American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Interesting Tidbit about infantry tactics from the Chickamauga Blog

Tactics: Wilder’s Brigade
January 10, 2010 by davidpowell334

Website: http://chickamaugablog.wordpress.com/

One aspect of Chickamauga that I find really fascinating is when I turn over documentary evidence of tactical evolution in the primary sources. Often it’s just a casual, off the cuff reference: easily missed if one weren’t watching for it. Private Henry Dillman of the 31st Indiana, for example, restricted his discussion of his regiment’s fighting on September 19th to one line: “The 31st fought in her accustomed way,â€

Wilder's system was new since it was made possible by the higher fire rate and easier loading of the Spencer. It still had serious command control problems and only worked well with highly trained and motivated soldiers. The problem being that a 500 man regiment using a two rank line with 5 yard spacing spread out over 1250 yards making command control by voice and drum signal very difficult. This is why armies continued to use mass formations right through WWI. The radio is what was needed to make the system really work.

Willich's tactics weren't new and had numerous drawbacks. It is a variation on the caracole fire system used in the late 1600's and early 1700's except in denser formations since the guns required much longer loading times. They changed over time as the match lock was replaced with better mechanisms but the ranks were anywhere from six to ten deep with the front rank firing while the last rank passed in front. The movement tended to disrupt the formation so most armies once they had muskets switched to platoon fire that allowed a quarter to the battalion to fire producing a relatively heavy amount of fire with semicontinous fire as each platoon fired and reloaded after the other.

It's most obvious drawback is being four rank making them a much easier target to hit and providing the penetrating power of artillery to have something to penetrate. It also had the drawback of disrupting the regiment as it tried to coordinate all this movement while advancing under fire.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
2/3/IV AoM (CSA)

Kennon is right, advancing fire is a much older concept. In the 17th century the slow loading musketeers formed in deep multi-rank formations (alongside pike blocks) and used 'fire by introduction' to close with the enemy, with each man rotating with the other men in his file. To disengage they used 'fire by extraducion' which was the same thing in reverse. I guess that with the short range of those early muskets and their brutal effectiveness (the bullets in those days were huge!) it was detrimental to morale to manoeuvre within range and let the unshaken enemy get their volley in first. Better to get your shots in whilst approaching even though you wouldn't get anything like the same impact as a massed ranks volley fired from the standstill.


[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/acwgc/acwgc_personal_record.htm"]General Antony Barlow[/url]
[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/acwgc/western_theater.htm"]Commander, Western Theater, Union Army[/url]