for battle, was formed in three ranks. On the eve of the battle of
Leipsic, Napoleon, finding himself greatly outnumbered by the allies,
ordered his infantry to deploy in two ranks, in order that his front
might approximate in length to that of the enemy. This formation had,
however, been adopted by the British some years before, and had been
used with great success against the assaulting French columns, in many
of Wellington’s battles in Spain, where the steadfast Anglo-Saxon
soldiery was able to maintain the “thin red line,” and throw the
fire of every musket against the denser formation of its foes. It
was not until the British troops encountered, upon our own soil, an
Anglo-Saxon opponent as steadfast as themselves, and better skilled
in marksmanship, that they were unable to achieve a victory over
their enemies. True, our raw militia was everywhere beaten when it
encountered the disciplined soldiers of Great Britain, but our regular
troops at Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane gallantly defeated the choice
veterans of Wellington’s campaigns; and, at New Orleans, an army
composed mainly of hardy backwoodsmen, trained in Indian lighting, and
expert in the use of the rifle, hurled back, with frightful carnage,
experienced British soldiers who had habitually triumphed over the best
veterans of the French empire.
The battle of New Orleans marked the introduction of the rifle as a
formidable arm for infantry. It was by no means a new weapon, for it
had been invented in Germany in 1498; but it had not been used to any
extent in military service, mainly because of the slowness of loading.
The capabilities of the rifle in the hands of an army of expert
marksmen were, however, made so manifest by Jackson’s great victory
that the attention of military men was turned towards the weapon which
had enabled a crude army to overwhelm the choicest troops of Europe.
[Illustration: MINIÉ BALL.]
Yet it was not until 1850 that a practically efficient military rifle
appeared. This was the invention of Captain Minié, of the French army,
and was the well-known “Minié rifle,” long familiar to troops on both
continents. The weapon was a muzzle-loader, and its projectile, the
“Minié ball,” was of a conoidal shape, as shown in the accompanying
figure. The ball being slightly smaller in diameter than the bore of
the piece, the loading was easily accomplished, and the shock of the
explosion against the cavity at the base of the bullet forced the lead
into the grooves of the bore and caused the shot to take up a rotary
motion on its axis—in other words, “to take the rifling.”
Rifles, mostly constructed on principles similar to those on which
Minié’s weapon was based, were soon in use in the armies of all great
nations. The rifle musket, “model of 1855,” adopted by the United
States, is shown in the accompanying figure.
In 1817 percussion caps were invented in the United States, but some
time elapsed before they were introduced into military use; and though
the “percussion rifle” was known in 1841, the victorious troops which
went with Scott in the brilliant campaign from Vera Cruz to the City
of Mexico, six years later, were armed with the flint-lock musket. In
1833, Colonel Colt invented the first practical revolving pistol. This
weapon, especially in its present perfected form, is so well known as
to need no description. The first pattern of Colt’s revolver used paper
cartridges and percussion caps.
In the long period of peace which Europe enjoyed after the battle
of Waterloo, but little change was made in the organization of the
armies of the great powers; and in the Crimean war (1855–56) the
composition of the English, French, and Russian armies did not differ
materially from the constitution of the forces of the same nations
in the Napoleonic wars. Marked changes had, however, been made in the
nature of the weapons; most of the English and a part of the French
infantry being armed with the rifle, though the Russian infantry,
with the exception of a few selected regiments, were still armed with
the smooth-bore musket. Though the extreme range of the rifle at this
time did not exceed eight hundred yards, and was inaccurate at half
that distance, it was, nevertheless, a formidable weapon in comparison
with the infantry musket of Napoleonic times. Rifled siege guns were
employed by the British at Sebastopol, but they were not a success,
and were soon withdrawn from the batteries. A striking indication of
the increased range of artillery was furnished at Sebastopol, when the
besiegers established their first parallel at a distance of 1300 yards
from the Russian works.
[Illustration: ARMSTRONG FIELD GUN.]
In the Italian war of 1859 rifled cannon appeared for the first time
upon the field of battle. They were employed by the French, and to
their use was largely due the victories of the French and Sardinians
over the Austrians. For many years the attention of artillerists had
been devoted to the production of serviceable rifled artillery, and as
early as 1846 an iron breech-loading rifled cannon had been invented
in France by Major Cavalli. This gun fired a shell not dissimilar in
shape to the projectile employed in the Minié rifled musket. In 1854,
experiments with a Cavalli gun gave very satisfactory results, both in
range and accuracy; but the breech mechanism seemed dangerously weak,
and the rifled guns, adopted by the French and used with such effect in
Italy, were muzzle-loaders.
In 1854 a breech-loading rifled field-piece was invented by Sir William
George Armstrong. It was made of wrought-iron bars coiled into spiral
tubes, and welded by forging. The breech was closed with a screw which
could be quickly withdrawn for loading and sponging the gun. The
projectile was made of cast-iron, thinly coated with lead, and was
(with its coating) slightly larger in diameter than the bore. The lead
coating was crushed into the grooves by the force of the powder, the
necessary rotation being thus given to the projectile. This gun gave
excellent results in range and in rapidity and accuracy of fire, but
it was not until some years after its invention that it was adopted in
the British service. Other breech-loading cannon soon appeared; but
in the United States army the 3-inch Rodman muzzle-loading rifled gun
was preferred to any breech-loader then devised, and was used with
great effect throughout the War of Secession. This gun was made by
wrapping boiler plate around an iron bar, so as to form a cylindrical
mass, the whole being brought to a welding heat in a furnace and then
passed through rollers to unite it solidly. The piece was then bored
and turned to the proper shape and dimensions. The projectiles for
rifled guns were generally coated with soft metal, or furnished with
an expanding base or cup of similar metal or _papier maché_; though in
some systems they were furnished with studs or buttons which fitted
into the grooves of the bore. In the case of the Whitworth gun, the
projectile was made nearly of the exact size and form of the bore, so
as to fit accurately into the grooves.
[Illustration: RODMAN GUN.]
Breech-loading cannon were not, however, quickly adopted, owing,
perhaps, to conservatism on the part of artillerists, and partly
because the guns first produced did not seem to give appreciably
better results in range, accuracy, or even in rapidity of fire than
the muzzle-loaders. Not only were breech-loading cannon adopted with
seeming reluctance, but rifled cannon generally were looked upon with
disfavor by many artillerists of the old school. Hohenlohe tells of an
old Prussian general of artillery who was so prejudiced against the
rifled innovation that he requested, on his death-bed, that the salute
over his grave should be fired with nothing but smooth-bore guns. It
must be confessed, however, that the 12-pound smooth-bore Napoleon gun
long held its own against the new rifled field-pieces, as many a bloody
battle in our Civil War well attested.
[Illustration: GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT.]
In the manufacture of heavy guns the United States for some time
led the world. In 1860, General Rodman, of the Ordnance Department,
produced the first 15-inch gun ever made. This gun was made of
cast-iron, and was cast on a hollow core, cooled by a stream of water
passing through it, by which means the metal nearest the bore was
made the hardest and most dense, and the tendency towards bursting
was thus reduced to a minimum. General Rodman was also the inventor
of the hollow cake powder, which consisted of cakes perforated with
numerous small holes for the passage of the flame, thus enabling the
powder to be progressively consumed, and causing the amount of gas at
the last moments of the discharge to be greater than at the instant
of ignition. A large-grain powder, known as “mammoth powder,” was
afterwards devised by him to produce the same results. It will be seen
later that this invention has rendered possible the powerful ordnance
of the present day; and it is perhaps not too much to say, that Rodman
is really thus the father of the modern high-power guns.
At the beginning of the War of Secession the heaviest gun in the
United States was the 15-inch Rodman, the projectile of which weighed
320 lbs., the charge of powder weighing 35 lbs. Next to this was the
10-inch Columbiad, which fired a 100-lb. shell with a charge of 18
lbs. of powder. The effective range of these guns was a little less
than three miles. The heaviest mortar was of 13-inch caliber, fired a
200-lb. shell, with a charge of 20 lbs. of powder, and had a range of
4325 yards. This mortar was, like all others then in use, manipulated
by means of handspikes, and not only was much less powerful, but was
much more clumsy than the admirable mortar of the present day.
[Illustration: OLD SMOOTH-BORE MORTAR.]
The Crimean and Italian wars had foreshadowed the passing away of the
old military conditions and the dawning of a new era of warfare. But
it was in the gigantic struggle which rocked our own country for four
years that the developments of modern warfare really commenced. At the
beginning of this great conflict the ranges of 1000 to 1200 yards for
field guns, and of 1500 to 2000 yards for heavy guns, were as great
as could be secured with any degree of accuracy. The infantry rifle
with which the Union and Confederate armies were armed had an extreme
range of but 1000 yards, and a really effective range of only half that
distance. The rifle was a muzzle-loader, which required nine distinct
motions in loading besides those necessary in priming the piece with
the percussion cap then used. The tactics employed at first in all arms
of the service did not differ materially from the methods employed
in the Napoleonic wars; and a line of American infantry deployed
for battle in two ranks, shoulder to shoulder, scarcely differed in
anything but the color of its uniforms from the “thin red line” of
Wellington’s warriors. All this was to be changed; but it was not only
in the matter of arms and tactics that a revolution was to be effected,
for new forces hitherto untried were to be employed in the art of war.
The War of Secession was not only one of the most gigantic conflicts
ever waged on earth, but was one which will always be of interest to
the military student because of its remarkable developments in the
science of warfare, and one which will ever be a source of pride to
Americans because of the grim earnestness and stubborn valor displayed
by the contending armies. From first to last, more than two millions
of men were enrolled by the United States, and in the final campaign
1,100,000 men were actually bearing arms in the service of the
Union. The infantry was organized in companies of one hundred men,
ten companies forming a regiment. At first, three or four regiments
constituted a brigade, though it was afterwards formed of a greater
number when the regiments became depleted by the losses of battle.
Three brigades generally composed a division, which also habitually
included two batteries of artillery and a small detachment of cavalry
for duty as orderlies and messengers. Three or more divisions
constituted an army corps. The cavalry was formed into brigades and
divisions, which in the later years of the war were combined to form,
in each of the large armies, a corps of cavalry. It was in command of
such corps of mounted troops that Sheridan, J. E. B. Stuart, Merritt,
and Wilson achieved their great fame. The batteries first distributed
to divisions, or even brigades, were afterwards assigned to the army
corps, and all guns not thus employed were grouped into a corps of
reserve artillery.
It is a curious fact that the two factors most important in warfare
were found to be two inventions designed primarily for the interests
of peace, namely, the railroad and the electric telegraph. Steam and
electricity had both been used in the Crimean and Italian wars; but
it was in the War of Secession that they received their first great
and systematic application. The effect of the use of railroads in
war not only enables armies to be more rapidly concentrated than was
formerly the case, but renders it possible to supply them to an extent
and with a certainty that would otherwise be out of the question. The
difference between the supply of an army by wagon and by rail was
clearly shown in the siege of Paris, in 1870–71, where six trains a
day fed the whole besieging army, while it is estimated that nearly
ten thousand wagons would have been required for the same purpose.
Moreover, the force of troops necessarily detached to protect a line
of railroad communications is not nearly so great as the force that
would be necessary to guard the innumerable wagon or pack trains that
would otherwise be required. In the opinion of the best military
authorities, railroads, had they been in existence, would have enabled
Napoleon to conquer Russia, and with it the world; while, without the
aid of railroads, the successful invasion of the South by the armies of
the Union would have been an impossibility. It is only while it keeps
moving that an army can “live on the country.” It is like a swarm of
locusts, consuming everything within reach; and if it be compelled
to halt, whether for battle or from other cause, it must be supplied
from bases in the rear, or it will speedily disintegrate from hunger
alone. This fact was fully appreciated by General Sherman, when he left
Atlanta in his famous “march to the sea;” for though he expected to,
and did, live upon the country, he nevertheless took the precaution to
carry with him a wagon train containing twenty days’ rations for his
entire army.
In the War of Secession the electric telegraph first appeared on
the field of battle. The telegraph train became a prominent feature
of all our armies; and the day’s march was hardly ended before the
electric wire, rapidly established by an expert corps, connected the
headquarters of the army with those of each army corps, division,
and brigade. But it was not in its employment on the actual field of
battle that the telegraph found its most valuable military use. It
enabled generals, separated by hundreds of miles, to be in constant
communication with each other, and rendered it possible for Grant to
control from his headquarters hut at City Point the movements of the
armies of Sherman, Thomas, and Sheridan in combined operations, which
enabled each to perform, in harmony with the others, its part in the
mighty plan.
[Illustration: SPENCER CARBINE.]
It followed as naturally as day follows night that a shrewd
and intelligent people, engaged in a desperate struggle for
self-preservation, would avail themselves of all means provided by
military science for carrying out the contest in which they were
engaged. Iron-clad vessels had been devised in both England and
France, but they were merely frigates designed on the old lines and
partly covered with a sheathing of armor. With characteristic energy
and ingenuity the Americans, ignoring old traditions and seeking
the shortest road to the fulfillment of a manifest want, produced
simultaneously the Merrimac and the Monitor, the former resembling
“a gabled house submerged to the eaves,” and the latter looking like
“a Yankee cheese-box upon a raft.” These novel vessels met in their
memorable combat at Hampton Roads, and the booming of their guns
sounded the death knell of the old wooden navies.
As with war vessels, so with firearms. New conditions were met with
inventive genius and mechanical skill. Though the great mass of our
troops continued throughout the conflict to use the muzzle-loading
rifle, breech-loaders were in the hands of many thousands of our
soldiers before the close of the great contest. In 1864 the cavalry
of Sheridan and Wilson and many regiments of infantry were armed with
breech-loading carbines, which gave them a great advantage over their
opponents. The effect of the breech-loaders upon the Confederates was
unpleasantly surprising to them, and the Southern soldiers are said to
have remarked with dismal humor that “the Yankees loaded all night and
fired all day.”
The principal breech-loading arms in use in the Union armies were the
Sharps and the Spencer. In the Sharps carbine the barrel was closed
by a sliding breech-piece which moved at right angles with the axis
of the piece, the breech being opened and closed by pulling down and
raising up the trigger-guard. The Spencer carbine was a magazine
rifle, and was greatly superior to the Sharps. The magazine of the
rifle lay in the butt of the stock, and was capable of holding seven
cartridges. As the cartridge was fired and ejected another was pushed
forward into the breech by a spiral spring in the butt of the piece.
The Spencer carbine used metallic cartridges. The introduction of these
cartridges was one of the most remarkable advances in the art of war
made during the present century. The cartridge in use in 1864–65 is
shown in the accompanying figure; it consisted of a thin copper case
firmly attached to the bullet containing the powder, and having at
its base a small metallic anvil, in a cavity of which was placed the
fulminate, which was exploded by means of a firing pin, driven in by
a blow of the hammer. The advantages of the metallic cartridge can
scarcely be overestimated; it rendered obsolete the percussion cap, and
being water-proof it did away with the ever-present bugbear of damp
ammunition. The old injunction, “Put your trust in God and keep your
powder dry,” has consequently lost much of its force; for while it is
to be hoped that the soldier will continue to place his reliance upon
Providence, the latter part of the advice can now be safely ignored.
[Illustration: METALLIC CARTRIDGE OF 1864–65.]
Among the many advantages possessed by the breech-loader over the
muzzle-loader, the principal ones are greater rapidity of fire, ease
of loading in any position, diminished danger of accidents in loading,
and the impossibility of putting more than one charge in the piece at
the same time. This last advantage is by no means slight. Among 27,000
muzzle-loading muskets picked up on the battlefield of Gettysburg, at
least 24,000 were loaded. Of these about half contained two charges,
one fourth held from three to ten charges, and one musket contained
twenty-three cartridges.
The failure of the Americans to produce during the great war a
practical breech-loading field-gun is doubtless due to the fact
that the field artillery in use at that time answered fully all the
requirements then existing. Owing to the nature of the country in which
the armies were operating, the range of the 3-inch rifled gun was fully
as great as could have been desired; and on the broken and wooded
ground which generally formed our field of battle, the smooth-bore
Napoleon gun, firing shrapnel and canister, seemed to have reached
almost the acme of destructiveness. Moreover, the muzzle-loading
cannon, both rifled and smooth-bore, were served with such celerity
as to make it a matter of doubt for some years after whether the
introduction of breech-loading field-guns would materially increase
the rapidity of fire. It was not until infantry fire had greatly
increased in range and rapidity that a further improvement in field
artillery became necessary. In siege artillery, heavy rifled guns of
the Rodman and the Parrott type appeared. The Parrott gun was of cast
iron, strengthened by shrinking a coiled band of wrought iron over the
portion of the piece surrounding the charge. The famous “Swamp Angel,”
used in the siege of Charleston, was a Parrott gun. The sea-coast
artillery consisted mainly of smooth-bores of large calibre, which
were able to contend successfully with any armor then afloat. It is a
curious fact that the war, so to speak, between guns and armor has been
incessantly waged since the introduction of the latter, every advance
of armor towards the degree of invulnerability being met with the
production of a gun capable of piercing it. The sea-coast artillery of
the United States in the Civil War met fully every demand to which it
was subjected.
The War of Secession produced the first practical machine-gun,—the
Gatling,—though such guns were not used to any extent. The machine-gun
has, in fact, passed through a long period of gestation, and it is
only in recent years that it can be said to have attained its full
birth. Our great war was also noted for the introduction of torpedoes.
These peculiar weapons had, it is true, been devised may years before;
and Robert Fulton had, in the early part of the century, devoted his
inventive genius to the production of a submarine torpedo, which,
however, was never practically tested in war. It was not until the
contest of 1861–65 that torpedoes were of any practical use. The high
explosives of the present day being then unknown, these torpedoes
depended for their destructive force upon gunpowder alone. Yet crude
and insignificant though they were in comparison with the mighty
engines of destruction now known by the same name, they accomplished
great results in more than one instance. The destruction of the
Housatonic off Charleston, the sinking of the Tecumseh in Mobile Bay,
and Cushing’s daring destruction of the Albemarle, gave notice to the
world that a new and terrible engine of warfare had made its appearance.
But it was not merely by the production of new weapons that the
great American war was characterized. It marked the turning-point
in tactics as well. The first efforts of our great armies of raw
volunteers were as crude as the warfare of untrained troops always is,
and it was fortunate that we were opposed to a foe as unpracticed as
ourselves; but as the troops gained experience in war, acquired the
necessary military instruction,—in brief, learned their trade and
became regulars in all but name,—they displayed not only a steadfast
prowess, but a military skill that placed the veteran American soldier
at the head of the warriors of the world. The art of constructing
hasty intrenchments on the field of battle grew out of the quickness
of the American soldier to appreciate the necessity of providing
defensive means to neutralize, in some degree, the greatly increased
destructive effect of improved arms. In this respect he was thirteen
years in advance of the European soldier, for hasty intrenchments did
not appear in Europe until the Turco-Russian War. True, intrenchment on
the field of battle was as old as war itself; but the American armies
were the first that developed a system of quickly covering the entire
front of an army with earthworks hastily thrown up in the presence of
the enemy, and often actually under fire. Skirmishers were no longer
used merely to feel and develop the enemy; but in many of our battles,
notably in Sherman’s campaign in Georgia, the engagement was begun, and
fought to the end, by strong skirmish lines successively reinforced
from the main body, which they gradually absorbed in the course of the
action. Here, too, the American soldier was fully six years in advance
of the European warrior; for it was not until the Germans had been
warned by the terrific losses incurred in their earlier battles with
the French, in 1870, that they evolved from their own experience a
system of tactics, the essential principles of which had already been
demonstrated on the Western Continent.
The increased range of artillery again received a practical
illustration; for at the siege of Fort Pulaski the Union batteries
first opened fire at ranges varying from 1650 to 3400 yards from the
Confederate fort. At the siege of Charleston shells were thrown into
the city from a battery nearly five miles distant.