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Earl J. Hess in his "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat"


http://www.amazon.com/The-Rifle-Musket-Civil-Combat/dp/0700616071

...carefully examines casualty rates between War Between the States battles and many comparable previous smoothbore musket battles where similar line tactics were used and finds no significant difference.

His contention is that the extreme parabolic curve of the slow-moving Minie bullet was such that exact range estimation beyond what most men on either side commonly practiced would have been necessary, The ranges at which most guys were actually hit by bullets little exceeded that of the smoothbore musket era.

In fact he gives examples of some Union units who purposefully hung on to their smoothbore muskets well into the war, preferring buck and ball over the Minie.

On the Confederate side, General Patrick Cleburne, who had previous experience with Enfield rifle-musket in the British Army, actually instituted British-style marksmanship training among his Confederate troops to familiarize them with the quirks of the Minie system (and ironic that systematic marksmanship training appeared in England before it did here).

I shoot a flintlock quite often, and I know from experience that a well set-up flintlock is practically as reliable as a percussion mechanism for most casual civilian uses, where a flintlock stumbles badly is when you need to fire several rounds in a row, like at a battle reenactment.

So I suppose the perfection of a practical and reliable percussion cap by 1860 may have enabled those situations where a line of men, typically behind cover such as the Sunken Road, St Mary's Heights, the Bloody Angle, and on the Union Side at Franklin may have been able to pour out the sustained volume of fire that they did because no one had to stop to change or sharpen a flint, or to clear a pan or vent.

Other than that, while the smoothbore twelve-pounder was still the most common mobile field artillery (not for nothing called the "Napoleon"), rifled artillery like the Parrot guns were deployed.

How much difference the extra range and accuracy of rifled artillery pieces made in those campaigns I do not know.

Birdwatcher

Off the top of my head... weren't the noted Rebel "Light Horse" Harry Lee his uncle?

That was his father

Who knocked up his sister-in-law and ran off, if I remember correctly. The problem of teaching history at the middle/elementary school level was that I could never tell the really good stories.

Weren't Jefferson's mixed-blood slave concubine actually his father-in-laws biological duughter ie. his wife's half-sister?

If so, I wonder how he pulled that one off....

Yes. The apologists say it was a cousin who got her pregnant (multiple times), but she was always around Tom, and while she was in France with him she acted wifely.

Question Ive pondered.

I had heard or read somewhere there was a bit of angst ( on the personal side) between Jackson and A. P. Hill. In reference to How Jackson felt of Hills morality. As if Hill was syphillitic. ( rumor I had heard). But this attitude didn't carry over to the professional side. Hill generally showing up at the right place at the needed time. Like with Lee at Sharpsburg.

Exactly right. Lighthorse Harry Lee was RE Lee's father. Lighthorse Harry was also a classic example of a great hero who ended his days as a great scoundrel.

Possibly even more significant, was the willingness of that much humanity on each side to be ran through the meat grinder the technology had become.

I personally believe the technology that played the greater roll was in shear manufacturing. The ability of the Union to get the greatest amount of material and toys to the troops.

The North's manufacturing advantage and the advantage they held in railroads and rolling stock to transport the materials of war to the combat theater was what proved decisive in the end.

The Union simply had too much of a logistical advantage for the Confederacy to overcome and the South was just ground down over time.

At Gettysburg, the repeating rifle and the breech-loader.

Day 1, John Buford brilliantly deploys his cavalry in preparation for a prolonged defense in depth. The high rater of fire thrown out causes the advancing Confederates to pause and deploy in line of battle a number of times, losing critical time.

Here's the "First Shot" monument, erected by the guys who took it. Its on the main drag from Chambersburg (Hwy 30??) a couple of miles west of the battlefield proper.

I do believe that is Hwy 30.

I'm curious as to what we would look like, had the States gone their various directions? Would we have expanded west successfully? Who would control the vast western territories, Mexico? Would Texas have become a country, and would they have survived?

This is an academic question and not a swipe at anyone.

The US would probably look a lot like the Balkans do in Europe. Several smaller nations or confederations of states.

You can bet the great powers like England would have been very active in either setting up client states or outright annexing territory if they thought it could be done without too much opposition.

Before Lincoln consolidated the states under a central power, they were already in "their various directions".

Perhaps lots Of variables could come into play. There were still European powers interested in portions of North America. Great Britain, France, and the soon to be on the scene Unified Germany. Not to mention the czar and don't forget Spain

Over on Seminary RIdge of course one finds all the Confederate markers and monuments, yet back in the woods it may come as a surprise to find these, not much further along from the much more recent Longstreet statue.

Markers for the Third Maine, a regular infantry unit, and the 1st US Sharpshooters who were not regular infantry. By then the Sharpshooters were armed with breech loading Sharps rifles, a percussion arm accepting paper cartridges. The Sharpshooters were picked marksmen who could fire nine rounds a minute.

It was Dan Sickles who had deployed these men out ahead of the Union line to find out what was occurring to his front.













I haven't seen a detailed accountof the action, but these guys had to be pushed out by Alabama troops IIRC, incrementally impeding the Confederate advance in that battle decided by so many close calls and almosts.

More to the point, in the confusion of battle and retreat, at least fifteen Sharpshooters ended up cut off from the left flank of the Union line at Little Round Top, these men deployed themselves on the hillside of Big Round Top and in a pile of boulders between the two, all of them in a position to fire into the flank and rear of the Confederates famously assaulting Chamberlaine's 20th Maine.

Even if we back off to an estimate of six rounds per minute, per man, that translates to ninety aimed rounds per minute, from hand picked marksmen, into the flank and rear of the attacking Confederates at Little Round Top. I have often wondered if this is why those attacks faltered so suddenly.

Finally Day 3, repeating rifles again, this time in the hands of Michigan cavalry pickets deployed in the path of JEB Stuart's cavalry which was attempting to get around the Union right flank to attack the rear of the Union line in concert with Pickett's charge.

THese few men put up such a stubborn defense and high volume of fire, that Stuart was already late even before he was hit head-on by the magnificent lunatic George Armstrong Custer.

Birdwatcher

I realize that. My question is what would we be now, had it continued that way?

Custer perhaps the American Murat!