifle-musket presented its greatest challenges to the cavalry and. essentially drove the cavalry off the early Civil War battlefields. For a while, cavalry contented itself with its traditional roles of intelligence gathering and security, but enterprising cavalry commanders sought greater opportunities by conducted large mounted raids against key points and lines of communications. This was a major innovation in the cavalry that emerged during the Civil War, but it was not enough to get the cavalry back onto the battlefield. Eventually, the cavalry put away its lances and sabers in favor of rifles of its own and, in doing so. found its way back into battle. By the end of the war, large mounted formations armed with breech-loading and repeating rifles could move more rapidly and fight as effectively as the rifle armed infantry.

Early in the war the tactical offensive proved to be a costly undertaking against defenders armed with rifles. Attacks could still be successful, but at very high costs. The bloodiness that the early battles exhibited was much the result of trying to fight by the book. This bloodiness persisted even though most early battles did not have a majority of rifles on either side. Most soldiers still carried muskets or conversions of one form or another. However, by the end of 1862, most soldiers had a rifle musket of some sort and as shocking as the casualty returns from the early battles might have been, they were only the prologue for what followed.

Later in the war, as the armies increasingly turned to elaborate field fortifications, the defender's advantage became even more pronounced. It became a generally accepted rule that infantry could occupy a position and prepare a nearly impregnable defense within 24 hours. The habitual use of field fortifications was one of the most significant innovations in the Civil War and was caused by the introduction of the rifle.

Few commanders on either side demonstrated that they understood how the rifle had changed the tactical equation. Some experimented with increased numbers of skirmishers deployments in looser order, but the problem of bringing effective fire onto the target was hard to solve unless the attacker used close order. Two things were needed to solve this problem: decentralized command and control, and the repeating rifle. Repeating rifles were available and could have been put in the hands of the infantry, but the decision was made early on to use the rifle musket which was cheaper and proven.

Late in the war, attackers turned increasingly to mass formations in order to overcome the advantage of the fortified defender. These attacks generally failed, but had occasional success. They were the messengers of World War I.

The result of all this tactical evolution was that battles became more costly, but generally less decisive. Determined attackers would inflict heavy casualties on defenders and perhaps cause them to retreat, but only at enormous cost. Since the enemy could not be totally destroyed in decisive battle, aurition and exhaustion became operational objectives.

The United States adapted a new infantry manual in 1867; Emory Upton's A New System of Infantry Tactics. It borrowed some ideas from earlier systems yet made many significant changes in response to new weapons. It allowed single rank formations, and emphasized open order skirmishing and greater speed in deployment. The Army adopted cavalry and artillery manuals in line with Upton's work in 1874 but resistance to these changes remained. Custer's men at the Little Big Horn carried single shot, breech loading rifles that were inferior to some weapons carried less than 20 years earlier.

Although many European powers sent observers to the Civil War, their observations exerted little influence of military doctrine in Europe. To Europeans, the American situation seemed unique. The terrain was difficult, wooded battlefields, volunteer troops, and untrained officers all suggested that this war had little to offer in terms of lessons in European battles. The European model was Prussia and its series of wars to unify Germany in 1864. 1866 and culminating in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 in which Prussia soundly defeated France in a campaign that became a centerpiece of operational art. In short, the American experience just was not seen as relevant in the European experience. but it wouldn't be long before repeating rifles and field fortifications would make themselves felt.

It's important at this point to mention two recent books on Civil War tactics which seek to explain why the war took the tactical course it did. Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson published Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage in 1982. They took a traditional approach to the problem citing the rifled musket as the primary ingredient that upset the combined arms balance and marked the Civil War as the first of the modern wars. Paddy Griffith followed in 1989 with Battle Tactics of the Civil War. He took a revisionist point of view that the rifle was less a factor because battles were fought at essentially the same close ranges as most Napoleonic battles. According to Griffith, the dominant factors were terrain, doctrine and command decisions. To him, the Civil War is the last of the Napoleonic Wars. Underlying these two points of view is a long standing difference of opinions between American and European historians.

Americans want the war to be viewed as something new and important because it was such a defining moment of American history. Europeans tend to see the war as von Moltke did, large bands of undiscipline mobs clumsily led by amateurs in a four year dance of death that had no real military significance beyond these shores. This interpretation helps mitigate the fantastic European folly of World War I and allows them to claim it as the first modern war. Of course, McWhiney and Jamieson are Americans. Griffith is British.

What is the tactical legacy of the Civil War? J. F. C. Fuller summed it up pretty well.

"It was the bullet which created the trench and rifle pit; which killed the bayonet; which rendered useless the sword: which chased away guns and horsemen... and which prevented the rapid decision of the battles of preceding centuries. In 1861-65 the rifle bullet was the lord of the battlefield as was the machine gun bullet in 1914-18."

It was tragic enough that Civil War commanders did not fully comprehend the significance of the new firepower, but even more so that the commanders of World War I did not. Warfare has evolved much since the Civil War, and even since World War 1, but there are some enduring lesson that those experiences can teach us.

Technology changes the way we fight. Changes require new doctrines or, even better, a doctrine flexible enough to easily deal with change. 3. Commanders who fail to see changes or refuse to adapt to them will suffer tragic and unnecessary losses and ignominious defeat at the hands of their enemies.

Raising and Equipping Civil War Armies

Both the United States and the Confederate States raised and equipped sufficient armies to pursue their stated objectives during the course of the American Civil War. They both used volunteer systems as well as conscription, but techniques varied between the sections arid even from state to state. Both sides equipped themselves with modern weapons and equipment and in that sense, the American Civil War provided a theoretical and doctrinal model for other nations.

The North began the war with a small regular army and a vast militia. The regular army had been kept small to prevent coercion. In 1860. it numbered 16,215 of its authorized 17,867 (Weigley) and was orgartized in regiments -- at least in theory. but in practice it comprised 198 company sized formations. 183 were on the frontier while 15 were on the Canadian border or Atlantic coast scattered amongst 79 posts. When the war hcgan almost all the enlisted soldiers stayed in the regular army -- one account says that only 26 went south. Figures for officers vary, but sources generally agree that of 1100 officers available -- about 300 resigned and joined the Confederacy.

One immediate concern was how to employ the regular army. Some proposed to use it as a cadre -- that is to scatter it out amongst the conscript formations as teachers and drillmasters. Winfield Scott opposed this and favored keeping the regulars as the nucleus and model for the rest. Lincoln accepted Scott's advice, but the issue is still open for dehate. Eventually some officers were released to volunteer regiments or resigned to join them and about 400 West Pointers in civilian life took state commissions. Scott's policy did have positive results on early battlefields such as Bull Run and Wilson's Creek where regulars performed conspicuously well. During the war, Congress added 9 infantry, one cavalry and one artillery regiments to the regular army.

On paper, the militia numbered three million men including those from Southern states, and could be called out by the President for 90 days. Some of these units had uniforms and training, but most were common, untrained militia that mustered once per year if at all. On April 15, 1861, Lincoln called for 75,000 ninety-day volunteers from amongst the organized militia. Patriotic enthusiasm produced 92,000 men and gave Lincoln a ready made, but green army without having to go to Congress. This force actually served well under the circumstances. It secured the capitol and fought the first big battle at Bull Run.

Most of the troops used by the North were volunteers organized into units raised on the state level by locals under state authority. Units were given a number according to the sequence they were raised. Lincoln called for volunteers several times during the war. After 1st Bull Run, he called for 42,000 volunteers and by July 1862, over 200,000 men had volunteered and organized into regiments. This rapid expansion of the Army caused great difficulties in logistics and training, and further heightened the debate over what the role of the regular army should be.

There were further calls 300,00 in July 1862, 300,000 in August 1862; 346,000 in July 1864 and 300,000 in December 1864. Each state was allocated its proportion of the call based on population. At that point, it was up to the governors to recruit by whatever means they found useful--finding bounties useful.

Eventually, volunteering failed to turn up enough men and the Union truned to conscription--the Enrollment Act of March 3, 1863 (the Confederates the year before), which was the first draft law in US history. It bypassed the militia clauses in the Constitution and rested upon the power of Congress to raise and support armies. All able bodied men 20-45 (unmarried), 20-35 (married) were liable for 3 years service. There were exemptions and citizens did not enroll on their own. Enrolling officers went house to house to make up the quotas unfilled by volunteerings.

The draft and bounty system became something ot a national scandal. "Bounty jumpers" enlisted more than once to collect the incentive money. The known record is 32 jumps held by John O'Connor who was finally apprehended in Albany, NY in March 1865 while attempting his 33rd enlistment. Section 32 of the Enrollment Act allowed draftees to either hire a substitute or pay a commutation fee of $300. These loopholes were unjust in this situation where the entire manpower pool was needed. It did help to defray the cost of administering the draft and recruiting service. There was a provision for conscientious objectors allowing them to serve in hospital duties. Substitution remained but changed so that substitutes themselves couldn't be potential draftees -- the enrollee's exemption remained only as long as the substitute remained alive in service.

Another provision of the Enrollment Act provided for substitute brokers -- men who furnished substitutes for a fee. Of course this led to undesirables being allowed into military service including cripples from birth, men partially blind, idiots, puny boys of 14 or 15, escaped prisoners, paralytics, those who could not speak English, and kidnapped Indians. The commutation and substitution provisions suggest that Congress was susceptible to less pressure and was unwilling to apply conscription thoroughly.

The draft led to violence with major incidents in Boston, Milwaukee, and Baltimore. The largest outbreak was in New York City in July 1863, just after the Battle of Genysburg, in which a mob wrecked a draft office, stores. and saloons. Then, the mob turned on blacks and murdered eighteen people. Eventually, Federal troops quelled the disorder at a cost of 60 military casualties, over 400 civilian deaths, and property loss of $1.5 million.

The chief benefit of the draft was to stimulate volunteering. The numbers show that the draft provided only about 6% of the Union total. Nearly 250,000 men were drafted. 87,000 paid the commutation fee ($26 million dollars), 116,000 hired substitutes. Only 46,000 actually were drafted into service.

Another method was to enlist blacks. This began officially in April 1862 and was sanctioned by Congress in July 1862. There was much resistance due to the notion that Blacks made inferior soldiers but that lessened after the Emancipation Proclamation. Some states, notably Massachusetts recruited blacks regiments, but the War Department took over black recruitment in May 1863. Most Blacks served in regiments designated as US Colored Troops (USCT). Officers were white. Pay was less than white troops. The final total was 189,000 of which 93,000 came from Confederate states. Their use was a politically touchy issue, but Blacks served well in the Civil War in large numbers. It was a very important point in the evolution of American military service.

The sum total of all these various enlistment, recruiting, and drafting schemes was a total of almost 2.5 million Union soldiers and sailors who served during the war and pointed the way to new methods of raising armies in, future American wars.

The Confederacy acted quicker in raising its armies than did the Union. Congress authorized both a regular army and a provisional army although the regular army remained largely a paper organization. The provisional army fought the war with mostly state volunteer regiments similar to those of the Union. In March 1861, the Confederate Congress authorized 100,000 volunteers to serve for one year. After First Bull Run, it authorized another 400,000 to serve for three years. In December 1861, it voted extra bounties and privileges to induce the one year volunteers to extend for two more years, but that proved insufficient. As in the North, patriotism and volunteer fervor began to ebb in 1862.

As a result, the Confederacy turned to conscription by passing the first draft act in American history in April 1862. It provided that all males between 18 and 35 were liable for three years service. Those in the one-year regiments were involuntarily extended just as their enlistment was expiring. The upper limit raised to 45 in the fall of 1862 and a new age limit of 17 to 50 passed in 1864.

There were many exemptions including teachers, ministers. druggists, mail carriers. postmasters. national and state officials, workers in cotton mills, miners, foundries, shoemakers, blacksmiths, tanners, millers, salt makers, printers, and one editor per newspaper. Also exempted was one slave owner for every 20 slaves. This provoked much outrage in the middle and lower classes leading to charges of "rich man's war, poor man's fight." The law also permitted hiring substitutes as along as they were able bodied, but this was repealed in December 1863. The industrial exemptions were abolished in February 1864.

Enrolling officers were selected for each district, county. or town. When an enrollment date was announced, all eligible men were to report to a central place and then sent to camps of instruction and finally to field units. State and local authorities were authorized to aid enrolling offcers in arresting violators, but recruiting remained in the hands of the Confederate government rather than the states. This was a significant difference from the North and possibly a key to understanding why some Confederate units remained so effective even late in the war. Veteran units received replacements rather than new units being recruited and sent into battle with little or no experience.

The Confederacy was relatively successful in its recruiting efforts although it encountered considerable opposition in some areas such as mountainous regions of Alabama and in Georgia where governor Brown obstructed conscription in favor of his state militia army. The best estimate is that the Confederate draft provided about 300,000 soldiers. That was about 1/3 of the total who served.

Both sides faced the problem of finding the thousands of officers needed to lead formations. There was a large reservoir of military knowledge available for service, but not enough to meet the need by far. Again, the issue of what to do with the regular army arose. There were about 1250 living West Point graduates in 1861. Ninety percent served in the war.

The North chose generals from the regular army and from men with important political connection. State governors chose regimental commanders usually with some political influence as a major consideration. Other officers were generally chosen by election within the unit. Oddly enough, this system did produce some good leaders. Soon after 1st Bull Run, however, the North set up examining boards to weed out incompetence. Combat weeded out the rest.

The Southern system was similar. At the upper levels, the South did a little better than the North with its first batch of senior offcers, but there were plenty of political generals in gray. One major problem was Jefferson Davis' favoritism toward men like Lee and Bragg as opposed to Johnston and Beauregard. At the regimental level. state governors picked the regimental commanders and units generally elected company officers. The South also had graduates from VMI, the Citadel, and smaller military colleges who served both in combat as in training the Confederate army.

Systematic training was virtually non-existent on either side. Winfield Scott tried to set up a training system for volunteers in 1861, but the need to use the troops quickly overcame his plan. The U.S. Congress did appropriate $50,000 for training manuals -- Hardee and Casey. The Confederates used the same manuals in most instances.

Generally, recruits learned close order drill and evolutions of the line. Target practice was haphazard if done at all. Worst of all was the lack of training in sanitation procedures. This killed twice as many soldiers as combat. Early in the war, even this feeble training was hampered by the ignorance of officers and the attitude the soldiers who lacked discipline and cared more for their individual rights. As the war progressed, men on both sides learned the hard way -- by doing. The Federal practice of continually creating new regiments precluded benefiting from veterans' experiences.

Camp discipline was relatively lax by European standards. Flogging was abolished in 1861, but other penalties could be severe. Bucking and gagging, tying on the spare wheel, riding the wooden horse, standing on toes with thumbs tied above, hard labor, confinement on bread and water, branding, and even execution were used to enforce rules. There were 267 executions in the Union army in the war -- mostly for desertion, murder, mutiny, and rape.

The Civil War did not demand a mobilization of the entire national economy but it did require mass production of many relatively simple items. The United States had already begun its rise toward industrial greatness by 1861 and the war gave a great boost to the industrial capacity of the North, Even the predominately agricultural South was able to improvise sufficient war industries to make the war's outcome far from predetermined.

The North had about 500,000 guns on hand in 1861. About 35,000 were rifle muskets. Though it lost the Harpers Ferry Arsenal and its machinery early in the war, the North retained others and added many more during the war. Production at the Springfield, MA arsenal soon exceeded 200,000 rifles per year with total Northern production during the war of 1.6 million rifles. The North also purchased more than 700,000 weapons from overseas. Many private contractors got into the business of producing U.S. patent rifles and pistols during the war. The North had 4100 artillery pieces on hand in 1861 but less than 200 were of the most modern types. Still, Northern industry produced almost 8,000 cannon during the war.

The South seized 120,000 muskets and rifles at the beginning of the war and its state militas added another 300,000 generally obsolete pieces. The Confederacy purchased another 200,000 weapons in Europe and added about 150,000 battlefield captures. It did produce large numbers of weapons on its own, but they were generally inferior to those produced in the North. The Confederacy did produce cannon of sufficient quality and captured enough Union guns so that artillery was not a major shortage in Southern armies.

Both sides produced ammunition in sufficient quantities although, especially later in the war, the South struggled to produce bullets and percussion caps. Southern industry produced generally inferior artillery fuses and shells causing a decided advantage in that branch on the battlefield. The Confederacy did not produce rail on nor sheet iron in sufficient quantities to meet its needs nor could it produce sufficient steam engines for ther railroad or naval needs.

Equipping and supplying so many solders was a huge task for both sides. In the North and the South, individual states and localities played a dominant role early in the war. Eventually this led to price competition and states rights biases on both sides. Both central govemments intervened at times to assume control of some logistical operations. Eventually, the Northern army emerged as the best equipped and cared for. By comparison, the Southern army seemed always on the edge of logistical inadequacy. In the final analysis, however the distribution systems of the North proved greatly superior to those of the South allowing Federal armies to invade and conquer Confederate territory. Southern solders oflen went without basic subsistence in a and that should have fed them admirably but for its lack of a way to get the stuff to the soldiers.

History has given entirely too much credence to the myth of the Southern David fighting for its life against the Northern Goliath. After the war, most leading Southerners refused to adopt the handy and easy rationalization hat the North simply had been too much and too many for the South. To accept this explanation would have convicted them of blindness and stupidity in leading the South into a war it could not hope to win. In his memoirs, Joe Johnston defended his fellow leaders by writing that the South, "...was not guilty of the high crime of undertaking a war without the means of waging it successfully." Other Southerners agreed with him. P. G. T. Beauregard declared that, "...no people ever warred for their independence with more relative advantages than the Confederacy; and if, as a military question, they must have failed, then no country must aim at freedom by means of war."

Naval Operations in the American Civil War

The Civil War at sea is a topic that gets about as much respect as the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi. Somehow the issues seem peripheral to the casual observer, but the war in the West was important. In the sa way, the war at sea and along our coasts and inland waters was equally important. I'm not sure that the Confederacy might not be a going concem today if it had not been for the decisive actitons of men like Gideon Welles, David Farragut, Andrew Foote, David Porter, James Eads, and John Ericsson. At the same time, the Confederate naval service contributed its fair share of heroes to the American pantheon with Raphael Semme Franklin Buchanan, H.L. Hunley, Issac Brown, and Stephen Mallory.

Naval operations in the American Civil War lent themselves most directly to strategic and operational objectives as opposed to simple tactical objectives. In this sense, the Civil War has many great lessons for students of modern warfare. During the war, naval operations underwent both evolutionary and revolutionary changes and the innovations made by both North and South contributed significantly to the course of international naval developments such as ironclad ships, torpedoes, coastal fortifications, and even submarine.

Northern innovations arose from her great industrial strength while Southern innovations came from her uniquely inferior position both in industrial capacity and in naval tradition. Comparatively speaking, the North was a naval superpower and the South was a third world country, but as we shall see, the North's seeming advantage did not guarantee her success nor did the South's weakness doom her to failure.

The need for the Army and Navy to cooperate with each other led to the first large-scale joint operations in American history. There had been similar operations conducted in the Mexican-American War on a far smaller scale, but the basic issues were similar so that there was a small base of experience in this area. The key to success proved to be, as in the Mexican-American War, the personalities of the commanders involved. When they cooperated, they generally enjoyed success. Otherwise, they failed miserably.

It was during the Civil War that the United States Navy achieved its first 600-ship fleet. The lessons here have to do with mobilization, acquisition, building, training, and sustaining such a huge increase in force from the less than one hundred commissioned vessels in the U.S. Navy when the war began.

Operations against coastal areas generally tended to prove the superiority -- or parity at least -- of ships to fixed fortifications. This was a reversal of generally accepted 19th century theory and it resulted from significant improvements in naval gunnery, rifling, and armor protection. Classic brick and masonry forts such as Sumter, Pulaski, and Morgan were just not able to withstand such battering. Curiously, the rubble of Sumter proved to be better able to take subsequent pounding than the original design. Some sand and log forts such as Fisher and Wagner proved nearly invulnerable to naval gunfire, but fixed fortitications could not bar Farragut from New Orleans nor Mobile, nor Porter from Vicksburg.

Naval power alone did not win the war, but it might have lasted longer or possibly ended in a stalemate as and foreign recognition for the South without the overwhelming Federal naval advantage.

The United States Navy began the war with much more that the Confederate Navy. Of the country's ten military shipyards in 1860, eight were in the North. Also, there were more commercial shipyards in the North as well. There were about 8,000 ships produced in American shipyards between 1850 and 1860. More than 80% were built in the North.

The North began its naval buildup by purchasing or chartering all suitable vessels, arming them, and rushing them into service. In this way, the Union got almost 300 ships into service within the first year of the war. At the same time, this tremendous expansion created the immediate problem of how to officer and crew the fleet.

The United States did not have a naval reserve equivalent to the state militias, but there was a large pool of merchant seamen in the North from which it could recruit its navy. By the end of the war, the navy had gone 900 offficers and 8,000 sailors to over 58,000 officers and men manning 671 ships.

The Confederate Navy started almost from scratch. About 300 naval officers went south as their states seceded. Many ended up serving in the Confederate Army because there were so few commands available in Confederate Navy. When the war began, the South captured the military shipyards at Norfolk and Pensacola. Also, the South controlled private shipyards at New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston. and Savannah. In fact, the shipyards at New Orleans built or converted more than thirty warships for the Confederacy before its capture in April 1862.

When the Confederates occupied Norfolk nearly intact in 1861, they got a lot of materiel that helped even out balance of power in the first years of the war. They got six warships including Merrimac, a working drydock, 4,000 shells, over 1000 guns, 2000 barrels of powder, as well as small arms and tools. This stuff ended all over the Confederacy in ships, gunboats, and forts.

The South suffered from four major shortcomings in its ability to wage naval war. There were few machine shops in the South capable of making naval engines. There were few foundries able to make armor and guns of type used at sea. There was a generally shortage of skilled workers in these industries, and there was a general lack of maritime tradition to give strategic direction to the Southern Navy.

In naval matters, the South exceeded the North only in the length of its coastline. This was, in fact, a advantage because the South had to decide how to defend that 3,500 mile coast. In a way, the South was like an island -- or perhaps more exactly a peninsula surrounded on three sides by superior Northern railroads and armies. This image of the South as a peninsula goes a long way to dispelling the notion that the South enjoyed great advantage of interior lines. In fact, the North could and did project combat power at points along the thern perimeter faster than the Confederacy could react.

The Union gave its navy five strategic objectives.

1. It had to blockade the Southern ports and coastline. This issue caused significant debate in the cabinet because declaring a blockade had legal implications about the South's sovereignty. A nation isn't blockading its own ports, it closes them. The blockade was tacit acknowledgment that the Confederacy existed.

2. The Navy had to capture Southern ports and harass the Southern coastline. This was closely connected to the blockade effort but required something more that exclusively naval assets. It's in this objective that we begin to see the emergence of large scale joint operations between the army and navy. In fact, during first year of the war, naval victories along the Atlantic coast and at New Orleans went a long way toward bolstering support for the war effort in the North at a time when Union armies were not producing much to cheer about.

3. The Navy had to split the South along the line of the Mississippi River. This had even greater complications for army-navy cooperation, but the major issue was what would the navy use to do this work. There was no riverine navy as such and so one had to be built. The vessels that eventually carried Union combat power up and down the western rivers were both evolutionary and revolutionary in design and onstrated the great industrial might of the North. It built the ships required for the river war, equipped them engines, covered them with armor, and outfitted them with guns and crews.

4. The Navy had to deter and be prepared to repel foreign intervention. This issue conjures up some of most interesting "what if" questions in the war. What if one or more of the European powers had decided to intervene in the blockade directly? What if the Union Navy had to fight a fleet action against a comparable foe? European powers decided not to intervene directly in the Civil War and the Union Navy certainly gets part of the credit for that.

5. After the Confederacy began commerce raiding. the Navy had to add protecting the U.S. merchant fleet to its list of objectives. To satisfy this requirement, the Navy put its effort into patrolling and hunting raiders such as Sumter, Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah. On average, this involved about 30 warships and suggests that the raiders were effective. At the same time, the raiders themselves could not directly challenge the blockade nor could they seriously disrupt Northern overseas commerce. They may have, in fact, had something of an opposite effect by forcing Northern businessmen to seek solutions to their manufacturing challenges without regard to their foreign connections.

How was the North able to translate its naval strategy into operations? To do so. it had to capitalize on its strengths. It had command of the sea and, therefore. had great flexibility to conduct seaborne movement in conjunction with tactical operations. Ships could attack from the sea along the Southern coast at nearly any time. Defenders could not be everywhere. In fact, as the war progressed. The South increasingly adopted a strategy of ignoring the coastal threat except at key places or places actually under attack. Still, many Southern governors retained garrisons along the coasts. These troops might have made a greater contribution on the battlefield.

On the rivers, the Navy spearheaded the Union drive up and down the Mississippi valley with its amphibious power and armor plating. The Confederacy was never able to seriously contend with the Union's Mississippi squadrons although it did manage to make a stand before New Orleans, at Memphis, and the unforgettable voyage of the CSS Arkansas down the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers in the summer of 1862.

The blockade seriously strangled the South and the question remains if the Confederacy managed to do as we as it did while enduring the blockade, how much better might it have done if the blockade had not existed? It's fair question that leads inevitably to the conclusion that the war might had dragged out much longer or that Lincoln might not have been reelected, or that foreign powers might have intervened. Without the blockade, foreign vessels would have entered and departed Confederate ports at will with all the rifles, cannons, shoes, blankets, bullets, percussion caps. medicines, and other materiel that the South so desperately needed.

The U.S. Navy did deter foreign intervention, but in doing so, it came perilously close to causing an international incident. The Trent Affair is just one example. It's important to note that in pursuing its strategic and operational goals the Navy, by far ran the greatest risk of creating intemational incidents. It really is to the Navy's credit that it created so few really dangerous foreign incidents.

Cooperation between the army and navy was a much more difficult goal to achieve. Essentially, when the Army and Navy cooperated well, they had success such as Forts Henry and Donnelson, Island No. 10, and part of the Vicksburg Campaign. On the other hand, successful cooperation was often missing at places such as Charleston, Red River, and Port Hudson. My opinion is that whatever cooperation actually took place was purely based on the personalities of the Army and Navy commanders involved. When they jived, they had success. It's important to remember that the United States had no joint operations manuals to govern cooperation between the War Department and the Navy Department.

The Confederacy adopted a naval strategy very similar to its land strategy -- that is, it remained on the strategic defensive and attempted to preserve its territorial integrity wherever the Union tried to make inroads Therefore, the Confederacy chose to defend its 3,500 mile coastline and challenge the blockade whenever possible. Early in the war, the Confederacy added commerce raiding to its strategic naval objectives.

To implement its strategy, the South chose four courses of action.

1. It built and reinforced forts along its coast and at key places on its inland waters. Some of the guns captured at Norfolk went into this effort and some of these places like Columbus, KY, Island No. 10, and Port Hudson were difficult to crack.

2. The South began a program to build ironclad ships with which it could challenge the blockade. It's important to remember that the original intent of ships such as the ironclad Virginia was to break the blockade. Later in the war, these ship designs proved only moderately successful against Union ironclads built for the purpose of fighting other armored vessels and fixed fortications.

3. The South challenged the blockade in several other ways, but the most successful challenge came from blockade runners. Blockade running was lucrative and fairly easy. Even late in the war, blockade runners had a 50% chance of success. In an address to the Confederate Congress late in 1864, Jefferson Davis claimed that blockade running had produced a much as two thirds of Confederate needs in some key areas such weapons, lead for bullets, and saltpeter for gunpowder. It's easy to speculate about how much more effective Confederate armies could have been if there had been no blockade to deter foreign ships entering and leaving Southern ports at will.

4. The South contracted overseas to produce ships for combat, blockade running, and commerce raiding. Some of the most famous ships in American naval history were built in foreign shipyards for service in the Confederate Navy. The most successful of these was the commerce raider Alabama -- commanded by Raphael Semmes. The problem with commerce raiding was it was very difficult for the Confederate raiders to take their captures to either Southern ports or foreign ports for processing. Consequently, most captured ships were destroyed along with their cargoes. The Alabama alone is credited with more than sixty captures valued at over million dollars. All totaled, the raiders destroyed less than 5% of the U.S. merchant fleet but created such a threat that more than 50% of that fleet transferred to foreign flags while much of the remainder stayed home.

Warfare is always innovative and, importantly, whatever cycles exist in the evolution of ideas seem to be accelerated during warfare. So it was in the Civil War in naval matters. The Confederacy was in a unique position because of its general weakness in maritime affairs. Therefore, it had to be quite innovative to contend with the great naval might of the United States. The Confederacy produced ironclad ships, among them the first to fight in battle. She produced naval mines, or 'torpedoes' as were then called. These weapons sank more Union ships, especially ironclads, than any other weapon.

She produced torpedo boats and submarines that worked well enough to sink Federal ships and keep sands of bluejacket sailors awake at night. The South also developed some very effective forts to guard its coatline and inland waters. Some of these were simple sand and earthen ramparts held up with logs, but they proved superior to the brick and masonry forts thought at the beginning of the war to be sufficiently strong rn back attacking fleets. These were significant innovations in the art and science of warfare.

The United States was also in a unique position in naval matters during the war. She was fully capable of producing far more ships, guns, powder, sailors and armor than the South. The question was how do use that advantage as decisively as possible. Much of what the Northern Navy did, especially early in the war, was shift, but much was innovative as well. The Federal ironclads proved equal or superior to the those of the Confederacy and, of course, there were many more of them. The U.S. Navy also employed torpedo boats successfully. The Navy had many successes and some notable failures against fixed fortifications, but the successes were quite decisive in changing the existing theory that fixed fortifications were superior to naval battles. Most notably, the United States Navy found some successes in joint operations with the Army -- not always, but often enough to start a tradition and identify the need for further standardization and cooperation. Seeds planted at Forts Henry and Donelson, Vicksburg, Charleston, Mobile, and Fort Fisher bore fruit years later at Sicily, Normandy, Leyte. and Okinawa.

The story of naval operations in the Civil War is one of two vastly different naval powers. It is a tale of daring on both sides, but victory for only one. The South began the war with no navy and only a small capacity to develop one, yet she made remarkable achievements in creating a naval service with new types of ships, weapons and tactics developed from poor resources. The North, as a result of her great industrial capacity and maritime tradition, pursued a clear-headed strategy of many parts that was decisive in winning the war.