another-- there is expert. he's putting on the finishing touches of his three volume magnum opus. these definitive works on the ballot. are those of you who have read the books, you know the first two volumes are exhaustive. they are a must for every single civil war library. twiceave not once, but has the recipients of their book of the year award. the only author to be selected for that word, twice. he is a graduate of the virginia military institute. be reevaluated

readers to rethink what -- was all about. there are fantastic things to come about. he's he's here tonight to set the table for us. , you need to understand how attacks take place. how do these attacks get set up. how does an army operates [applause] --thank you david: thank you for having me. in the next 15 minutes i hope to tell you all into competent brigade and division commanders are a you will have had more instruction that many of the actual men did. so, great attacks. 10,000 men from

an armed mom? and that its organization and control? you have probably heard a lot about civil war tactics. when you go to battlefields maybe you have seen reenactments. two ranks, close order, shoulder to shoulder. i won't spend too much time on regimental tactics. i do want to hit 1.i think is important. in any war, in any time, weapons dictate tactics. you have probably heard that the modernar was fought with weapons and antiquated tactics, and that's not quite true. the civil war is actually an evolutionary war, as both weapons and the men who employ those weapons learn different

methods to fight with. in 1861, when the armies went to war, many of them carried muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets. the rate of fire of a is roughlyng musket three rounds a minute, the same in theas roughly american revolution or the napoleonic wars. that is a good average. in order to mask firepower, the armies had to mask. menrolling those masses of became a difficult proposition on the civil war battlefield, just as in earlier times. in 1861, the united states army went to war with a manual called a revision of their 1830's manual, commonly known as

parties tactics. you probably heard the name. the standarded u.s. army infantry tactics in the 1850's, adopted some things , an updatednch something to make formations move more quick the on the battlefield primarily. 1830's u.s. army manual was a three volume manual. general hardy, soon to be general party in 1861, general 2rdy only updated the first volumes of that manual. the army went to work, brigade and divisional commanders were left to rely on the tactics written by winfield scott. scott's manual of tactics was the third volume of this three volume set, and that's what

dictated how he would handle any formations above a regiment. beginning ofhe 1862, the u.s. army revise those tactics. hardy was now a confederate general, always a bad thing to be training under the enemies -- enemey's field manual. with some experimentation, the u.s. army wanted to update higher-level tactics. what today we would call the grand tactic level of warfare are hats in the 19th century but would be considered operational. the level above the regimental -- did itactical level do that right? it's definitely on.

this is what the primary difference was. this is two union infantry divisions. you see palmer's division on one side there and johnson's division. those are union divisions. this is a modified view of engagements during the battle. and then down below, you see the division of confederate soldiers. his division has five brigades. this is six union brigades facing off against five confederate brigades. that the union formations are what the military would now calls or formations, with a 4 regiments would have 2 regiments in front and 2 regiments behind. the confederates are going into battle facing scott's tactics,

scott's standard formation that envisioned all the regiments of a brigade, all lined up in a single frontline. -- front line. 4 regiments would have 2consider for a minute the frontages of a brigade using the two different formations. this confederate brigade down has -- his line of regiments here. he's facing off against baldwin's four regiments here. notice that baldwin's -- if baldwin were just alone here, jackson posner gate would extend past both his flanks. .hat's the key difference one-on-one, johnson's people would only be able to bring have the firepower to bear against the jackson's brigade.

formationn's possesses certain advantages that don't necessarily lead out a u.s. first glance. the other factor we have to consider when a civil war brigade or division goes into battle is control. look at where jackson's line is. this is the line of roughly 450 yards. ohioan,e, the first fifth kentucky, is a line of approximately 200 yards. you're supposed to be right where that red dot is, in the middle of your brigade or perhaps back here. but mostly here. if one of your regiments gets engaged, you have a distance of no more than 100 yards to go to your point of contact. suppose you're jackson.

suppose you are in the center of your brigade, you get engaged out here, you come over here to see what you are going to do, it will be almost 400 yards to the other end. it's beyond voice control, and it's beyond immediate sight. this is the primary reason why the union army adopts casey's tactics. it gives the brigade commander greater control and flexibility. you can respond more quickly to a crisis. he doesn't have to fight with those 4 regiments in this formation. he can bring the 33rd ohio up here, the sixth indiana up here. he can even turn those two regiments and form a flank if he needs to. it's designed to be a quick response flexible formation. as you are not outnumbered and as long as your flanks are supported by other

brigades downey line, -- down line, it's a relatively secure formation. without that support, the enemy brings to bear more firepower on you. those are essentially the difference is that a brigade , and anr has to decide interesting note about casey's tactics, even though the u.s. army officially adopts this formation on january 1, 1862, most federal brigades through the war won't really use this formation. rosecrans and later george it almostmy adopts universally. an order issued by the original army commander in april 1862 dictates that they will use this

formation and fight for this formation through the war. unlike perhaps today, when dr. and filters down more quickly, in 1862, 1863, our officers who were used to the old ways, fighting did not change very easily. its use is very intermittent in the other two main armies, the army of potomac and the army of the tennessee. even though it's the official doctrine, that doesn't mean it gets used that way. let's take a step up and talk about how division commanders are going to form for battle. this is an early war example and a mid-war example. to those two formations i talked about that commanderily brigade

decisions, we have some formations -- we have some divisional commanders who now have to make some decisions. divisional and core commanders received almost no training, no instruction, no theory about how .o conduct military operations they learned on the job, they .sed what they knew beauregard at the battle of shiloh is reputed to have created his confederate formation by putting one of his .ore in the frontline you probably know that albert johnson commanded the confederate army at shiloh. beauregard is the man who devised the battle order and true up the formation. he put one core and line directly behind it, and the

other two core filed in in what is known as column of brigade. vary,finitions of column depending on what level of command we are talking about. in a military sense, a column is a series of formations stacked one behind the other. whether they are packed tight or spread out, what was considered a playable distance so they could move more flexibility. a column of brigade would mean a brigade of infantry in line, all the regiments in line, and each brigade in that division would be stacked one behind the other. column.e this depth of the interesting thing to me about these two formations, and this one admittedly is harder to see, with stonewall jackson did something very similar. on his famous flank march that

unleashed his attack on the confederates onmay 2. -- on may 2. do bear with me with my technological skills. he moved up the center road and diploid astride the road and lineally 3 divisional straight bowl regard ends up being heavily criticized after the battle of shiloh for this formation. as the lines advance, the became intermingled. ultimately so badly confused that the commanders, they dropped the standard formation of became intermingled. ultimately so badly commanding d divisions and each basically took a sector of the line. a great deal of that confusion has to do with the fact that this is april of 1862. on both sides of the line, union and confederate, many of the men

involved in this battle barely knew how to fire their weapons, controle maneuver and large formations of troops on the battlefield. of even a year later, in may 1863, jackson's formations are going to take a long time to deploy. he's moving through wooded terrain, they become , the attack loses momentum as the commands lose organization, so much so that jackson's last division doesn't even really get into the fight. they run out of daylight before they can become engaged. these kinds of formations are extremely cumbersome. this is the way winfield scott envisioned these people to be was writingn he these manuals in 1825, 1830. winfield envisioned an army of 15,000 men.

imagine armies of 40,000 or 50,000, let alone 100,000. the united states was a small country. tohad an outstanding army speak of and the idea of a large-scale mass army was incomprehensible to the war department at the time. military commanders throughout the war, especially at the division and core level, going with different formations. maps, if yout the look with that critical eye towards how they are doing things, you begin to see this and see how to pick things out. he adopts a formation where he's he brings hisk,

divisions onto the battlefield, he has three divisions, each of three brigades. he will bring them into the battlefield in line, first with sedgwick's division there. first with sedgwick's division, and then french's division is supposed to be following. sumner is an old army man. he'snk to a certain extent also having trouble visualizing the idea that he commands as many men as he does. he largely a company's sedgwick's division into battle and forgets about his other two divisions. , sedgwick's people are heading this way across this map, french's division ends up peeling this way and attacking south, and later, his third

division under israel richardson will come from this way. sumner has attempted a formation of what we would call column of perhaps because he is too far forward, perhaps because he's too involved in what becomes sedgwick's battle, he loses control of the other 2 divisions. his combat power dissipates across a broad front. that doesn't necessarily hurt the federal. it would have been better had all three of sumner's divisions been able to act in concert. , but stillariation not fully effective. .aniel harvey hill

you are probably more familiar with them from his antietam experience. divisions, a court of roughly 10,000 men. each division is up three brigades. instead of attacking in a column formation, his first division under breckenridge is lined up here in his second division under clayburgh, which is lined up here. .hey go in side-by-side the fundamental flaw in this problem, or this formation. -- formation, is that all six brigades go into action, and do they have any reserves? do they have anybody who can help them if they get into trouble? to a certain extent they are supposed to. i have spent most of my time studying braxton bragg and the confederate army of tennessee,

and you will know the cooperation and coordination are largely theoretical in that army. the six brigades have a front acknowledge of more than a mile in width and no reserves and re you will notice the federals, they are fighting with casey's tactics and the union troops that the people are attacking are four and six lines deep. so they have plenty of reserves, plenty of ability to rotate the troops out when they out of ammunition and have fresh toops to meet any attack. as you might expect, the attack is a failure through no fault of

his own but attacking a for the tied position. breckenridge achieves success but he is never able to exploit success. o breckenridge's attack goes into this open area and turns and goes south somewhat in the union area. but what happens? he is not able to make any urther headaway and ejected by those union reserves. this is the fundamental problem of attacking is making sure that you have control over your formations as they go into battle and making sure you have adequate reserves close enough so you can push them forward, making sure you have the communications necessary to establish when they're needed, if a front line commander calls

for reserves like breckenridge did, is your upper commanders the next man up the food chain close enough to be able to control the battle and bring those reserves into the fight. it's a constant struggle for all civil war armies. we'll move to probably my last example. that particular map i just showed you was september 20, morning of september 20. the last example i think is very interesting. this is the union second corps in the wilderness. this is the attack on second day in the battle of wilderness and dawn attack. look at how many battle lines and how much depth. second corps has four divisions, t has two divisions behind the

road and two south of the road one behind the other. it's a large mass of troops. in theory, it's well concentrated, well supported with reserves, but of course they are attacking into the wilderness and even this attack will achieve considerable success against hill's' corps, but the chaos of battle and terrain will disorder all of the second corps divisions. there's more on that story, i'm sure. that i are variations wanted to show you, wanted to give you some sense of how much variation there was in the civil war battle, what the divisional and brigade and corps commanders were thinking about as they deployed their troops, how are they going to use their fire

power and maximize results. this is a solution or it's a problem that largely alludes those and frankly for of you who are familiar with european wars of the 18 70's and 1890's, they will experience many of the same problems right on up to world war i. world war i is another interesting war of evolution. we have this popular concept of lions led by donkeys, brave men and dull witnessed and ineffective commanders, but it's the same problem of try to have mass fire power and control formations in the face of increasingly deadly weapons. and the world war i equation has

changed radically because we have automatic weapons, mag zeen-fed weapons and more powerful artillery. that will give you a little bit a taste of what siffing war commanders. and you are ready to command, i assume. >> does anybody have questions for dave? speak directly into the icrophone. [inaudible] david: not on any formal level that i found. the confederates have their own tactical innovations, but those primarily come from the creation and use of the sharpshooter battalions, which is a whole different topic.

it's a fascinating one, but it's something that a couple of union commanders want to try but aren't allowed to. t 1864, the sharpshooter battalions. they are in the western armies, too, but they are becoming more and more effective on the battlefield, really sometimes startling so, even at the wilderness. >> what would the effect of artillery on these formations that you outlined and described? avid: the artillery firing at traditional battle line with all the recommendingments in a single line doesn't have as many targets in terms of penetration.

but until you got very close to civil war artillery within the last couple of hundred yards, artillery's effect was largely one of morale and disruption unless you've got something like a mile of open ground to cross and attempt to move in parade formation. under ideal conditions, artillery will dominate the battlefield. most civil war battlefields were not in ideal conditions. it is all heavily wooded terrain, just to give you one example. artillery in close quarters can be deadly. we understand the or familiar with the effects of cannister and even double cannister. but most of what artillery fires is shell and you need to get the

range pretty precise with shell in order for it to maximize effectiveness. it can be difficult. >> i was fascinated by the rotation issue. all during the war you have battles where generals try to -- out exhaustive troops [indiscernible] by the end of the war could we have good replacement? passage of about lines. actually i think certain armies are much better at it than others. the army at the cumberland because they used this formation

and drilled in the rotation of regular meants in and out of formations was very good. they do it all the time in the battles at stone's river and do it very frequently and almost never have tactical problems, never fall into disarray or lose ground. there are exceptions if they get hit in the middle of a passage line or get flanked, it would be a problem. other armies -- it all depends on the drill and how realistic those drills are. not to pick too much on the army of the potomac or the confederate armies, but i don't see a lot of sort of -- in the summer of 1862, the union armies and confederate armies in the east are fighting all the time.

they don't have the luxury of time quite the same way that the army that cumberland between 1863 and june when they kick off their first major offensive of 1863. they have almost 6 months where they do nothing but drill. they learn the new drill manuals and learn those steps from the bottom up and they become very, very proficient at it. so armies do it better than others, maybe is the short answer. >> thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> this history this evening, ohio state university's there is a talk about the supreme court case.