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Kennon's statement that "as for the rifle it had little or no affect on tactics." was incredible, as if a board of military historians had just met and came to that determination, and passed on said determination only to Kennon,
This isn't my determination. It is more or less a summation of what Griffith in his "Battle Tactics of the Civil War" and Nosworthy's "The Bloody Crucible of Courage" came too. They basically are refuting the earlier authors who decided that the reason the Civil War had so few decisive battles was that the Rifled Musket changed Napoleonic combat shifted the balance to the defender. Who with his longer range guns could cut down infantry attacks before they came within a hundred yards and made cavalry obsolete except for scouting. They provide considerable statistics showing that the average fire fight distance only increased slightly from the early 1800's to 1860's due to the rifle. Most fire fights took place at less than 100 yards just like for Napoleon. The Brown Bess musket could actually deliver a higher rate of fire than the Springfield (3-4 shots per minutes).
Their conclusion that the rifled musket did not significantly alter the battlefield is probably correct. I haven't seen any better analysis yet that would contradict that conclusion.
But logically if you consider the situation you can see why a typical unit would not fire at ranges longer than 100 yards. First being the ability to inflict significant number of casualties to make the effort worth while. At 300 yard range a marksman could hit a man rather consistently. Unfortunately, the average soldier wasn't and had received little training in how to sight is weapon or estimate ranges. As Nosworthy pointed out an error estimating range of 10-20 yards meant you missed. Combine this with the fact you only carried 40 round of ammo. Then add in that more than likely your target is a moving target. After all if they aren't advancing on you they aren't a threat. Would you as a regimental commander allow your troops to use that ammo up firing at an enemy at 300 yards or would you withhold your fire to the more effective range of 100 or less?
It is also interesting that the military still estimates that the typical fire fight in the 21st Century takes place at 100 yards. WW I fighting changed due the machine gun which had a dramatic effect on the balance of attack and defense.
How battles were fought had changed but not due to the rifle. Something else is the cause. Hebert reference is a very interesting post and I am still analyzing that.
Tactics have a number of levels. Their are small group (how 4-12 men support each other), company, regiment, brigade, division, Corps and Army. Hardee described how the individual soldier and battalion executed the various evolution on the battlefield. It was still largely based on Scott's but Casey's book is the one North and South learned from. If you study these manuals you will find they were primarily drill manuals telling how to get the regiment from column to line, etc. They covered the mechanics but had little instruction on when to use them. All are heavily based on Jomini and French tactical doctrine so it is not surprising that Civil War armies attempted to use Napoleonic tactics rightly or wrongly. Hardee added the idea of Zouave style of fighting but not in a form that allowed its adoption other than wearing the red pants. Both Hardee and Casey dropped the third volume of Scott's book which took the drills one step further and told how to use the regiment as part of a larger formation.
Which leaves us with knowing that a typical Civil War regiment knew how to form a line of battle but apparently not how to make a decisive assault. Giffith takes his analysis further to blame it on the "Engineer" versus "Infantry" doctrine of how to fight. I don't agree with his conclusions there because they are based to much on how the army's fought in 1861 and later in 1864. The article Hebert referenced had a more interesting view on this so I need to study it a bit.