General Sickles; Villain or Hero??? (1 Viewer)

[lancer]

Am totally hooked on Mark Adkins Gettysburg companion at the moment and have been studying troop figures for Corps, Brigades, and Regiments. I was truly shocked to see that four regiments in John Caldwell's 1st div went in with less than one hundred men! This included the 116th PA who had just 66 men , really astonishing figures and highlights the losses of Antietam and Fredericksburg and the affect on the make up of the Army of the Potomac when it formed up for Gettysburg.

Rob

The Union Army did not top off regiments with new recruits to keep numbers up. Regiments could and did pass out of existence. -- Al

 

[Rob]

The Union Army did not top off regiments with new recruits to keep numbers up. Regiments could and did pass out of existence. -- Al

Oh right, so this was deliberate Al?

Rob

 

[lancer]

Oh right, so this was deliberate Al?

Rob

It was but I am not sure what the reason for this policy was. The South would put new bodies into regiments but The Union Army would just raise new regiments as opposed to keeping up old ones. Perhaps the North saw it as a unit cohesion/morale question or possibly a question of logistics. -- Al

 

[Phantom Warrior]

One explanation for letting depleted Union Regiments disband could be that Union Divisions and Corps were called by number and Roman Numeral respectively, while Confederate Divisions and Corps were named after their commanders even if they had been killed months or years before and there was a reluctance to disband them so they were reinforced with replacements. And many of the early Union Regiments were made up of short term enlistments and were expected to disband - after all, the war was going to last only 3 months. It was also the case that several old, understrength Union Regiments might be reformed into a single Regiment. The South did the opposite - a Confederate Brigade was normally 4 - 6 Regiments but late in the war in order to maintain Brigade (and Division) strength, a Confederate Brigade could consist of 15 depleted Regiments.

And Rob, you had better not get me started on collecting Civil War. {sm2}

Terry

 

[Warrior]

And Rob, you had better not get me started on collecting Civil War. {sm2}

Terry

If you did, at least you wouldn't have to worry about the logs being on the wrong side......................

 

[Phantom Warrior]

If you did, at least you wouldn't have to worry about the logs being on the wrong side......................

True - the logs would be on every side {sm4}

Terry

 

[lancer]

One explanation for letting depleted Union Regiments disband could be that Union Divisions and Corps were called by number and Roman Numeral respectively, while Confederate Divisions and Corps were named after their commanders even if they had been killed months or years before and there was a reluctance to disband them so they were reinforced with replacements. And many of the early Union Regiments were made up of short term enlistments and were expected to disband - after all, the war was going to last only 3 months. It was also the case that several old, understrength Union Regiments might be reformed into a single Regiment. The South did the opposite - a Confederate Brigade was normally 4 - 6 Regiments but late in the war in order to maintain Brigade (and Division) strength, a Confederate Brigade could consist of 15 depleted Regiments.

And Rob, you had better not get me started on collecting Civil War. {sm2}

Terry

Good post. As an example, during his Tennessee campaign in the winter of 1864/65, Hood had three infantry corps. The Order of Battle lists about 190 individual regimental numbers. This is very deceiving as 91 of these regiments were so depleted that combining several together became necessary to form effective combat units. These 91 regiments were formed into 36 "large" regiments, with 2 to 4 regiments in each "large" regiment. Still, the large number of regiments hide the truly depleted nature of Hood's army as he had no more than about 27,000 total infantry for the campaign, an seriously weak average of 9000 per corps. Manpower had become a huge problem for the Confederacy this late in the war. -- Al

 

[lancer]

If you did, at least you wouldn't have to worry about the logs being on the wrong side......................

This is true, but then the worry about the correct shade of blue or gray.....:rolleyes2: -- Al

 

[Rob]

You know I'm going to! Its such a huge , sweeping, tragic, interesting conflict .:smile2:

Rob

One explanation for letting depleted Union Regiments disband could be that Union Divisions and Corps were called by number and Roman Numeral respectively, while Confederate Divisions and Corps were named after their commanders even if they had been killed months or years before and there was a reluctance to disband them so they were reinforced with replacements. And many of the early Union Regiments were made up of short term enlistments and were expected to disband - after all, the war was going to last only 3 months. It was also the case that several old, understrength Union Regiments might be reformed into a single Regiment. The South did the opposite - a Confederate Brigade was normally 4 - 6 Regiments but late in the war in order to maintain Brigade (and Division) strength, a Confederate Brigade could consist of 15 depleted Regiments.

And Rob, you had better not get me started on collecting Civil War. {sm2}

Terry

 

[lancer]

Good post. As an example, during his Tennessee campaign in the winter of 1864/65, Hood had three infantry corps. The Order of Battle lists about 190 individual regimental numbers. This is very deceiving as 91 of these regiments were so depleted that combining several together became necessary to form effective combat units. These 91 regiments were formed into 36 "large" regiments, with 2 to 4 regiments in each "large" regiment. Still, the large number of regiments hide the truly depleted nature of Hood's army as he had no more than about 27,000 total infantry for the campaign, an seriously weak average of 9000 per corps. Manpower had become a huge problem for the Confederacy this late in the war. -- Al

Should have made clear that these numbers are accurate for the Battle of Franklin in terms of the total in the Confderate Army. Hood attacked with just two corps (Cheatham's and Stewart's) as S.D. Hill's corp was not on the field at the time of the attack. Cleburne's Division as an example (minus 1 brigade on detached duty), had 2900 men in the attack (3 brigades, 15 regiments of which 11 were of combined nature), an average of around 195 men per regiment. Cleburne was KIA in the Franklin assault and his division was shot to pieces, suffering some 1500+ casualties. In all, Hood's Army suffered 1750 KIA, and around 7000 total casualties at Franklin in about 5 hours of fighting. -- Al

 

[Warrior]

This is true, but then the worry about the correct shade of blue or gray.....:rolleyes2: -- Al

Great point Al, or the arguing over Confederates not wearing sack coats, what is the correct shade for butternut, did more Confederates wear hats vs kepi's, on and on it goes...........

 

[Phantom Warrior]

You know I'm going to! Its such a huge , sweeping, tragic, interesting conflict .:smile2:

Rob

True - and although I read a great deal about the Civil War, studied the Battles and weapons, and even wrote a major paper in university about the Economic war between the north and the south, I am very unlikely to collect figures from the war. The uniforms are pretty uniform with a few notable exceptions. I started collecting AFVs but got into NAPs and British Empire because of the interest in those eras but mainly because of the variety of uniforms and colours. So ACW would rank well below those and far out of budget territory.

Terry

 

[chasbo]

Cheers Scott, General Sickles was certainly a hero for reasons you stated. july 2,1863 was a very bad day for a lot of heroic and courageous men.






"Happiness too comes, more often from memories than from experiences." Len Deighton

 

[UKReb]

Rob

Terry and Al have pretty much covered the reasons for numbers in the Union regiments but just as an aside quite a few of them were known by nick-names. A couple of unusual ones who fought at Gettysburg come to mind. Pretty sure you would have come across the Pennsylvania Bucktails but the 39th New York from the 3rd Brigade II Corps were called the "Garibaldi Guard" and included men from no fewer than 15 different nationalities, in fact seven languages had to be used to get the regiment moving, English; French; Italian; German; Hungarian; Spanish and Portuguese. Imagine having to give the order Forward March!

But my all time favourite who never made it to Gettysburg for very good reason was the 53rd New York, known as "Le d'Epineuil Zouaves" a three year regiment recruited in August of 1862 was so full of drunks, brawlers and rowdies that everyday they fought and scrapped with each other and became so uncontrollable that it was mustered out of service just a few months later.

Bob

 

[Rob]

Rob

Terry and Al have pretty much covered the reasons for numbers in the Union regiments but just as an aside quite a few of them were known by nick-names. A couple of unusual ones who fought at Gettysburg come to mind. Pretty sure you would have come across the Pennsylvania Bucktails but the 39th New York from the 3rd Brigade II Corps were called the "Garibaldi Guard" and included men from no fewer than 15 different nationalities, in fact seven languages had to be used to get the regiment moving, English; French; Italian; German; Hungarian; Spanish and Portuguese. Imagine having to give the order Forward March!

But my all time favourite who never made it to Gettysburg for very good reason was the 53rd New York, known as "Le d'Epineuil Zouaves" a three year regiment recruited in August of 1862 was so full of drunks, brawlers and rowdies that everyday they fought and scrapped with each other and became so uncontrollable that it was mustered out of service just a few months later.

Bob

Thanks Bob, great to see you posting again by the way mate. As I said to Al I was astonished to read how a regt could go into action with so few men and had not heard of the Unio's policy of letting a Regiment gradually reduce to non existence like that. Now I have what is fast turning into a Gettysburg Bible I am getting a much better idea of who was where and did what on those three days and am totally hooked. This morning I was listening to a description of the fighting on Culps Hill with 'Pop Green's' boys and although desperate hand to hand fighting took place there it is often over looked for Little round Top or Picketts charge etc.

There is also in the book a superb picture of the farm around which Bufords boys went into action and this is going to be very helpful indeed for the second dio I am considering.

Rob

 

[UKReb]

Rob

I have dug out a book for you which I will bring to London next month called Gettysburg Then & Now by William A Frassanito. It's only a 60 pager but has plenty of photos of LRT.

Knew I had it somewhere but it took me a week to locate it-You will definitely find it indispensable when you design your dio

Bob

 

[Rob]

Rob

I have dug out a book for you which I will bring to London next month called Gettysburg Then & Now by William A Frassanito. It's only a 60 pager but has plenty of photos of LRT.

Knew I had it somewhere but it took me a week to locate it-You will definitely find it indispensable when you design your dio

Bob

Bob you are a true gent, that will be of great use my friend and thats an ice cold VAT coming your way at the show. Thanks mate

Rob

 

[Rob]

Another side of this battle you don't often heat about is the civilian experience, Jenny Wade may have been the only civilian death in the battle , but the inhabitants of Gettysburg emerged from their cellars to an almost apocalyptic scene. The town badly damaged, crops destroyed, livestock scattered or dead, thousands of human bodies and dead horses littered the fields and streets and the excrement of around 160,000 men all created a terrible smell and a plague of bloated flies. It took months to rebuild, clear up and bury the dead, the residents having survived the actual battle had a huge battle ahead to rebuild their town and livelihoods.

Rob

 

[Currahee Chris]

.....an almost apocalyptic scene. The town badly damaged, crops destroyed, livestock scattered or dead, thousands of human bodies and dead horses littered the fields and streets and the excrement of around 160,000 men all created a terrible smell and a plague of bloated flies. It took months to rebuild, clear up and the residents having survived the actual battle had a huge battle ahead to rebuild their town and livelihoods.

Rob

What you describe could be the post-op report following any of the July 4th battle reenactments of any given year. One needen't go back a century in time to experience the lovely things you describe. {sm4}

 

[Sgtkillroy1944]

I say he was a little of both!