Why It Makes Sense... (4 Viewers)

Delaware is right next door to Maryland and Virginia, were there any significant Delaware units or a decent number of Delawarians fighting for the South?
 
theBaron said:
Wow, we've come a long way from, "Why do some people call it the 'War Between the States', some 'the Civil War' and others the 'War of Northern Aggression'?" :)

Prost!
Brad
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Its good that we finally moved on to actually discussing the war. But hey, we had to start somewhere right?
 
Vanguard, supplying the batteries was a "pull" system so you could have mixed batches. Even Federal artillery crews complained from time to time about tne quality of fuses adn mix arsenal boxes but compensated for the problem. Alexander was an experienced artillery officer and would have done his best. Most people feel that the issue was that there was little experience with that many massed batteries firing on a single point to understand all of the complexities including smoke. The air seemed very still on that Friday, soldiers complained of smoke problems all over the battle field including Culp's Hill where some officers said it was almost like a fog.

Hope this helps. What do you want to discuss next?
 
I really need to figure out how to do spell check on this forum. Especially with old eyes and fat fingers.
 
VanguardFC007 said:
Delaware is right next door to Maryland and Virginia, were there any significant Delaware units or a decent number of Delawarians fighting for the South?
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Old "Taxi" reference-"Delawarians, or Delawarites?"

Delaware was originally part of Pennsylvania, and was referred to as the "lower three counties".
 
For those involved in the artillery discussion, there is a 2008 publication called "The Artillery of Gettysburg" by Bradley Gottfried. I have not read this but I believe it covers the fuse question as well as many other aspects. -- lancer
 
lancer said:
For those involved in the artillery discussion, there is a 2008 publication called "The Artillery of Gettysburg" by Bradley Gottfried. I have not read this but I believe it covers the fuse question as well as many other aspects. -- lancer
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The above is indeed a fine read for Gettysburg students however, I prefer The Guns at Gettysburg by Fairfax Downey which is written from the point of view of the artilleryman North and South which makes for a thrilling read and full of little known facts (well they weren't known to me).
It's a 1960's publication and I picked my copy up from Evil Bay for a few pennies. If the ACW Artillery/Ammunition is your interest well worthwhile tracking this book down.

Reb
 
Thanks for the titles and teh spell check tip. I will keep my eye open for them for when I get back into the artillery aspects of the war.

I have narrowed my focuse and almost all of my attention on the history of the 7th Ohio over the years. Has anyone run across any good but obscure titles about Cedar Mountain?

Let me know.

Thx
 
Well Ive gotten all the way through Lee's Army and can honestly say it was fascinating. Learned a lot of interesting tidbits I hadnt known before. Definitely worth reading.
 
When you visit a place like Gettysburg today and get lost among the tangle of roads, hills and woods, you have to wonder how civil war battles could have been conducted with any sort of coherence. In retrospect, we probably know a great deal more about these battles than many of participants at the time could have known amidst all the confusion. Limited fields of vision, distortions of sound, and no real-time communications would make it almost impossible for anyone on the field to have much idea what was going on beyond what they could see. Also, imagine someone like Lee arriving at Gettysburg for the first time in his life and finding a battle on his hands. We have had over 100 years of books and materials to understand the battle at every stage. Lee had to make decisions on the spot with limited and often erroneous information. That explains to me, at least in some part, many of the otherwise inexplicable errors that resulted.
 
Combat hit the nail on the head. The phrase "fog of war" does not exsist for no reason. Fighting blind, on unfamilier ground, no real-time communications, are the problems all ACW faced at most engagements. Not for the faint of heart. -- lancer
 
Warrior said:
Damian,
Thanks for sharing, we get the same sort of thing here as well.

My father is a retired Boston police officer and a fellow officer who's a friend of his got pulled over in Mississippi several years ago while driving to Florida.

He showed the officer his badge and license showing he was from Massachusetts (normally, any decent police officer will let another officer go without a ticket, sort of a courtesy between officers so to speak) and the officer said "That badge ain't gonna help you down here boy, you can take that badge and stick it you know where."

What a class act; comical thing is if the shoe was on the other foot and the Mississippi officer had gotten pulled over here in Massachusetts, he surely would not have gotten the same treatment.
Yep, some wounds just never heal.................
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I have gotten stopped a few times for speeding going from New York to Florida, in different southern states. As soon as the officers noticed my military stickers on the windshield, saw my military id, and the conversation turned to my tours in Nam, it was always "please keep to the speed limit and have a nice day"
 
"The Fog of War"......All firearms and artillary pieces fired in the Civil War used blackpowder. Smokeless powder wasn't invented until the 1880's. When I fire my longrifles,I'm encased in smoke. When I fire 6 rounds from my 1860 Colt Army, anybody next to me is also affected by the smoke. Multiply it by thousands of muskets, rifled-muskets, pistols and artillary fire, and you are dead-center in the fog of war.....
 
Can't agree more. Having been in a number of re enactments with 10,000 plus participants it is very confusing in the ACW environment. Smoke, noise, confusing landscapes, line of sight, poor maps, and just the scale is over the top.

One other point, based on everything that I have read and experienced over the years, brigade commanders in the ACW had more to do with the out come of engagements than most people realize. Some cases, army, corps and division commanders set things in motion as a general direction but most of the last minute critical adjustments were done by brigade and regimental commanders. Coddington's book, Gettysburg, A Study in Command, is a good exploration of this topic a must have for any one interested in G'burg.
 
I was contemplating Jeb Stuart earlier and I came up with this; lets see what yall think...

From what I can tell, most people either seriously overestimate his abilities or heavily underestimate them. The overestimation maybe comes from the ride around McClellan or the dominance of the Yankee cavalry early in the war. The underestimation mostly seems to come from the poor performance at Gettysburg.

I like the explanation for Stuart's performance at Gettysburg being his ego. After being surprised earlier in the campaign at Brandy Station, Stuart had to go redeem himself in the eyes of the people of the Confederacy and reassert his dominance of the Yankee cavalry. Obviously we know how that panned out.

Stuart's actual abilities, like most things historical, seems to lie somewhere in the gray middle area. Stuart had one of the best set of eyes for grounds of any commander, North or South, throughout the war. Stuart's performance at Chancellorsville was amazingly superb. Stepping in and taking command of Jackson's corps he did phenomenally well. Stuart also performed well in the campaigns following Gettysburg until his death at Yellow Tavern during the Overland Campaign.

Let me know yall's opinions.
 
VanguardFC007 said:
I was contemplating Jeb Stuart earlier and I came up with this; lets see what yall think...

From what I can tell, most people either seriously overestimate his abilities or heavily underestimate them. The overestimation maybe comes from the ride around McClellan or the dominance of the Yankee cavalry early in the war. The underestimation mostly seems to come from the poor performance at Gettysburg.

I like the explanation for Stuart's performance at Gettysburg being his ego. After being surprised earlier in the campaign at Brandy Station, Stuart had to go redeem himself in the eyes of the people of the Confederacy and reassert his dominance of the Yankee cavalry. Obviously we know how that panned out.

Stuart's actual abilities, like most things historical, seems to lie somewhere in the gray middle area. Stuart had one of the best set of eyes for grounds of any commander, North or South, throughout the war. Stuart's performance at Chancellorsville was amazingly superb. Stepping in and taking command of Jackson's corps he did phenomenally well. Stuart also performed well in the campaigns following Gettysburg until his death at Yellow Tavern during the Overland Campaign.

Let me know yall's opinions.
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I have always considered him an interesting and flawed character. As a West Point cadet he was known by his class-mates as Beauty this apparently did not bother him in fact the opposite as he was always a charmer with the ladies. However, when one of them remarked that he had a somewhat weak chin prompted him to grow his rather large set of whiskers which he retained until his death. Such vanity is a key component of understanding the make-up of JEB Stuart

Lee had instructed the young Stuart at West Point and recruited him as his aide during the John Brown episode at Harper's Ferry becoming almost his father figure. He followed Lee at the outbreak of war and drew his sword to defend Virginia joining a Confederate Infantry regiment as a young Lieutenant- a month later, with a word placed in the right ear by Bobby Lee, he was promoted into the cavalry where his escapades and demeanour became well known to most civil war students. He was flamboyant had a massive ego and wallowed in praise-The Richmond Press became his very own media service and following his first ride round the Federal army one reporter compared him to Prince Rupert the dashing cavalier nephew of King Charles during the English Civil War. Stuart simply adored this image and dressed and behaved just like his English alter ego but if he had studied his military history a little more at West Point he would have known that Prince Rupert could not hold the citadel of Bristol and that defeat finalised the end of Charles I.

Nevetheless Stuart displayed many times that he was a fearless and daring cavalry leader one little known example is where my current ACW dio is- at Spotsylvania-his actions there were simply outstanding and in a clear-cut victory, his services would have over shadowed his gaudiest adventures. As it was, though less spectacular than his exploits of the early days, Spotsylvania was probably Stuart's most solid contribution to the ANV. The fate of the campaign depended on him there, with no chance for the glory which he had vainly chased at Gettysburg he fought his forces and cooperated with the infantry in an action which would serve as a model for the function of mounted troops in relation to an army.

Reb
 
You know you brought something interesting up Reb, I dont think Ive ever seen a picture of Stuart without his beard.
 
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