I was at the living history timeline at San Pedro the other weekend and I realized just how silly some of the battle scenarios can look without a proper explanation. Attached is a 2-page leaflet that I wrote up to give spectators a brief overview on the time period while addressing some of the most common questions as well as misconceptions.
This could be changed and used for various impressions but I thought I'd put it up for my pards to check out.
Watching an 1861-65 Civil War Reenactment (What is all this?)
It doesn’t take a combat veteran to spot many questionable things demonstrated at modern-day battle reenactments. A good example is “how can so many shoot so much as such a close range while producing so few casualties?” This form is to help you gain a better understanding of what you are watching here as well as debunking many of the myths perpetuated about the War Between the States.
FAQ
Why are they fighting so close? Event size constraints and crowd control limits the size of the battle reenactments to a small fraction of what the real battle would have been. Notice that they don’t engage in hand to hand combat? That is because you are supposed to imagine that there are at least 200-500+ yards separating the combatants. Once this is understood, the low casualties vs. high rate of fire makes more sense. Weapons with greater range made it rare for soldiers to get close enough for hand-to-hand combat. Fewer than 2% of all CW battle wounds were a result of hand-to-hand combat.
Fighting in a line seems pretty stupid. Why did they do it? It was the best and most effective means to fight using single-shot muzzle loading weapons. The weapons only fired about 2-3 shots per minute. In order to mass the fire of such slow-firing weapons required massing the number of shooters. At 200+ yards, a line of men (in 2-ranks) on a smoky battlefield becomes a much more difficult mark to hit. Organized lines allow everyone to fire at once as opposed to a disorganized crowd where only the front rank can shoot. A disorganized crowd is also a larger, spread-out target to land rounds on. When moving over broken and heavily forested ground, soldiers acted as “skirmishers” using the terrain to their advantage as modern soldiers do today. However, they lacked the individual firepower necessary to hold off massed firing lines advancing on their position and typically relied on massed infantry and artillery to support them.
What’s up with the flag guys and musicians in battle? Musicians like buglers, fife and drum corps were the period equivalent of radio operators. The “songs” they play are actually military commands that can be heard over the din of battle much better than a screaming human voice can be heard. The “flag guys” or Color Guard marks the location of each regiment on the field like chess pieces so that commanders can see where they are on the confusing field of battle. Other musicians such as the band helped psych up the troops and boost morale while hopefully intimidating the enemy at the same time. They also served as stretcher bearers and assisted the medical staff.
What kind of weapons were used? The war started out with a mix of short-range “smoothbore” and longer ranged “rifled” longarms. The bullets were lead and averaged from .52cal (52/100 inch) to .69cal (69/100 inch) in size. By mid war, a .58cal (58/100) bullet was the norm for infantry weapons. Smoothbores had an effective range up to 100 yards while some rifled longarms were sighted up to 1000 yards. The infantry weapons were typically single-shot muzzle-loaders while many of the carbines used by cavalrymen were single-shot breech-loaders. As the war progressed, repeating weapons and metallic cartridges started to become more common. The revolvers you see were not easily reloaded like today’s pistols. Each chamber had to be individually loaded with powder, bullet and primer. The cannon were typically muzzle loading as well. They fired shells ranging in size from 3” to 15” in diameter. They also came in smoothbore or rifled with ranges from 1000 to over 2000 yards. Artillery ammunition varied from solid, and exploding to canister* (think giant shotgun round).
Common Myths About the Period
Myth:
The Casualties were high because technology outpaced the tactics. This is a common myth that has been perpetuated even by renowned Civil War authors such as Shelby Foote to the point where it has been accepted as common knowledge. The truth is that wartime military manuals explained why they revised the tactics to accommodate the greater range of “modern rifled weapons”. If the technology & tactics myth was true, the casualty rates for CW battles would be markedly higher than those of the Napoleonic wars. However, researching casualty- participant ratios of various sources does not reveal the higher statistical difference needed to substantiate the claim.
Myth:
They were ignorant about cleanliness. Numerous CW period publications emphasized the importance of proper hygiene. Although it was not logistically plausible to have a daily bath before water heaters and indoor plumbing, people still meticulously cleaned themselves from head to toe about twice a day using a cloth, soap and water while trying to have a full immersive bath at least once a week if practicable. The main source of the myth that bathing was “injurious to health” came from a 1917 article written by H.L.Menken and was meant entirely as a joke. Despite Menken’s 1926 retraction, the myth has found its way into print and is still cited as fact. The main problem during the war is that life on the march and in large army camps was notoriously filthy and unhealthful despite the best efforts of the armies and dedicated sanitary organizations. To put it plainly, the environment made it extremely difficult to maintain adequate levels of cleanliness and the results were frequent illness resulting in a high mortality rate of approximately 2-3 for every 1 lost in battle depending on statistics cited.
Myth: They were illiterate. This is a modern day contrivance. America was world renowned for having the highest literacy levels on earth throughout the 1800s. 1850 Census questionnaires revealed about a 97% functional literacy of free Americans over 20. There were fluctuations in spelling namely because it would not be until the latter half of the nineteenth century when spelling would be standardized. That being said, individuals were fully functional in reading, writing, doing math, and conducting their daily business just like we do today.
Myth:
Unlike today, people then were intolerant and racist. By modern PC terms, virtually every person on earth can be classified as racist in some way both then and even now. Documented viewpoints from throughout the US indicate a strong presence of people who both believed in universal equality of humankind whereas others saw the native cultures into which they were born and raised as being overall superior. The same could be said about all cultures around the world at that time. There was more diversity of opinions then as many of those viewpoints today would not be authorized by modern PC groupthink to be expressed vocally. That being said, mid 19th c. individuals debated the pros and cons on topics like labor, slavery and government handling of American Indians just as hotly then as abortion, racism, and military interventions are argued today.
Myth: The war was/wasn’t fought over slavery. Either statement is insufficient in telling the full story. The average rank and file soldier did not seem willing to fight and die namely for the opportunity to either keep or free slaves. These were secondary ambitions to the main argument of whether the US was a federal republic or a collective of sovereign nations working as an alliance. That being said, the case and point argument in favor of “states rights” was in fact the perseverance of human slavery. Supporters of slavery saw it as a “humanitarian” means of overseeing people who were mentally/physically inferior and that they are “happier” to be properly managed. Abolitionists saw it as an affront to the sanctity of each human being’s individual’s right to personal liberty.
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