by Bruce Catton
The rifled musket not only had a greater range and accuracy than anything soldiers had ever used before; it made an uncommonly nasty wound—actually, a good deal worse, in most cases, than the one inflicted by today's rifle, and infinitely worse than that of the round ball fired by the old smoothbore. Its muzzle velocity was high enough to give the bullet considerable shocking power, and the bullet itself was relatively huge; furthermore, it usually mushroomed when it hit bone or cartilage, with dreadful effect. The ghastly number of amputations performed at all field hospitals—veterans repeatedly told of vast, hideous piles of severed arms and legs lying by the hospital tents in battle—did not take place because the surgeons were unskillful, or because they knew less than modern surgeons know about the way to treat gunshot wounds. They took place because when one of those soft-lead rifle bullets hit a bone it usually splintered the bone so horribly that no medical magic could save the limb.
As one army surgeon wrote long afterward, when comparative experience with the effect of modern rifles was available: "The shattering, splintering or splitting of a long bone by the impact of the Minie or Enfield ball were, in many instances, both remarkable and frightful, and early experience taught surgeons that amputation was the only means of saving life." The same surgeon added that a wound in the abdomen inflicted by one of these rifles was almost invariably fatal; the Minie bullet tore the intestines as the old smoothbore ball seldom did.5 The one advantage that the Civil War soldier enjoyed over today's soldier, in respect to bullet wounds, was that at a moderately long range the old Springfield lacked penetrating power. There were repeated instances of soldiers being knocked down by bullets which failed to break the skin because they were stopped by some unimportant obstruction in the pocket—a deck of cards, a bundle of letters, or a pocket Testament. (How many solemn homilies were delivered, in succeeding years, by devout churchmen on that one subject: the pocket Testament that saved a life!)
All of this meant that the soldier who got hit was likely to be hurt pretty badly. The official casualty figures don't quite tell the story. They show, usually, that from six to eight men were wounded for each man killed outright, which is apt to make a modern reader (to whom a muzzle-loader is more or less a joke, anyway) assume that the weapon was ineffective. What the casualty figures don't show is that a substantial number of the wounded died in hospital; usually, according to one authority, about two thirds as many as were killed instantly. Altogether, about half of the men wounded in any engagement were lost to the army for good: mortally wounded, or permanently disabled. In addition, a fair number of the men reported "missing" were dead—men who fell in dense underbrush or isolated ravines, or men who crawled off into thickets after they were hit and were missed by the ambulance parties and the burial details.
For example, a battle is fought and an army reports a hundred men killed and nine hundred wounded. Of the nine hundred, between sixty and seventy will die, while nearly four hundred will be too badly crippled ever to return to duty. The army, therefore, has not merely suffered a temporary loss of nine hundred men; it has lost, permanently, rather more than five hundred men. The casualty figures for every Civil War battle, ghastly as they are even on the surface, need to be adjusted upward if they are to tell the true story.
If the power of the infantry rifle had been stepped up, so had the power of the artillery. The rifled gun was just coming in, like the rifled musket, and most generals did not quite understand what could be done with it. Standard fieldpiece when the war began was the twelve-pounder brass smoothbore; the famous "Napoleon" one reads so much about in the Civil War stories. When McClellan's chief of artillery set things up for the peninsular campaign he specified that two thirds of the army's guns should be Napoleons. This proportion was greatly reduced later, but the brass smoothbore remained popular right to the end. The gun fired a round ball some four and one half inches in diameter, had an extreme range of about one mile, but was woefully inaccurate at anything over half that distance; was liked chiefly for close-range work, when it fired case shot—thin-walled shell filled with a bursting charge and a hatful of lead slugs—or, by preference, canister. The canister cartridge was a sheet-metal cylinder with a charge of powder in an attached container at one end and a thin wooden plug at the other, and it was filled with two or three hundred round bullets. Firing this, the Napoleon was really a sawed-off shotgun of enormous size, and at close ranges—say up to 250 yards —the effect was murderous beyond belief. The only trouble was that the range of the infantryman's rifle had increased so; troops could often pick off the gunners before they got within canister range, unless the battery could be rushed into action after a charge got under way. In addition, the Napoleon was heavy and hard to move across broken country.
The new rifles were much better for everything except the infighting. They had twice the Napoleon's range, and for that day were exceedingly accurate. The commonest types were the three-inch iron rifle and the ten- and twenty-pounder Parrotts. These were fairly light and easy to handle, and all were muzzle-loaders. Breech-loading cannon did not appear on Civil War battlefields, except for a few English guns the Confederates imported, which fired queer-looking projectiles that were twisted to fit the spiraled hexagonal tubes and raised a horrifying screech as they sped through the air. The muzzle-loaders could be served with fair rapidity, and generals who knew how to use them could often break up an attack before it got well started because of their great range and power. (General Henry J. Hunt, in charge of Union artillery at Gettysburg, insisted to the end of his days that Pickett's historic charge would never have reached the Union line if Hunt had been allowed to do what he proposed— keep the Federal guns out of action during most of the preliminary bombardment in order to save their ammunition and their gunners, and plaster the Rebel infantry with everything he had from the moment it lined up for the charge. He was probably entirely correct.)
The artillerist's big problem throughout the war was with his fuses. They weren't too precise, and the gunner was never quite sure just where a shell would burst or, for that matter, whether it would burst at all. Federals had a big advantage over Confederates in artillery. They had more rifled guns, which meant they could often outrange the Rebel gunners, hitting without being hit; even more important, their fuses and powder were of better quality, so that the Northern gunner had a much better chance of seeing his shells strike and explode where he wanted them to.
What all of this meant—rifled muskets for the infantry, rifled cannon for the artillery—was that the defense had a huge advantage. Field tactics were still built around the idea of sending massed troops smack into and over the enemy line, and all military thinking ran in that direction. But a battle line whose flanks were anchored and which had any kind of protection in front was, in fact, just about invulnerable to that kind of attack. At Gaines's Mill, Fitz-John Porter, with one army corps (plus very moderate reinforcements late in the day), stood off most of Lee's army for six hours and came close to holding his ground for keeps. At Malvern Hill, where the artillery had a clear field, the Rebel assaults just didn't have a chance. Likewise, at Second Bull Run, Jackson's men behind their railway embankment were in shape to hold their ground for the rest of the summer. The fight Gibbon's and Doubleday's men had with Jackson's corps there earlier, with both battle lines standing elbow to elbow and blazing away, might have been in the grand tradition of the earlier wars, but for the 1860s it was utterly useless; murderous enough to satisfy the most bloodthirsty, but almost as out of date as it would be today.
The armies had begun to adjust themselves to the new state of affairs. The skirmish line—which originally had been merely a thin cordon of scouts going ahead to make sure the enemy didn't have any unpleasant surprises concealed in advance of his main line-was being built up, bit by bit, into an attacking line. An assault on a hostile position was ceasing to imply a steady, unbroken advance by men whose one aim was to reach a hand-to-hand encounter; the old lithographs of Civil War battles, drawn by men
who weren't present, have left a false impression. The most spirited "assault" on a hostile position was apt to be delivered by troops who were completely motionless, hiding behind any obstruction the ground afforded, moving forward—when they did move forward—by short rushes, advancing small parties here and there under a cover of protective fire, seeking to build up within effective range a firing line heavy enough to beat down the opposing fire and persuade the enemy that it was time for him to go. A battle line which was getting the worst of it often gave way almost imperceptibly, the men firing and then stepping back a couple of paces while they reloaded, the attackers moving forward in the same manner. While this happened the line that was being beaten would leak men to the rear, as individual soldiers here and there decided they had had enough and turned to run.
Small inequalities in the ground—an outcropping of rock, a sunken road, an old fence whose rails could be pulled loose and piled along the ground to provide protection—were apt to become of decisive importance. The great defect of the Civil War musket was that only a contortionist could load it when he was lying down; if he fought in a prone position, as he very often did, he needed some sort of protection so that he could load his piece safely. The soldiers early noticed that a surprisingly high percentage of crippling wounds occurred in the right hand and arm, exposed when a man rammed a new charge down his muzzle-loader. When regular entrenchments were dug, so that men were fully protected while they loaded and fired, direct assault became practically impossible—as Grant finally realized at Cold Harbor.
It was because a frontal attack was so easily repulsed that the flanking movement was so important. In front, a brigade might have the direct fire power of fifteen hundred rifles; caught end-on, at either extremity of its line, it had a fire power of exactly two, and so was utterly helpless unless it could shift its position fast. Where a whole army could be flanked, the way incautious Pope let Longstreet flank him at Bull Run, the inevitable result was complete defeat; in any battle line, a gap between regiments or brigades was a sure invitation to disaster. Impregnable as his position was at Fredericksburg, Jackson had a few bad moments when Meade found an open place between two brigades; if Meade could have been supported, old Stonewall might have had serious trouble. Pickett's great complaint after Gettysburg was that he had to make his assault with no protection for his flanks: the Federals curled around the ends of his line and tore the heart out of him.
To get from marching formation into fighting formation, the soldier had to learn, and become letter-perfect in, a long series of intricate maneuvers, as formalized as a ballet dance. If he had to march any distance at all he did it in column—column of twos, of fours, of platoons, of companies, or what not. To fight, the column had to be spread out into a long line two ranks deep, and the complexities of infantry drill in those days, designed to bring this about, were something today's soldier is happily spared. Furthermore, those complexities weren't just parade-ground maneuvers; they had to be learned if the men were to be able to fight. There were a dozen different ways for shaking a marching column out into line, and the men and their officers had to know all of them—had to know them well enough so that the maneuvers could be performed under fire, for if an organization formed its battle line too soon it was all but impossible to get it forward into action. The wild rout at the first battle of Bull Run is perfectly comprehensible: most of the soldiers just did not know how to perform those maneuvers. Once they got into line, they fought well; the trouble was that neither officers nor men had ever had any experience at swinging a marching brigade into a formation from which it could fight, or vice versa, and they got hopelessly snarled up when they tried it. One participant recalled that a Massachusetts regiment was ordered to open fire while it was still formed in column of companies. Naturally, men in the leading ranks were killed and wounded by the fire of their own inexpert comrades in the rear. The wonder is that either army, in that first battle, was able to do any fighting at all.6
Unless troops were expected to capture a remote position and stay there overnight, in which case they would want food and blankets, the usual routine was to leave knapsacks and other surplus equipment in bivouac before moving up to fight. That order was always complied with gladly; no soldier ever enjoyed carrying his knapsack, but the one the Civil War soldier carried seems to have been especially irksome—it was poorly designed, so that its straps cut the shoulders and strained the back even more than its weight and bulk made necessary. Unless the regimental or brigade commander was a stickler for doing everything regular-army style, seasoned troops soon discarded the knapsack altogether and substituted the blanket roll. This was formed by spreading out the half of a pup tent which each soldier carried, laying the opened blanket on top of it, arranging such spare clothing as the soldier might have on top of that, and then rolling the whole business up as tightly as possible, tying it with straps from the discarded knapsack, looping the two ends together to form what the soldier called a horse collar, and then slipping it over one shoulder. The army was mildly amused when the spanking-new 118th Pennsylvania joined up on the way through Maryland. This regiment, known as the "Corn Exchange regiment" (it had been raised and equipped by elderly patriots of the Philadelphia Corn Exchange), carried oversized knapsacks, well filled with spare pants, boots, coats, and other oddments. When it came into camp the veterans urged the men to throw all that truck away and switch to blanket rolls, but the Pennsylvanians refused—they wanted to do things right, and the regulations said knapsacks and extra clothing, and they'd stick with 'em. A man in the 22nd Massachusetts, chuckling at them, noted: "I don't suppose there was a spare shirt in my company," and added that his mates traveled so light one man would carry a towel and another man a cake of soap—no sense in each man loading himself down with both.
Other new regiments besides this one from Pennsylvania came in while the army was in Maryland. They came in gaily enough, looking enormous by contrast with the war-thinned veteran regiments, and their uniforms and equipment were new and unstained. The veterans were glad to see them, and remarked that all that newness would get worn off soon enough. One officer, watching them march into camp, wrote: "Some were singing the John Brown song, and others found occasion for merriment in commenting upon the picturesque appearance of our weathered and sunburnt soldiers. They all seemed cheerful, and as their long columns and full ranks marched by, their polished arms glistening in the sun, one could scarcely repress a sigh at the thought that, with a certainty, hundreds of these men would fall in the battle which all knew was now closely impending."7
3. Generals on Trial
Back in Washington there was General Halleck, and the general was worried. Worrying, he called for incompatibles, demanding in one breath a dashing pursuit and an extreme of caution. Lee must be overtaken, brought to battle, and crushed, no matter what; but the army must remember that its primary function was defensive. If it did not hurry, Lee might get away; if it went too fast, Washington might be exposed. McClellan should keep his left firmly anchored on the Potomac as he advanced, lest Lee slide past him to the south and dash into the capital. On the other hand, it was dangerous to stick too close to the river: Lee might angle off in the other direction, making (so to speak) a sweep around right end, seizing Baltimore and coming down on the capital from the north. All of these points glowed and sparkled by turns, like shifting specks before the eyes of a troubled strategist. Halleck's telegrams to McClellan at this time, although they were numerous, were nagging rather than helpful.
In the beginning McClellan had asked that the garrison at Harper's Ferry, some twelve thousand good men, be ordered back to join the main army. He argued that the place itself was of no great importance, that it could quickly be reoccupied once Lee had been driven south, and that it was wholly indefensible and could not be held in any case if Lee wanted to make a snatch at it. Halleck pooh-poohed at him: the twelve thousand men were safe enough, nothing to worry about there. Later, when Lee had his army squarely interposed be
tween Harper's Ferry and the Army of the Potomac, Halleck notified McClellan that the garrison was his to command as soon as he could go pick it up. It couldn't get out unaided, so it would just have to hold on until McClellan could go and relieve it, which he had better do at his early convenience. And so on.
Old Brains was in the top command and he was not being particularly impressive. He was stricdy a headquarters operator. General Pope (whom one could nearly feel sorry for, if he weren't Pope) had called on him, almost prayerfully, to come and take command in the field around the time of the second Bull Run fight, but Halleck felt insecure anywhere except at the Washington end of the telegraph line. He refused to budge then and he was not budging now, and he surveyed the war from his office in the War Department, at 17th Street and the avenue, and looked portentous as the papers piled higher and higher on his desk. As he studied these papers—or, for that matter, when he indulged in thought of any kind—he had a way of rubbing his elbows, slowly and methodically: a mannerism which drove Secretary of the Navy Welles almost frantic.
Welles had a number of dealings with him, there being divers matters on which army-navy co-operation was essential, and he came away from all of them feeling rather baffled. When he put a problem up to Halleck, he wrote, "he rubbed his elbow first, as if that was the seat of thought, and then his eyes," and then made noncommittal remarks; and Welles recorded in his diary the impression that Halleck "has a scholarly intellect and, I suppose, some military acquirements, but his mind is heavy and irresolute." Unvarnished old Andrew Foote, the diligent flag officer who commanded the navy's gunboats in the Mississippi early in the war, when Halleck commanded out there for the army, told Welles bluntly that Halleck was a military imbecile who might just possibly make a good clerk. And James Harrison Wilson, then a young officer of topographical engineers, later to become one of the Union's best major generals and an advocate of making war modern-style with magazine rifles, wrote long afterward of the impression he received when he called on Halleck in his office at the War Department:
