Showing posts with label Tactics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tactics. Show all posts

Monday, April 4, 2022

Brigadier-General Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, March 18, 1865

CAMP HASTINGS, March 18, 1865.

DEAR Uncle: — I have very little care or responsibility. My command is exclusively a fighting command. I have nothing to do with guards, provost or routine duty connected with posts. Mine is the only movable column west of Winchester. If an enemy threatens any place, I am to send men there when ordered. My time is wholly occupied drilling and teaching tactics and the like. My brigade furnishes details for guard and provost when needed, but I am not bothered with them when on such duty. My regiments are all large; nearly four thousand men in the four, of whom twenty-five hundred are present at least. General Crook is again out, and we hope he will return to this command. We like Hancock very well. He behaved very handsomely with Crook's staff, and all of the troops and officers which [that] were particularly favorites with Crook. We were all left in our old positions, although some pressure was brought against it.

I see gold is tumbling. If no mishap befalls our armies, the downward tendency will probably continue. Then debtors must look out. It will not be so easy to pay debts when greenbacks are worth eighty to ninety (cents) on the dollar. My four years are up about the first of June.

Sincerely,
R. B. HAYES.
S. BIRCHARD.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 568

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Captain Charles Wright Wills: September 29, 1863

Clear Creek, Miss., September 29, p. m.

As we were studying tactics together, preparatory to a battalion drill, our brigade commander at precisely 2:15 p. m., came into the colonel's tent where we were, asked the colonel if he was ready to move immediately. The colonel replied that he was, and he then told us to be ready to start at 3 o'clock, and that the regiment first on the brigade parade ground, ready to move, should have the advance. In just twenty minutes we had struck tents, packed knaps, loaded wagons and formed line, everybody in the best of spirits at the thought of leaving and joining Rosecrans. We beat the other regiments and therefore got the advance, which was quite an object as the dust lays, when it don't fly, several inches deep. I let my little chameleon (I wish I could have sent him home) back into the tree before we started. Cogswell's battery attempted to pass us on the march, but our two advanced companies fixed bayonets, and by a few motions stopped the proceeding. Cogswell got very wrathy, but when Colonel Wright proposed to shoot him if he didn't cool down, he became calmer and moved to the rear “promptly.” The dust has been awful. Never saw it worse, except in a march from Bolivar to Lagrange, Tenn., a year ago. We bivouacked at 9 o'clock p. m., nine miles from camp. I stood the march splendidly.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 192-3

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Wednesday, March 2, 1864

Cleared during the night; ground covered with snow; weather fine; have been making out Lieut. Ezra Stetson's muster rolls; not with my class this afternoon; have nearly completed the second volume of tactics; no mail to-night.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 23

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Monday, January 18, 1864

It has rained hard all day, but is not very cold. The mud is very deep. It's rumored that Governor Smith and Mr. Baxter are to be here to-morrow; have been studying hard all day only when engaged in Company duty; cooler this evening; snows a little; pickets have just come in wet and tired. Lieut. E. P. Farr has not been in this evening to look up tactics.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 9

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Wednesday, January 20, 1864

Quite a fine moon to-night — a little cloudy but no wind; froze quite hard last night; have had so much company all day it has been impossible to do anything but visit; band is serenading General W. H. Morris; are proud of our band, it being one of best regimental bands in the army. Lieut. Stetson has not come tonight; got no letter from home, but received a good one from Carl Wilson. To-night they have the Universalist festival at Barre, Vt.; would like to be there, but my festival will be with tactics.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 9-10

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Tuesday, January 12, 1864

Retired at 2 a. m. last night; learned by heart before retiring fifty pages in tactics; got up at 9 a. m. and went at it again; have conquered fifty pages more to-day and recited them to Lieut. Farr: had them fairly well learned before; only review; weather warm and comfortable; had a dress parade at 5 p. m. This evening twenty recruits armed and equipped arrived from Vermont for Company B; got some newspapers from cousin Abby Burnham to-night.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 6

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Wednesday, January 13, 1864

It has been very muddy and dull in camp to-day; weather dark and gloomy: no dress parade; have written to Pert; also received a letter from J. R. Seaver, containing a plan of the hospitals being built at Montpelier, now nearly completed. Lieut. Fair has been in this evening and we have been studying tactics together; guess he takes advantage of my being better posted than he, having been a cadet at Norwich University, Norwich, Vermont, where I was well drilled, and can explain things better. I wish they didn't consider me the best drill in the regiment; it makes me lots of extra work and takes much time. But I must be obliging — not mean and selfish.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 6-7

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Saturday, January 9, 1864

Still the weather continues fine. There is not a cloud to be seen or a breath of air stirring, and yet it is quite a sharp morning. The Company got another mail this forenoon but there was nothing for me; was relieved from picket this afternoon about one o'clock: arrived in camp about four p. m.; found plenty of Company work to keep me busy all tomorrow. Lieut. C. G. Newton started for Vermont this morning; have been studying tactics this evening; got my books from home I sent for last week.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 5

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The Plan Of The Campaign

From the New York Evening Post.

There is throughout the whole Union north of the cotton states, an eager expectation of some decisive movements of the mighty host of armed men whom we have brought into the field, and who have hitherto been engaged only in a war of skirmishes.  With a considerable part of our population in the Atlantic states this exception has been heightened into impatience, while in the western states both the volunteers and the people are in a fever of what can hardly be called anything less than discontent and chafe, like caged tigers, at the delay.  Everybody feels that there is much to do and that the time is short.  Knowing and feeling this, as we all do, it is but just to those who are entrusted with the administration of public affairs to take for granted that they are as sensible of it as we can be, and as anxious to hasten, by every safe method, the decision of a controversy which has been referred to the dreadful arbitrament of war.

Those, however, who are looking for an advance of our army from Washington, we are confident, look to the wrong quarter.  Washington is no proper base of military operations against the southern states.  The true policy of those who conduct the war is to penetrate the centre of the enemy’s territory by the most direct mode of access.  The attempt to reach it by the lines of march from Washington would be as absurd as if a combatant with a small sword should attempt to pierce his antagonist’s heart through his shoulder.

The lines of march from Washington are difficult – obstructed by the exceeding foulness of the ways at this season and by the strong posts of the enemy.  Suppose these difficulties happily overcome – suppose the rebel forces at Manassas, strong as their position is, beaten from the ground and forced to retire.  They would make their way to the South and the Southwest, tearing up the railways, their army from Richmond our further advance in that quarter would end and we should be met by their army assembled on a new northern frontier.

We think it is agreed by those who understand these matters far better than we can pretend to do, that the true military policy of our government is to break up, divide, and scatter the forces of the enemy, instead of compelling them to collect in a compact body – to oblige them to defend against us the different parts of the territory they occupy, by different fragments of their army separated in such a manner as to have no possible communication with each other and wholly unable to form a junction.  To effect this the base of operations should be far south of Washington, on the flank of the insurgent region, at some point chosen as near as possible to the heart of the country possessed by obstructing the routes they take in every possible manner ravaging the country consuming and carrying off its supplies, and leaving behind them a solitude in which the pursuing army could find no means of subsistence.

What then would be gained by such a victory?  Little more than the credit of a successful engagement.  We should have before us a waste which it would be of no advantage to us to occupy.  The rebel forces in retiring would concentrate themselves within a smaller compass, and there would be no essential [diminution] of their power of resistance.  All the communications between the different divisions of their army and the different parts of the country held by them would still remain open, and would have the advantage of being considerably shortened.  We should have gained possession of no point of which we could say that its occupation was at all decisive of the event of the war. – With the retreat of the enemy, and from which the access to their most exposed parts would be least difficult.  Our great river, the Mississippi, and the communication which we have opened, through Western Virginia with Kentucky, fortunately place such a base of operations in our power, without any previous fighting.  A powerful central force might thus be planted in the midst of the enemy’s territory rendering it wholly impossible to concentrate their forces, prepared to annihilate the separate divisions of their army one after another, and ready to strike immediately and with effect at any point which it may become desirable to occupy.

Inasmuch as it is wholly impossible to do this from Washington, we hold that it is absurd to attribute to the government or to the commanding officer of our army the idea of ordering and advance from Washington.  They must see, even more clearly than anybody else the advantages of such a plan as that of which we have spoke, they must feel the importance of carrying it into effect before the cold season has passed, they must be aware that the longer we delay our preparations the better prepared will the rebels be for resistance.  We cannot suppose that they who are not admitted to the councils of war in which the plan of winter campaign is decided upon, are the only ones who possess the gift of common sense, and with this reflection in our minds we may, we think, confidently look for an early and decisive blow to be struck at the vital parts of the southern rebellion.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 4

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Sigel At Pea Ridge

Columbus N. Udell, son of Dr. Udell of the Senate, is a member of Col. Bussey’s Cavalry Regiment, and was in the late battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas.  Writing to his mother he says that the Federal army was largely indebted to Franz Sigel for the victory which they won.  For nearly two days they had been surrounded by the superior numbers of the enemy, when Sigel planned and executed a ruse, the result of which really settled the fortunes of the battle.  He commanded his artillerymen to load their guns with blank cartridges.  As the enemy approached, the guns were fired, but not a single man was seen to fall.  A half a dozen times was this repeated, until the rebels concluded that the federals had exhausted their ammunition, and they therefore made an indiscriminate rush upon the federal battery.  Sigel withheld his fire until the enemy had got into the right position, and then hurled such a storm of grape and canister among them that mowed them down like grass.  No body of men could face such a murderous fire, and the rebels in that portion of the field were put to utter rout.

No wonder such a man has been made a Major General. – {Des Moines Register.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 1

Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Mobile Register . . .

. . . edited by John Forsyth, is not any longer disposed to undervalue the power of the Government of the United States.  The tendency of the secesh mind is just now rather to exaggerate than depreciate the force brought into the field to crush the rebellion.  An article from the Register on “the Activeness,” is before us, in which the following passage occurs:

We must make up our minds to bear a certain amount of disaster.  It is impossible that such a war as this should be a career of uninterrupted successes.  We are engaged with an enemy who marshals the most majestic military strength that modern times have witnessed.  He assails us along land and coast frontiers of near five thousand miles in extent.  It is impossible that our government should have the means or the prescience to make every post impregnable which the foe may choose to select for an assault with overwhelming force?

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 1

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Going Into Battle


You have wondered whether the men wear their overcoats, knapsacks, haversacks, and carry their blankets, when going into battle.  That depends upon circumstances.  Sometimes when they are marching, they find themselves in battle almost before they know it.  I remember that on the 18th of July, three days before the battle of Bull Run, some regiments of the army were marching towards Mitchell’s Ford, a fording place on Bull Run, when suddenly the enemy fired upon them, and the men had to fight just as they were, only a great many threw down their coats and blankets, and haversacks, so that they could fight freely and easily.  You also wonder whether the regiments fire regularly in volleys, or whether each man loads and fires as fast has he can.  That also depends upon circumstances, but usually, except when the enemy is near at hand, the regiments fire only at the command of their officers.  You hear a drop, drop, drop, as a few of the skirmishers fire, followed by a rattle and roll, which sounds like the falling of a building, just as some of you have heard the brick walls tumble at a great fire.

Sometimes, when a body of the enemy’s cavalry are sweeping down upon a regiment to cut it to pieces, the men form in a square, with the officers and musicians in the center.  The front rank stands with bayonets charged, while the second rank fires as fast as it can.  Sometimes they form in four ranks deep, the two front ones kneeling with their bayonets charged so that if the enemy could come upon them they would run against a picket-fence of bayonets. – When they form in this way the other two ranks load and fire as fast as they can.  Then the roar is terrific, and many a horse and his rider goes down before the terrible storm of iron hail. – Army Letter.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 15, 1862, p. 2