Part II

Making War

In this part . . .

This part gives you a fast and furious overview of military systems and terminology and explains the difference between strategy and tactics as well as battles and campaigns (not to mention why the differences are important to understanding military operations). It also tells you about the science of war, how commanders apply that science as the art of war, how Civil War armies were organized, and who did the fighting. In addition, this part addresses two basic questions: What do nations do to prepare for war? And how are wars fought? The Civil War, like any other war, dealt with all of these issues. To understand the progress of the Civil War, you must have some understanding of the basics of prosecuting any war. Times change, but the principles and processes stay the same.

Chapter 4

In This Chapter

Defining war

Understanding the principles of strategy that shape the conduct of war

The three levels of war and how they interrelate

Examining the art of war and how commanders apply the art

W ar is both an art and a science. The way in which that knowledge is applied and how the principles are employed is an art. But, because it deals with specific principles and knowledge, it is also a science. To understand what happened during the Civil War, you must become familiar with some basic military concepts and learn a bit of vocabulary. This way, when you read accounts of battles in this book, or more detailed accounts of the campaigns and battles of the Civil War in other books, you will have some idea of what the author means. Like any specialized professional vocabulary, the language of war can be confusing and intimidating.

This chapter walks you through some terms and concepts that give you just what you need to understand and appreciate what happened during the war and why.

Understanding the Basics of War

When the existing political conditions can no longer be tolerated, there is a resort to force called war. War, in essence, is a contest of wills in which the opponents employ force against each other to change a situation or maintain an existing situation. The victor in war is the one who breaks the other’s will to resist. The situation contested is defined in political terms. Thus, wars are fought for political objectives. Note that the first part of this book focuses on the political struggle between North and South to establish the reasons for the war.

The offensive and the defensive

War employs all types of force: physical, psychological, economic, diplomatic, and moral. The physical force of armed conflict is also called combat power — the collective efforts of men, animals, and mechanical-industrial power harnessed to fight or strike an opponent at a vital spot. This combat power is organized into armies. Armies employ combat power in two ways, through the offensive and the defensiv e. In the offensive, one army chooses to advance, find the enemy and defeat it by employing dominant combat power. In the defense, the army attempts to protect itself by minimizing its vulnerabilities and forcing the enemy to expend its combat power until it is too weak to attack any further.

Strategy and tactics

Military operations are divided into strategy and tactics. Strategy directs armies into designated geographical regions to accomplish broad objectives defined by the political leadership. Armies in turn design campaigns — a series of battles and engagements intended to accomplish the assigned strategic objectives. Tactics deal with the way battles are fought, usually by organizations below army level (a corps, division, or brigade, for example). In summary:

Strategy: The science of designing campaigns to achieve the objective of the war.

Tactics: The art of employing armed men in combat.

The last few paragraphs give you the basics — a definition of war and the three concepts that determine the conduct of war: Strategy determines whether combat power will be used offensively or defensively. Campaigns are designed to fulfill the strategic objective. Tactics are the method military units employ to fight battles.

Creating a Strategy: Three Basic Questions

A nation must have a strategy to fight a war. Otherwise the war has no direction or purpose. To determine a strategy, leaders must answer three basic questions that form the base of a national wartime strategy:

What are you trying to do? In war an ironclad connection exists between political objectives and the conduct of war. Both Lincoln and Davis had to determine their political objectives for the war. For Lincoln and the North, the political objective was to end the rebellion of the Southern states and restore the Union. For Davis and the Southern states of the Confederacy, the political objective was to gain and maintain its independence as a sovereign nation. These broad political goals become the means to determining a military strategy.

What do you have (or need)? Answering this question involves an assessment and comparison of both your own and the enemy’s resources. Remember, this means resources in the broadest sense — a nation’s manpower, material stockpiles, finances, industrial capacity, and farm production. You need all of these things to fight and sustain a war. Another critically important national wartime resource is morale. Morale is the national will — how willing are the people (men, women, children) to suffer and endure to achieve victory? It is an intangible, but critical strategic resource. A nation’s leadership can sustain and nurture morale, or squander it. You can have all the resources in the world and still lose a war because the people and the leadership do not have the will to employ them. Likewise, a nation can have very little in terms of resources, but with high morale it can overcome limitations and hardships to still win the war.

How do you use what you have? All of the elements of national power must be employed in the proper proportions and at the right time to assure victory in war. This sounds simple and easy, but it is not! There are many important questions national leaders must ask. Here are a few examples: How are the nation’s strategic objectives (or war aims as they are sometimes called) accomplished by the use of these elements of power? How do you bring in and orchestrate economic power, moral power, diplomatic, and military power? Where is one more effective than another? When should a nation employ its power? In what kind of mix? How will these elements of power weaken or negate an enemy’s strength?

The Principles of War

This section looks at the principles that guide the formation of strategy and tactics in war — the science of war. The principles of war have existed in one form or another since military forces first existed in human history. Civil War Generals certainly were familiar with them, although in a different context. The principles have been codified now and the following list is what military professionals study today:

Objective: Every military operation at all levels of war must have a clear, decisive, and attainable objective. You cannot win a war without an objective. Strategically speaking, the objective is the national political goal. Tactically, the objective is usually an enemy force or position.

Offensive: Wars are most often won through offensive action. The offensive provides the attacker the opportunity to impose her will on the enemy. In doing so, the attacker gains the initiative both strategically and tactically. The enemy then is unable to take any independent action and is forced to conform to the will of the attacker.

Mass: Gather overwhelming combat power at the decisive point and time. At both the tactical and strategic levels of war, mass is critical to success.

Economy of force: Forces must be employed judiciously and always with a purpose. An economy of force operation strategically and tactically can free forces from one point to mass with other forces for a decisive attack at another point.

Maneuver: Moving forces to gain an advantage over the enemy. Maneuver is applicable to both offense and defense. Maneuver allows an army to employ economy of force or mass. An enemy can be defeated through maneuver alone, without ever having to fight a battle. The greatest Generals in history have always been masters of strategic and tactical maneuver.

Unity of command: Forces must be kept under one commander responsible for planning and directing their employment. Subordinate commanders act in accordance with the commander’s plans to achieve the strategic objective by assigning their own forces objectives at the tactical level.

Security: Protect forces from being surprised by the enemy. The best security is a thorough knowledge of the enemy’s plans and intentions.

Surprise: Strike the enemy at a time and place where he least expects it. Surprise multiplies combat power immensely and can achieve decisive results. Speed, maneuver, deception, and mass can be employed strategically and tactically to achieve surprise.

Simplicity: The KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle. War is a complex business. Plans and orders at every level of war must be simple and concise so that everyone understands the plans and intentions of the commander.

Developing Campaigns: The Art of War

Military commanders employ the art of war by following the principles of war to develop campaigns that support the nation’s strategic objectives by seeking the best and quickest way to defeat the enemy. An army commander must first decide whether to conduct an offensive or defensive campaign. The goal of the offensive is to break the will of the enemy through battlefield dominance, thereby destroying the military and/or political structure that allows the enemy to fight the war. The strategic offensive seeks out the enemy army, holds it in position so it cannot escape, and brings the enemy army to battle under conditions favorable to the attacker. The attacker has the advantage of making the first move with speed and decisiveness to overwhelm the enemy with superior combat power.

The ultimate goal of the strategic defensive is to wear down the enemy, and break her will to continue the attack. An army on the strategic defensive delays, wards off an attacker, or protects a vital area, all with the goal of not allowing the attacker to use her superior strength. The defender may seek to avoid battle altogether if his combat power is significantly less than that of his opponent. Although a defensive strategy seeks to limit direct contact with the enemy’s strength, the defender still seeks to fight the attacker at a place and under conditions that offers the defender the best advantage. A commandeer will use the defensive as a temporary measure to build combat power, or lure the attacker into a disadvantageous position to be in turn attacked. This is called acounterattack .

Interior and exterior lines

Strategically and tactically, the defender uses interior lines to avoid combat or collect combat power at vulnerable points exposed to an attacker (see Figure 4-1). Interior lines represent the area the defender occupies, usually an arc. Because the interior distance to all points in the arc is shorter than the exterior distance, the defender has the advantage. She can shift forces quicker to meet an enemy attack than the enemy can shift his forces to attack a vulnerable spot in the defender’s lines. If a defender uses interior lines, an attacker almost always operates on exterior lines. Exterior lines have some advantages, allowing the attacker to surround the enemy, or attack simultaneously all along the enemy’s defensive line to prevent him from massing forces.

Figure 4-1:Interior and exterior lines.

Lines of communication and supply

An important part of interior and exterior lines is how a commander establishes her line of communication and line of supply . These lines may be one and the same. Every army on the march has to have a means of continual resupply. Supplies are usually stockpiled and kept as close to the front as possible. Because of the massive amount of supplies a Civil War army consumed every day, boats and trains were the best means to move the amounts necessary to sustain the army for a week or so. Large wagon trains, 5 to 20 miles long at times, carried the immediate necessities (food and ammunition) with the army as it moved. Like the major arteries in the body, the line of supply is the lifeline of a modern army. If an artery is blocked, cut, or damaged, the body dies. If a line of supply is blocked, cut, or damaged, the army can no longer function. Soldiers and animals starve; their weapons are useless for lack of ammunition, and even the clothes and shoes they wear fall apart.

Supply is critical in war

Commanders in the Civil War were fully aware that supply lines required protection. The longer the supply line (usually a railroad or river line) the more exposed it became to attack and destruction. Many commanders chose to minimize their vulnerability of dependence on long lines of supply by living off the land for short periods of time. This meant soldiers were sent out in small parties to purchase (or seize) food and livestock, and to forage from civilians in the countryside where the army was camping or marching. No army can do this forever. Eventually, the line of supply must be restored, or the army will simply cease to function. An army cannot exist without the means to sustain it.

Information: Orders and critical intelligence

The line of communication is also important to an army. Orders, information, and intelligence information travel along these lines to allow the commander to make timely and effective decisions. In the Civil War, lines of communication were either telegraph lines or individual riders on horseback, known as couriers, carrying dispatches. Information also traveled with supply trains or boats. A commander without the information he needs is blind; she can only guess about where her enemy is, and can be led to make disastrous mistakes. So just like the line of supply, the line of communication keeps the army effective. A threat to the line of communication represents a serious danger and must be eliminated.

Strategic objectives in war

Clearly, one of the prime strategic objectives in war is to attack or threaten to attack the enemy’s line of supply, destroy or control its supply depots, or destroy or capture the supply wagon train. Another nifty trick is to cut the enemy’s line of communication. Whatever a commander can do to weaken his or her opponent, either by blinding or starving the army, will all contribute to his or her strategic objective. After this is accomplished, an enemy is often vulnerable to attack and defeat. At the same time, a commander must always be vigilant to threats to his or her own lines of supply and communication. To prevent this, the commander will take whatever action is necessary to protect this vital lifeline.

Taking the initiative: Who is on top?

When a commander has prevented the enemy from employing his plans, whether on the offensive or defensive, she is considered to have the initiative. A commander can have the initiative at the tactical or strategic level. In either case, whoever has the initiative dictates what will happen next on the battlefield. Tactically, the initiative can be lost, regained, and lost again depending on a variety of factors. The strategic initiative is usually up for grabs until one side begins to dominate. Victory in war is predicated on one side clearly gaining the strategic initiative.

Campaigning

After a nation decides on either an offensive or defensive strategy, that decision becomes the guide for all military activities. In a campaign , however, the army commander can decide to take on the tactical offensive or defensive at will depending on conditions in her army or as a result of enemy movements or activities. The purpose of a campaign is to achieve the strategic objective through maneuver (the act of moving a military unit to a specific place for a specific purpose) and battles (fighting) to employ superior combat power against an enemy at his weakest spot. Depending on the outcome of one maneuver, or even a series of maneuvers, the result is usually one or more battles.

Fighting battles

Given a strategy with an objective, an army commander develops a campaign; within the campaign he or she seeks to meet the enemy force at a place and time advantageous to him or her. When these forces meet, it is called a battle . Battles in a campaign are supposed to be planned events, meant to move the campaign toward its ultimate objective. This is the science of war. But warfare is also an art, and the enemy, who has his own strategy and campaign plan, doesn’t always cooperate. As you may expect, what was originally planned to work according to the proper application of the principles of war, often ends as a set of improvised actions in the midst of a maelstrom of death and destruction. Regardless of how well the plans are followed, battles are

won

lost

have no effect

A battle is called decisive when success on the battlefield translates into attaining strategic objectives.

Win the battles — lose the war

This may sound strange, but winning all the battles in a campaign and yet still failing to meet your strategic objective and thereby losing the war is possible. Such an event happened to the British army in the Revolutionary War and to the United States in the Vietnam War. The opposite holds true as well; you can lose all your battles, but still win your strategic objectives if the enemy no longer has the will to continue fighting.

The commander’s choices

In a battle, a commander can decide to attack or defend, depending on his or her assessment of the situation. In the attack, the commander tactically has three basic choices:

Attack head-on to break through the enemy defenses

Envelop the defender from one or both flanks (maneuvering forces around the enemy’s defensive line and then attacking), or

Attack from the rear (usually the result of maneuvering behind an unsuspecting or unprepared defender)

The rear area is where the supply depots are located and where the lines of supply and communication are located. The frontal attack is the least desirable (that’s usually where the enemy has most of his combat power and is expecting an attack), a flank attack is better (the enemy has less or sometimes no combat power on the flanks), and the attack from the rear is the best of all (no combat power and vulnerable, easy to destroy targets such as wagon trains and rail and telegraph lines).

These different types of attack can be combined into main attacks and supporting attacks . A main attack is where a commander employs the bulk of his or her offensive combat power. The intent of the main attack is to defeat the enemy quickly and decisively. Oftentimes, a commander will use a supporting attack — a smaller portion of his or her offensive combat power either to occupy enemy forces so they cannot reinforce (adding additional combat power to support other friendly forces), or deceive the enemy as to where the main attack will take place. Think of it in terms of a boxer who first comes at his opponent with a fake right cross to make his opponent react, then lands a roundhouse left. Military commanders, like boxers, try to employ more than one type of punch, usually in combinations, to put their opponents off balance and force her to react. In military terms, commanders use a tactic called a feint , in which the commander maneuvers forces to appear as if he is committing most or all of his combat power at a certain point. The feint is intended to deceive the enemy into thinking the force she is facing is the main attack. The enemy will react by maneuvering her own forces to stop the expected attack. In reality, the main attack is coming from an unexpected direction, from the flanks or from the rear, where she has little or no forces to oppose the attacker. The best Generals are able to confuse and deceive an enemy into making errors that expose her army to defeat and destruction.

Defining a unit’s position on the battlefield

A military unit (army corps, division, brigade, and regiment) has a front, a rear, and two flanks. Usually most or all of the combat power is focused to the front where an attacker or defender seeks to meet the enemy. Flanks are the sides of the unit and define the physical limit of a unit’s control of the ground (terrain). Combat power at the flanks is most often far weaker than at the front. The flanks are weak spots that the commander seeks to protect from attack. Likewise the rear of the unit is almost always defenseless. An attack from the rear spells disaster. Therefore, to protect his force, the commander attempts to protect flanks and rear at all costs.

Terrain and the defensive

The defender tactically seeks to present the strongest position to the attacker, with sufficient combat power to overwhelm the attacker at his point of attack. If the defender has chosen well, the terrain (the lay of the land) will assist his or her defense and weaken the enemy’s ability to maneuver its force and employ all its combat power as it would like. On a battlefield, some terrain is considered critical. Critical terrain, as the name implies, means that whoever controls this specific piece of ground will have a significant advantage over the enemy. Troops and artillery occupying critical terrain could mass firepower to destroy an attacker. If the defender loses this terrain, the army usually would be exposed to further attacks on its flanks or rear and unable to defend itself effectively. The loss of critical terrain spells defeat and disaster. In the Civil War, critical terrain was usually single hills or ridges.

The defender’s advantage

By limiting the attacker’s ability to use his combat power, the defender takes advantage by employing her combat power to best advantage. To do this, the defender can rely on interior lines by placing his or her forces so that they can easily shift from one position to another to respond to an attacker’s maneuvers. Interior lines therefore can negate the combat power of the enemy and allow the defender to set the pace of battle. If he or she can do this, the offensive has very little chance of success. The defender can also use maneuver in a combination approach called the offensive-defensive . By initially choosing the defensive, the commander seeks to lure the attacker into battle, hold him in place, and slow him down to make a rapid transition to the attack and place her forces in such a position so that the attacker’s flanks or rear are threatened, forcing him to protect his lines of supply and communication and revert to the defensive or face destruction of his army.

Ending a battle

At any time in a battle, either commander can order a withdrawal, better known as a retreat. The intention of a withdrawal or retreat is to end the fighting or move to a more advantageous position. In the Civil War, the retreat or withdrawal signified that the opposing force was defeated, or at least had had enough of battle and needed to regroup and decide what to do next.

The Civil War Army Organization

Because both Union and Confederate armies came from the American military tradition, they had the same organization. Within each army were three branches, corresponding to a particular combat skill: the cavalry, the artillery, and the infantry.

Eyes and ears: The cavalry

The cavalry — mounted soldiers lightly armed and able to move fast and far — served as the eyes and ears of the army. It provided information about the location of the enemy and his intentions (attack, defend, withdraw). Cavalry served an important role inscreening, a tactic that put friendly cavalry on the flanks, (which are the right and left sides) and in the front of a maneuvering army to prevent enemy cavalry from finding out anything about the army commander’s intentions. Cavalry also conducted raids. Raids are a special type of offensive operation, usually conducted by a small force that enters deep into enemy territory to disrupt communications, destroy or threaten vulnerable lines of supply, capture supply wagons, or frighten the civilian population. In some instances, cavalry could fight as infantry, but only in an extreme defensive situation to delay or slow down the enemy force until friendly infantry could arrive. Confederate cavalry became especially adept at moving as cavalry, but fighting as infantry.

Because of its mobility and ability to operate in small numbers that are hard to detect, cavalry also provided an invaluable service to an army commander — reconnaissance. Reconnaissance is the process of finding out about the enemy’s size, activity, location, disposition (how an army has arranged its forces), morale, equipment, and intentions (attack, defend, and retreat). If a commander can gain information about his enemy while keeping the enemy’s reconnaissance from finding out anything of value about his own forces (through screening — see the preceding paragraph), he will — if he’s any good — be able to outfight and defeat his enemy.

Providing firepower: The artillery

The artillery provided the long reaching firepower on the battlefield. The army’s cannons were organized into batteries of four to six guns each. Posted behind the infantry on high spots on the battlefield, or on the flanks of the line, the artillery supported infantry attacks with fire, or fired on attacking infantry in the defense with canons. Artillery was often massed when possible to concentrate the devastating effects of the weapons on unprotected infantry formations of the enemy. When placed behind earthworks or breastworks, and sufficiently supported by infantry, artillery made such positions impervious to attack.

Fleet of foot: The infantry

Infantry units use maneuvering capability and firepower from individual weapons (rifles) in the attack or defense to accomplish the commander’s objective. The infantry contains the bulk of an army’s combat power, because it is the decisive arm of war. For thousands of years, everything that happens in war can be reduced to this one exquisite bit of simplicity — nothing is accomplished until soldiers on foot close in on and kill the enemy in close combat and occupy terrain.

Other important branches

When people think of war, they often only think about the fighters (infantry, cavalry, and artillery). This is natural, because they are the ones who make the story exciting. In actuality, the numbers of fighters in an army are usually the minority. Most of an army is made up not of fighters, but of units whose job is to support the fighters. Modern armies, and Civil War armies are a part of modern warfare, and consume enormous amounts of everything . Whether in camp or in the field, armies consume tons of food and water every day; not just people do all this consuming, either. The tens of thousands of animals that provided mobility for the cavalry and artillery needed to be fed as well. Anyone who has ever had to feed even one horse or cow knows how much forage it takes every day to keep them happy. In battle, an army consumes ammunition at incredible rates; consequently, men are killed or wounded at very high rates.

In the general mess that is war, somebody has to haul every bite of food and every bullet and cannon ball fired. Somebody has to provide clothes, shoes (for horses and men), equipment, and repair or replace whatever is broken. Somebody has to make sure supply stocks are maintained, so that no shortages occur. Somebody has to deal with the sick, dead, and wounded. Some-body has to house the troops when they went into camp. Somebody has to build the bridges and rail lines to supply the army. You get the idea.

Hauling food and ammo: The quartermaster

The quartermaster (or as he likes to be called today, the logistician ) has the unromantic but all-important, job of providing everything the army needs to fight. The quartermaster supervised the supply trains (the long train of wagons) that followed the army on the march. In the Union army, the standard was 25 wagons for every thousand men. The medical corps treated casualties (the sick, dead and wounded), taking them from the battlefield, burying the dead and evacuating the wounded or sick to the rear for treatment and (the all too rare) recovery.

Orders for the movement of armies and combat information were passed through the signal troops , who maintained the critical lines of communications for the army. In the Civil War these troops used signal flags, mirrors, torches, balloons, couriers (messengers), and the telegraph to pass orders and instructions. Throughout the war, both sides established a highly organized communications system that went from the national leaders to the armies in the field and down to the company level — and back up again. For the first time in the history of warfare, the telegraph became an indispensable means of almost instantaneous communications. It allowed Presidents Davis and Lincoln an unprecedented opportunity to maintain contact with Generals in the field. The telegraph also allowed them at times to meddle in their Generals’ affairs. The armchair strategists in Richmond and Washington also enjoyed using the telegraph to provide field Generals with commentary and criticism. Civil War leaders were the first to discover what people today know all too well: Communications technology can be both a blessing and a curse.

Mastering the terrain: The engineers

Engineers planned and built fortifications (both temporary and permanent), built roads and bridges (both temporary and permanent), and made terrain maps (probably temporary and permanent, too). As the war went on, the skills of engineers became of increasing importance when both armies began to use entrenchments and breastworks, using sandbags and logs covered with earth to protect their forces while having a clear shot at the attacking enemy. Both Richmond and Washington were protected by extensive fortifications.

Basic Civil War Army Structure: The Regiment

The basic building block of the Civil War army was the regiment . The regiment had ten companies of 100 men each for an official strength of 1,000. A Colonel commanded the regiment. A Lieutenant Colonel (second in command), a Major (third in command), and a small staff (which took care of the administrative needs of the regiment) assisted the Colonel. Four regiments formed a brigade , commanded by a Brigadier (obviously) General . This makes an official total of 4,000 men. Three brigades made up adivision , commanded by either a Brigadier or Major (not so obviously) General . This makes an official total of 12,000 men. Three divisions made up a corps (pronounced “core”), commanded by a Major General (if a Union Division) or a Lieutenant General(if a Confederate Division). This works out to an official total of 36,000 men. See Table 4-1 for a comprehensive reference of army structure. See Table 4-2 for army hierarchy.

Table 4-1 Army Structure
Unit	Unit Multiples		Number of Soldiers
Company			100
Regiment	10 Companies		1,000
Brigade	4 Regiments		4,000
Division	3 Brigades		12,000
Corps	3 Divisions		36,000
Table 4-2 Army Hierarchy and Command
Unit		Commanding Officer
Regiment		Colonel
		Lieutenant Colonel
		Major
Brigade		Brigadier General
Division		Brigadier General or Major General
Corps		Major General or Lieutenant General

In 1861, two divisions made up a Union or Confederate army. In 1862, Union and Confederate armies were made up of corps, usually made up of three divisions, but an army could have any number of corps (which is why Civil War armies had such wide variances in numbers). Union armies were primarily named after major rivers (Potomac, Cumberland, Ohio, James). Confederate armies were named after locations or rivers (The Army of Northern Virginia in the east, The Army of Tennessee in the west). A Major General commanded Northern armies. A General commanded Southern armies.

Strength and size of units

The official numbers are good to get an idea of structure and organization, but in reality Civil War armies had wide variances in unit strength. Sickness, desertions, battle deaths, wounds, and furloughs (time off from military duty, usually to go home) took their inevitable toll. Regiments often were 500 men or below. By 1863, some veteran regiments in both armies were down to 200 men or less. The reason for this lies in the method regiments were initially recruited and organized. Volunteers filled the initial ranks of new regiments. After several months of combat, the original (and now under-strength) volunteer regiments would not be brought back up to original strength with new volunteers as replacements; instead, entirely new regiments with new volunteers would be added to the army. This was especially true for Northern units. Needless to say, this caused tremendous organizational and administrative headaches for a division or corps commander. This situation also caused problems on the battlefield. Veteran units had to be assigned to divisions composed of mostly untested recruits. This practice kept the overall fighting quality of the Union army uneven. After the institution of conscription (compulsory military service), replacements for both Union and Confederate armies were brought into existing units to bring them up to nominal strength. As the war went on, brigades filled out their strength by adding a number of under-strength, but very combat capable, regiments. Near the end of the war a brigade contained anywhere from five to six regiments.

Union and Confederate cavalry: A comparison

An interesting difference between the Union and Confederate cavalry was that the government provided a Union cavalryman a horse in the same way it provided a uniform and equipment. In the South, a cavalryman had to provide his own horse. Needless to say, this led to a large number of well-off men joining the cavalry, although anyone who could procure a horse by any other means could become a cavalryman. Many Southern cavalry raids in the war were launched specifically to capture horses. For a large part of the war, Southern cavalry outperformed Union cavalry, because the Southerners already had well-developed horsemanship skills. Most of the Northerners were still learning how to ride a horse, let alone fight on one.

Roles of different units in an army

In a campaign, armies and corps conduct large-scale maneuvers to gain an advantage and set the conditions for battle. Divisions are assigned objectives to attack — usually a piece of terrain (a hill, ridge, trench line, woods) occupied by an enemy force. Capturing this piece of terrain would give the attacker a significant advantage and cause the defender to be exposed to other attacks. In the defense, a division is given a stretch of ground to cover with his brigades, usually a critical piece of terrain that must be protected if the army is to survive. The division commander passes orders to his brigade commanders, who in turn pass the orders down to the Colonels in the regiments. And anywhere from 400 to 1,000 men grimly take their places shoulder to shoulder on line. After all the strategy, campaigning, and maneuver, after all the Generals have made their decisions, the battle is fought, and won or lost, at the regimental level.

Cavalry regiments

Union and Confederate cavalry regiments were organized much in the same way as infantry units, except cavalry companies were (and still are) called troops. A cavalry regiment had 12 troops. Cavalry units were considered independent and usually not deployed with infantry. Artillery batteries were attached to infantry brigades and divisions. An artillery reserve would be under control of either the corps or army commander.

The Science versus the Art of War

Anyone can master the principles of war. There is no secret to conducting military operations according to the principles of war. This is the knowledge base all military leaders use when employing military forces in war. But not every military leader is successful in war. The science of war alone cannot win battles — the art is what makes the difference. The mystique of warfare and its attraction, some may say, is in observing how well a military leader translates principles of war into action in real situations of life and death when the fate of the nation is at stake. A number of Generals throughout history have gained immortality through their ability to take the science of warfare and translate it into something uniquely theirs, something that people call art. Fortunately for you, the Civil War displays the talents of some of the masters of the art of war.