The Civil War Thread (2 Viewers)

With reference to Lancer's comment re ACW tactics, both sides used Hardee's Tactics and drill which covered the formation of squares.
 
Trooper-- many thanks for the info. this is all news to me and very much appreciated. speaks of a depth of study i have not achieved in regards to ACW. i have done much reading and know many re-enactors but forming squares has never come up either in discussions or in my readings. think i will dig a little deeper now. thanks again for your time.-- lancer
 
Lancer, if you type "Forming Square American Civil War Tactics" into your computor you will find a whole mess of items on the subject, some of which mention other incidents that I didn't record earlier. Happy hunting. Alan
 
Hi, Trooper,
The author of the chapter on Gettysburg is described in the book as "an American historian and editor of THE FUSILIER, a journal for war-gamers and collectors of military miniatures. " Hope this helps.
 
I would be interested in hearing the results of forming square in this conflict. My thought would be that with technology advancing as far as it had, forming a square would have been near suicide.

As far as discipline goes, I have to agree with those who have said that the Southern soldiers fought with ample amount of discipline. Reb's reference of Picket's Charge being one of the best examples of that.

Harris
 
VanguardFC007 said:
I would be interested in hearing the results of forming square in this conflict. My thought would be that with technology advancing as far as it had, forming a square would have been near suicide.

As far as discipline goes, I have to agree with those who have said that the Southern soldiers fought with ample amount of discipline. Reb's reference of Picket's Charge being one of the best examples of that.

Harris
Click to expand...

If you refer back to my original comment on this topic (no. 19 on this thread) you will see that my argument was not with the discipline of the Rebs but with the re-enactors, who, by their lack of practice, give the wrong impression. I then went on to state that both sides MUST have been more disciplined than is depicted on the screen. With reference to the results of forming square I refer you back to comment no. 24 where some of these are listed. You will find that it was successful on occasion and disastrous at other times. Against cavalry alone it presented a formidable obstacle but if within range of massed infantry fire or artillery it was just a lovely target.
 
Thanks for the info trooper because I have never come across the square info before but like they say you are never to old to learn something new.
 
"most comments from the Federal reports of Gettysburg and in particular Pickett's march up Cemetery Ridge described them as a very cohesive army advancing almost as if taking part in a grand parade.

Even when taking punishing fire from the Federal artillery the gaps were quickly closed up and the advance continued in almost perfect formation as quoted in a number of Union soldiers diaries and letters home written after the battle. Even General Hancock observing the advance said to Gibbon "Magnificent but sheer madness"

Reb,
Couple of thoughts from me regarding this. There were about 12,000 Confederates who took part in the charge. Reports are as many as 6,000 were reported as casualties; dead, wounded, captured, missing.

A short time after the charge began, a portion of the troops on the extreme left stopped and retreated back to their lines. The majority of the casualties (about 2/3rds) occurred along the Emmitsburg Road when they were facing small arms fire.

A large number of prisoners were taken along the road as well. Of the 6,000 casualties, about 4,500 were captured, leaving about 1,500 dead and wounded, roughly 10% of the total number of troops involved.

I will say having walked the route of the charge several times, it is amazing as many of them got as far as they did considering about 95% of the time across the route you are totally exposed and have zero cover.

As you pointed out, they were no mob, that is for sure........
 
Reference the casualty figures of Pickett's charge. The list below gives the official figures as determined by the army's Medical Director after the battle. The problem here is that the figures are for the entire battle and therefore only Pickett's Division reflects casulties sustained during the charge as the others had all seen action during the previous two days. This is emphasised by the number of dead listed, Davis, Pettigrew and Scales's Brigades had all been in action previously and taken ground and therefore their dead could all be accounted for. Most of the "missing" would have fallen immediately in front of or within the Union lines and their fate therefore was unknown.
Pickett's Division.
Kemper's Brigade. Strength 1575. Dead 58. Wounded 356. Missing 717. Total 1131
Garnett's Brigade. Strength 1480. Dead78. Wounded324. Missing 539. Total941
Armistead's Brigade. Strength 1650. Dead 88. Wounded 460. Missing 643. Total 1191

Heth's Division
Archer's Brigade. Strength 1048. Dead 16. Wounded 144. Missing 517. Total 677
Davis's Brigade. Strength 2000. Dead 180. Wounded 717. Missing 500. Total1397
Pettigrew's Brigade. Strength 2000. Dead 190. Wounded 915. Missing 300. Total 1405
Brockenburgh's Brigade. Strength 1100. Dead 25. Wounded 123. Missing 60. Total208

Pender's Division

Lane's Brigade. Strength 1355. Dead 41. Wounded 348. Missing 271. Total 660
Scales's Brigade. Strength 1250. Dead 102. Wounded 381. Missing 116. Total 599

When one looks at the totals as a percentage of the strength it is apparent that the casualty rate was in excess of 50%. Hard times, but iron men.
 
To all you ACW students: I suggest that as grand, important, and tragic that Pickett's assault was, for sheer slaughter and vicious fighting, Hood's attack at Franklin, Tenn., in Nov. 1864 was many times worse. Hood attacked with some 20,000 men arrayed on a line 2 1/2 miles long. They attacked from almost 2 miles away without any real artillery support. While Pickett's attack was a relatively short affair, the fighting at Franklin lasted some 5 1/2 hours. Much of the fighting was pure massacre at point blank, hand to hand range. Casualties are not as detailed or accurate as at Gettysburg but are more grusome. The Confederates lost up to 8000 casualties in the assault. KIA totaled 1750. Only 702 men were counted as captured. The Confederates also lost 58 field officers (regt. command and up). 13 General officers were hit, 5 KIA, 7 wounded, and 1 captured. Union casualties were up to 300 KIA, 1300 wounded, and 1104 captured (2704 total). And the Confederates held the field the next day. For pure spectacle, tragedy, and fighting, Franklin tops them all, yet is relatively unknown to both the general public and we ACW buffs. respectively-- lancer
 
Going through a file of old cuttings I found this item listing some interesting parallels between the assassination of Lincoln and that of JFK.

Lincoln became President in 1860. Kennedy in 1960.
Both President's wives lost children during their term of office.
Both Presidents were concerned over Civil rights.
Both Presidents were shot in the head, on a Friday, in the presence of their wives.
The man who killed Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, was born in 1839.
The man who alledgedly shot Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, was born in 1939.
Both men were southerners, and both were shot before trial.
Both Presidents were succeeded by a Vice President Johnson.
Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1908.
Both Vice Presidents were Southern Democrats from a poor background.
Lincoln's secretary, whose name was Kennedy, advised against going to the theatre.
Kennedy's secretary, whose name was Lincoln, advised against his trip to Dallas.
Lincoln was shot in a theatre by Booth who took refuge in a warehouse.
Kennedy was alledgedly shot from a warehouse by Oswald who then took refuge in a theatre.
 
trooper said:
Going through a file of old cuttings I found this item listing some interesting parallels between the assassination of Lincoln and that of JFK.

Lincoln became President in 1860. Kennedy in 1960.
Both President's wives lost children during their term of office.
Both Presidents were concerned over Civil rights.
Both Presidents were shot in the head, on a Friday, in the presence of their wives.
The man who killed Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, was born in 1839.
The man who alledgedly shot Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, was born in 1939.
Both men were southerners, and both were shot before trial.
Both Presidents were succeeded by a Vice President Johnson.
Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1908.
Both Vice Presidents were Southern Democrats from a poor background.
Lincoln's secretary, whose name was Kennedy, advised against going to the theatre.
Kennedy's secretary, whose name was Lincoln, advised against his trip to Dallas.
Lincoln was shot in a theatre by Booth who took refuge in a warehouse.
Kennedy was alledgedly shot from a warehouse by Oswald who then took refuge in a theatre.
Click to expand...


A slightly disturbing set of coincidences.
 
I have heard of this before but never paid much attention to it. However, I've been doing a lot of reading lately about Lincoln and one alleged "fact" stood out: the name of Lincoln's secretary. He did not have any secretary by that name. Lincoln had two secretaries: John Nicolay and John Hay (who eventually became Secretary of State). They jointly wrote an important and highly regarded 10 volume biography of Lincoln called, Abraham Lincoln: A History, which, by the way, is impossible to find unless you want to spend $1,000 at least.

Getting back to the point, I just ran a google search and came up with the following article, for what it's worth.

****

The Lincoln/Kennedy Cosmic Connection
By Kevin T. Kilty

This cosmic story began not long after President Kennedy was assassinated. I first heard about the "remarkable" coincidences probably in Jr. High School. So, some of this story is old. Recently a document has been circulating on the internet outlining even more "remarkable" coincidences. A copy was forwarded to me by a colleague who had little to do one recent (05/01/00) morning. Being a skeptic, I decided that it might be fun to examine these coincidences using only information available on the World Wide Web, plus what I could remember from my high school U.S. History class. Here is what I determined.

In what follows I will first summarize an alleged "amazing fact" in the cosmic connection as reported on the WWW, and then comment on what I verified about it using the WWW.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Comment
This is, of course, no more remarkable than two victims of assassination being elected 96 years apart or 104. One hundred is just such a nice, round number that people see extreme significance in it--much like they did the year 2000, for instance. There are many people who have been elected president 100 years apart. And each being assassinated doesn't deepen this coincidence one iota, because we chose two assassinated leaders and then found that by coincidence they were elected 100 years apart.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Comment
Obviously people might think that both men entering politics 100 years apart, and then being elected president also 100 years apart is a great coincidence. However, when two people are separated by about X years in history, it seems very likely, in fact more likely than not, that major milestones in their lives are separated by roughly the same increment as well. This is entirely expected. At least it is more expected than their being elected to congress 100 years apart, and being elected president 150 years apart, because one of them would have been in congress as long as Strom Thurmond. The parallel in political careers diverges here, for Kennedy won a Senate seat in 1952, while Lincoln lost his Senate bid in 1858.

Alleged Amazing Fact
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.

Comment
OK, and I might add that their successor's names also had 7 letters. Perhaps seven letter last names are quite common.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.

Comment
It would be more amazing if they hadn't been concerned with civil rights, because civil rights were THE SOCIAL CONCERNS of the day in both instances. During both of these time periods the country was nearly torn to pieces over the issue. In fact, to characterize the Lincoln Presidency as being "particularly concerned with civil rights" seems a comic understatement.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Comment
This is a muddied statement that ought to read "Both their wives lost a child while living in the White House." In fact the Lincoln's lost three of their four children before the children reached adulthood. The death of children was not uncommon at the time. I am unable to find information regarding the Kennedy child, but I recall this being a miscarriage, which is not only surprisingly common, but makes the two losses not really comparable. Someone recently wrote with information they found on the web to the effect that the Kennedy child died of complications resulting from premature birth. Nonetheless there is less parallel than the myth suggests.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

Comment
I originally thought this was a mistake through a mistaken calculation of weekdays. I parodied the coincidence with, "This would be an excellent coincidence if it weren't for Kennedy being shot on a Thursday." However, a Mr. Goldman wrote to point out my error and I stand corrected. It's nice to see that someone reads this stuff. I just wish people would write for reasons other than to point out my errors. Ah, then Mr. Goldman wrote back to explain that Lincoln was actually shot on Thursday and died on Friday, whereas Kennedy was shot and died on Friday. Once again the full story has not quite the parallel that the simple story suggests.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Comment
When someone is trying to kill a person, they will likely shoot them in the head. It is more effective than shooting them in the leg, for instance. So this is entirely expected.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln.

Comment
This is quite difficult to analyze. How many secretaries and assistants did each have? Did Kennedy choose Lincoln as secretary from a pool of applicants because of his name? Sometimes coincidence is not all it seems. In fact, Robert Lincoln the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln, was saved from a nasty accident by J. Wilkes Booth's brother. Yet another cosmic connection? Most recently a Mr. Patrick Vincent wrote to tell me that his research on the web turned up evidence that Lincoln had no secretary named Kennedy. The interesting story of this myth is told at the web site synnergy . Another alleged coincidence dies.

(Continued in next post)
 
(Continued from prior post)

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both were assassinated by Southerners.

Comment
J. Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland. I suppose that if one were trying to force a cosmic connection, then Maryland might pass muster as a southern state. People have written to me refering to Maryland as a "border state", although I think of it as in the Union because we refer to Lee as "invading " MAryland in 1862 at Harper's Ferry and Antietam. The best a person could argue is that Wilkes was a southern sympathizer maybe.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both were succeeded by Southerners.

Comment
OK, granted; but it isn't as though each man having a southerner as Vice President was a random occurence. Each was a northern politician trying to win an election by choosing a southern running mate. Things that people do by design are not coincidences.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both successors were named Johnson.

Comment
It isn't as though Johnson is a strange last name.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

Comment
There is that 100 year separation again.

Alleged Amazing Fact
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Comment
They are trying for the 100 year thing again! It didn't work this time, though. Booth was actually born in 1838. What I found interesting about researching Lee Harvey Oswald's age is the misinformation regarding it in web documents.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both assassins were known by their three names.

Comment
A biography of Booth that I found on the world wide web suggested that he was known as J. Wilkes Booth. A Mr. Vsevolod Onyshkevych wrote to me and advanced the theory that killers are often known by their full (three) names and that this may be applied to each after the fact. He also provided a list of stunning length of the names of killers found from biographies on the web. Yes, Mr. Onyshkevych, the web is full of stange information.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Both names are comprised of fifteen letters.

Comment
What a bore I'm going to be here. Let us suppose that the length of a name is a random variable (Poisson perhaps) where the probability of very long or very short names is small and the expected length is about 5 letters. Then, the distribution of the summed lengths of three names is going to be sharply peaked at 15 letters. In other words, this might be common. I can think of 5 members of my immediate family who meet this test also.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Lincoln was shot at the theatre named 'Kennedy'.
Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln'.

Comment
I had trouble believing what I was reading here, because I recalled distinctly from High School or earlier that Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. Practically any person with high school education would recall this fact. Moreover, this seems to be a corruption of the original list of coicindences in which this one was "Lincoln was shot in a theatre built by Ford. Kennedy was shot in a car built by Ford."

Alleged Amazing Fact
Booth ran from the theatre and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theatre.

Comment
Well, I could explain this coincidence as resulting from the shear number of theaters and warehouses, but the story of Booth's escape is so complex that to characterize it as "ran from a theatre and was caught in a warehouse" skirts the suburbs of misrepresentation. Booth was ultimately caught in a tobacco shed on a farm, which hardly qualifies as a warehouse.

Alleged Amazing Fact
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

Comment
Booth died in a gunbattle, so reports of his assassination are highly exaggerated.

Alleged Amazing Fact
This is the climactic last alleged fact that the author decribed as "the kicker."
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.

Comment
I was pretty sure at this point that the whole e-mail was a joke. Nevertheless, I have gone this far, and I may as well finish. Marilyn Monroe died over one year before Kennedy's assassination. Once again Mr. Onyshkevych has written to tell me that there is no Monroe, Maryland known to the U.S. Post Office at least. Perhaps there was in 1865.
 
One of Kennedy's major accomplishments was "The Bay of Pigs" disaster

which nearly lead to a nurclear war.:eek:

Abraham Lincoln once read about a disaster........while holding a pig???:D:D

I think the entire point is to somehow link one man with the other.......and

frankly having lived during kennedys term in office nothing could be further

from the truth.:eek:

Both of them did die while in the service of their country, and that was a

terrible shame.
 
That's what I like about this forum. the responses to a comment are usually more interesting than the comment itself!
 
After Appomatox Sheridan purchased the small table upon which Lee had signed the surrender document and presented it to Elizabeth Custer. Does this historic artefact still exist, and, if so, does anyone know it's present whereabouts?
 
Since the holidays are approaching, I was curious to see if anyone has any WBTS holiday stories of interest. Lets see what yall got...

Harris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 3 (members: 0, guests: 3)
Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2024 XenForo Ltd.
Back
Top