Mr Schaffner I saw your post on Szabos forum about the soldiers running and being shot by their own officers.  

I will have to check but I think there is a reference in "Hard Marching" where Wilbur Fisk is watching the battle from the rear and he mentions that you could see in the advance the shirkers who managed to slide back as the troops move forward.
He also talks about a couple different times of the boys in his own unit who seem to disappear when the fighting starts but show up when the battle is over.
I don't recall him mentioning any officers shooting at them though.

Somewhere -- unfortunately I couldn't find it recently -- I have a reference from an officer asked to storm a position near Petersburg, who advanced, took the position after light resistance, but found that only a third of his men had followed him.  When he asked an old officer about this afterwards, the veteran said, in effect, you're lucky that many followed -- every man's a coward in a storm.

Ardant du Picq writes freely of the number of men who drop out along the way in an attack.  Others write of skulkers and excessive "volunteers" to carry off the wounded.  The 19th century lacked a vocabulary for "pinned down" so they didn't speak as often of the phenomenon of troops going to ground or drifting back, but there's plenty of evidence that they did.

What there isn't evidence of is folks being shot out of hand for doing do.  In fact, with multiple lines of attackers or defenders, plus all the other traffic in the rear of the army, that sort of thing would have been nuts.

S. L. A. Marshall took du Picq's interviewing technique a step further and discovered that, during WWII, very few soldiers would actually fire a weapon at the enemy, no matter how much pressure they were under.  The results of his research led to revised training and a much higher rate of participation in Korea and Vietnam, but there's plenty of reason to think that, in the civil war, even troops who stayed in the line of battle didn't always participate, or participated ineffectively.

To me, this is no disparagement.  They, after all, were actually there, which is more than I'm ever going to accomplish.  But it does point to one more aspect of silliness in the typical reenactment.

I very much liked Bill's comment about the style of retreating favored by many units.  

Maybe the USV and ANV can get together and agree on some "theatrical" regs to go along with our substantially identical safety regs.

You know, come to think of it, this is actually possible...

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Michael Schaffner wrote : I very much liked Bill's comment about the style of retreating favored by many units.

That was another comment I saw over there.  I agree with Bill on this that it looks silly to see a group that is about to be overwhelmed.  Go to the shoulder, about face and at the mosey.. march off..

It seems to me that the flight part of "fight or flight" would take over and more of them might move a little quicker and with a little less order.  

I think the other side of that is the groups that charge headlong and aren't affected by any "opposing fire" put upon them.  Since they don't take hits, there are no lines to dress, or guys don't hesitate as the person next to them is marching and then suddenly not there.

I am sure we can find accounts of charges that went forward with a surge and then took a volley and hesitated then surged forward again..

Can there be an organized withdrawl or rear guard action?  I think so.. but even then you need to consider distances.  

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lhsnj wrote :  Can there be an organized withdrawl or rear guard action?  I think so.. but even then you need to consider distances.

Greg,

Sure there can. Just read the history of the battle you are trying to portray and fight the way they did. Just think of all the possibliities! Attacking units going to ground, while supporting troops march over them. Supporting units lie down and allow a retreating unit to pass over them. Retreating units fall back at the run, regroup and go back into the fight again.

There is one major problem, fighting in broken formations requires far more discipline and training than staying in the tight drill field formations we normally use. I'm firmly convinced many reenactor officers are just afraid of losing control of their troops.  

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Bill wrote :   Greg, Sure there can. Just read the history of the battle you are trying to portray and fight the way they did. Just think of all the possibliities! Attacking units going to ground, while supporting troops march over them. Supporting units lie down and allow a retreating unit to pass over them. Retreating units fall back at the run, regroup and go back into the fight again. There is one major problem, fighting in broken formations requires far more discipline and training than staying in the tight drill field formations we normally use. I'm firmly convinced many reenactor officers are just afraid of losing control of their troops.

I wonder if that is because instead of having 30, 50, 100 man companies that have drilled together, we have 30 man companies that were thrown together on Saturday morning taken out for an hour of drill and then told.. you will fight together this afternoon.

When we fall in with you guys, I don't think it is as much of an issue because we have worked together for so long that the command structure works well.  But not all groups are like that.

I think it would be neat to see a unit that hunkers down and goes to ground at a battle.  I know that we did something like that at Summer 62 with the Brawners Farm battle.  To march out and be caught in the cross fire and just go to ground and stay there.

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Bill wrote :   Greg, Sure there can. Just read the history of the battle you are trying to portray and fight the way they did. Just think of all the possibliities! Attacking units going to ground, while supporting troops march over them. Supporting units lie down and allow a retreating unit to pass over them. Retreating units fall back at the run, regroup and go back into the fight again. There is one major problem, fighting in broken formations requires far more discipline and training than staying in the tight drill field formations we normally use. I'm firmly convinced many reenactor officers are just afraid of losing control of their troops.

I wonder how many officers:
-Just don't know how to properly handle their men?
-Are afraid to try?
-Unit leaderships, won't try something new in leiu of burning powder.

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GrumpyDave wrote :   I wonder how many officers: -Just don't know how to properly handle their men? -Are afraid to try? -Unit leaderships, won't try something new in leiu of burning powder.

Grumpy,

I've found our fixation on maintaining perfect alignment is often a scenario killer. As an example, a unit is supposed to retreat; but can't, because it runs into the next line of troops. Everything grinds to a halt, while the officers figure out how to get around each other's units. (Or don't!   )  

Sort of like when an officer moves his men in front of a battery. You'd never do that. Why would you want to stop their fire? They're helping you.

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GrumpyDave wrote : Sort of like when an officer moves his men in front of a battery. You'd never do that. Why would you want to stop their fire? They're helping you.

or in front of another infantry unit.

I encountered this at a Cedar Creek one year.  We were firing and holding our line, and I was checking the end of our line when I was approached by a Capt who wanted me to stop firing so they could pass across my front.  I suggested he go behind me and we will continue to fire and cover them.  His 1st Sgt agreed that was a better idea..

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There is one major problem, fighting in broken formations requires far more discipline and training than staying in the tight drill field formations we normally use. I'm firmly convinced many reenactor officers are just afraid of losing control of their troops.

You might be right here.  I think this takes more than just a qualified officer.  It takes NCO's who can rally and organize the small groups to be able to do this.

If your NCO's can't command a small section, then you can't break the unit down and have to work as one big lump.  

One of the things we have started doing during our spring drill is giving anyone who has been in the Cpl position during the previous season a chance to run the Company drill.  To get a feel for movement and thinking of commands to keep the unit from becoming inverted.  

Bill, the "afraid of losing control" phenomenon explains some other practices I'd like to see less of.  For example, always firing by volley instead of by file/at will.  Besides being less realistic (somewhere I have quotes to support the idea of firing by file being the usual fire employed) it makes the officer antsy about the time it takes to reload, leading to the folks who should be watching their men to keep them safe instead telling them to hurry up.

But the problem of discipline and training is there, too.  Many units don't have enough people to regularly do meaningful company (much less battalion) drill, and when they do they don't quite know what to cover.

On the more constructive side I can see a couple of things I'd like to draft up and circulate in retirement besides updates on the School of the Clerk and firper finances.  How about:

a.  A three or four page guideline on how to behave in combat, including suggested rules for taking hits, and

b.  A similarly-sized guide on the dozen maneuvers most likely to be required in a reenactment, including a couple of the things we've been talking about.

I feel if I could draft something like that, I couldn then circulate it in this forum and get some useful feedback without being chewed out too much.  It could lead to something we could present to the USV and ANV, as well as Anders for the upcoming cycle, as well as anyone else who might want to do something similar.  

I'm thinking of an analog to the safety regs -- think of them as sanity regs.

On the other hand, once I leave government service I might run out of spare time

Michael,

Just my 2 cents about the "firing by volley". I have read many accounts of regiments or brigades being put into action firing a mass volley for the effect of "announcing their arrival", but afterward the "rolling sound" of the musketry is more often described. Firing by file and independent fire kept the enemy at bay. Any officer worth his salt knew that if his opponent kept emptying his rifles en masse eventually he could be charged quickly with nothing but empty muskets to defend himself. Taters like it but I doubt it in the real thing.

Mike

Agreed.  In addition to preferring to fire by file and will, there is some doubt whether any unit could maintain controlled volleys under actual combat conditions.  

Ardant du Picq talks about it in his "Memorandum on Infantry Fire" (an appendix to "Battle Studies"):

"Undoubtedly at the Potsdam maneuvers the Prussian infantry used only salvos executed admirably. An unbelievable discipline kept the soldier in place and in line. Barbaric punishments were incorporated in the military code. Blows, the whip, executions, punished the slightest derelictions. Even N. C. O.'s were subjected to blows with the flat of the sword. Yet all this was not enough on the field of battle; a complete rank of non-commissioned officer file closers was also needed to hold the men to their duty.

"M. Carion-Nisas said, 'These file-closers hook their halberds together and form a line that cannot be broken.' In spite of all this, after two or three volleys, so says General Renard, whom we believe more than charitable, there is no power of discipline which can prevent regular fire from breaking into fire at will....

"Let us get to the truth of the matter. Frederick's veterans, in spite of their discipline and drill, are unable to follow the methods taught and ordered. They are no more able to execute fire at command than they are to execute the ordered advance of the Potsdam maneuver field. They use fire at will."

I tend to think that if the Prussian Army of Frederick the Great couldn't maintain volley fire in action, it's unrealistic to do so in a civil war reenactment, especially when we know that tactical doctrine tended toward fire at will.

Guys,

As far as I know, there's no such thing as "Fire at Will". The command is "Fire by Files", from the right or left. The troops would fire by file and continue to load and fire as quickly as they could, until they were given the order to "Cease Fire".

My guess the usual "real world" situation was the troops would fire a volly and then it was everyman for himself, shooting just as fast as they could. That's not to say, volley fire couldn't be very effective. The 5th. Texas pretty well distroyed the 5th. New York Zouaves, with just one volley, during the Second Manassas battle. From my reading, volley fire was almost always used when the enemy was too far away to over run the position in the time it takes to reload. (150 to 200 yards)  

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Bill wrote : Guys, As far as I know, there's no such thing as "Fire at Will". The command is "Fire by Files", from the right or left. The troops would fire by file and continue to load and fire as quickly as they could, until they were given the order to "Cease Fire". My guess the usual "real world" situation was the troops would fire a volly and then it was everyman for himself, shooting just as fast as they could. That's not to say, volley fire couldn't be very effective. The 5th. Texas pretty well distroyed the 5th. New York Zouaves, with just one volley, during the Second Manassas battle. From my reading, volley fire was almost always used when the enemy was too far away to over run the position in the time it takes to reload. (150 to 200 yards)

There is also the "slaughter" of the 8th NY at Cross Keys/Port Republic.  We recreated that one at Shenandoah 62 and the account of the volley into that unit is pretty impressive.

I thought the manuals have fire by files was always from the right.  

Hardees 1855:
1. Fire by file. 2. Company. 3; READY. 4. Commence firing.

56. The third and fourth commands will be executed as prescribed in the school of the soldier, No. 275 and following.

57. The fire will be commenced by the right file of the company; the next file will take aim at the instant the first brings down pieces to re-load, and so on to the left; but this progression will only be observed in the first discharge, after which each man will re-load and fire without regulating himself by others, conforming himself to what is prescribed in the school of the soldier, No. 280.

Gilhams 1860:
1. Fire by file. 2. Company. 8. READY. 4. Commence firing.

   The third and fourth commands will be executed as prescribed in the school of the soldier.
   The fire will be commenced by the right file of the company; the next file will take aim at the instant the first brings down pieces to reload, and so on to the left; but this progression will only be observed in the first discharge, after which each man will reload and fire without regulating himself by others, conforming himself to what is prescribed in the school of the soldier.

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lhsnj wrote :   I thought the manuals have fire by files was always from the right.

Thanks Greg,

Another of my Reenactorisms exposed.  

That makes my life easier. I can now stop yelling "Fire by Files, By the Right File". I often got tonguetied on that!

I remember one event quite a few years back (don't remember the event name). We approached the battle by column of companies, as the companies went into line each company as it came on line began firing by files. It was impressive as the rolling fire went down the line right to left.