[Mobhack]

Griffiths works (I have read a few) are soundly reasoned.

I suppose if anybody is criticising his results, then they may be those with a foot in the "entrenched" camp on some item or other.

e.g. - some may have some need to believe the "minie/rifle musket myth" of the ACW for real long range rifle shooting as the norm.

But Griffith proves to me (and it sounds logical) that in reality the ACW infantry fire fight was pretty much Napoleonic in character. Early war average engagement ranges of 120 or so yards, and later war ones a bit further.
No 500 yard sniping by line infantry.

And his supporting facts seem to support it. Due to ammunition shortages, the infantry did nothing but drill until thier first battle (not even using blanks for musketry drill), with that being where they saw live rounds for the first time. There was no ammo for basic arms drill, let alone the number of rounds required to achieve proficiency in using a rifled weapon (no firing ranges etc).

Lack of familiarity with live ammo helped with the large number of multiply-loaded weapons found on battlefields, where several shots had been rammed, but not discharged.

So the rifle musket was, in these untrained hands, a slightly better wepon than a smoothbore with the lock exchanged for a cap. (Not having to deal with a flint lock was a big help!). But the accuracy and the fact the troops were armed with a "rifle" did not magically transpose itself into the situation where everyone was now one of Sharpe's greenjackets of the Peninsular war.

Of course - for the small number of troops used to rifles, or who did get trained up in them - then these would be riflemen. But most were city guys with no previous familiarity with firearms.

Been a while since last reading - but that I think covers his views on the infantry fire fight. Napoleopnic in character, both sides lined up 60-120 or so yards apart, firing for about an hour or so in swirling clouds of black powder, till the ammo ran out.

I cannot recal if he goes into the differences between American and British Napoleonic "systems" (this may be remebered stuff from Hughe's firepower ?). But here is my take on it, anyway. There was no "doctrine of closing" like the British had. When ACW forces started a fire fight, then they blazed away at 100 yds or so with no use of the bayonet even considered.

The British system, which worked very well for black powder weapons (and the rifled musket if no riflemanship was taught, was simply a musket) was to get as close as possible (even accept a few volleys if advancing to do so) and at 50-60 yards fire one concerted volley, maybe 2, and then immediately follow up with a bayonet charge, even if defending. It was the bayonet charge that would break the enemy (with the help of the "preparation" of the volley fire, bt fire alone would not break the enemy), or at least convince them to retire. No bayonet charge to decide the issue, and then you got the ACW inconclusive hour long fire fight. The French column of the napoleonic wars was a different approach to breaking a line - and like the british was designed to bring the threat of the bayonet (together with a threatening mass of soldiers) into the enemys "space" and trigger the "fight or flight" response.

The bayonet is a weapon of morale effect (which the critics of the weapon as a useless thing in terms of casualtied inflicted seem to forget or not understand). Advancing on an enemy (charging) announces to him that you intend to invade his "personal space" and get personal with him, and so it helps to trigger his fight/flight reponse. If the enemy is sufficiently shocked and awed by your initial volley, he will tend to retrograde action as you close. If not sufficiently prepared, or steady enough then the enemy will stand. So the act of attemting to close may well break the enemy - but with bayonets fixed, the litle bits of pointy metal on your rifle adds "bonus points" to the "tipping point" equation of the enemy's fight/flight internal morale decision. The fact that the fleeing enemy are not actually contacted, but are then hacked down by your supporting cavalry is irrelevant - the charge with bayonets was a proximate cause of the casualties inflicted, though the surgeon's reports on wounds inflicted will then show sabre and not bayonet wounds.

The American forces, as a rule, did not emphasise closing, or the bayonet. They were trained as engineers and had perhaps an over respect of fortifications (which the French or British would simply have stormed with the bayonet), and tended therefore to develop the infantry fight into uncontrolled "firefights". If one side did decide to break and run away, there was no doctrine of the cavalry present as a "corps de chasse" to cut these fugitives down, and perhaps open a hole in the enemy army's line. (US cavalry were used in the "dragoon" role which they did fine at, but not in the "charging" role with the arme blanche to any real extent)

If all the US infantry was trained a bit more "agressively" perhaps like the British, then I wonder what the ACW would be like. That they could do so is shown by a few actions, such as the 24th(?) Maine infantry on round top - these used agressive bayonet charges together with musketry rather than simply get into a "firefight", and achieved extremely good results.


Of course, the rifled musket if and only if the infantry were actually well-trained in musketry, was a revolution in technology. Just see what the "Thin Red Line" did to an attacking Russian cavalry brigade in the Crimea for example.

But for the average ACW infantryman, who had only "gone through the motions" of small arms loading drill that was a pipe-dream. An emphasis on closing with the bayonet in those circumstances may well have produced more decisive results in ACW battles, as the enemy (and yourselves) were only going to hit with ball ammo by sheer statistical chance.

The option to train in a course of musketry, with maybe a hundred or so rounds expended per man just to achieve basic proficiency, was not really an option due to the chronic shortages of gunpowder. But that probably applied to European (or any other - eg ACW) mass conscript armies as well in that era, with only the relatively small professional armies like the British being able to invest in musketry courses. BP was always a slow and difficult thing to produce (and store!) in great quantity, it was only later with propellants made by mass chemical processes (the smokeless era) that that bottleneck could be reduced.

Andy