Hello all, this is my first post here. I have been fascinated with the history of different wars in American History, and living in Maryland has allowed me to visit lots of historical sites, including Gettysburg and recently last year Antietam.
While visiting Antietam, there was a small museum there with artwork depicting different events from that battle, as well as a short movie detailing the battle. One of the major areas of the battle was a battle for a cornfield.
In this battle for the cornfield, soldiers would march straight through the cornfield into the enemies who were waiting on the other side. I wondered why people would do this as the corn moving makes it very obvious where the enemies are and the enemies have the first jump on you once you appear.
I thought for awhile that you just charged straight into enemies during this time of combat because the weapons were not accurate enough to matter, but I believe I saw that in the Civil War weapons began to have reliable accuracy and precision.
My main question is, why during the civil war, despite there being accurate weapons, did the commanders still use line tactics when attacking such as in this cornfield in Antietam or in Pickett’s charge in Gettysburg? When did warfare evolve into actually taking cover and using good position instead of marching headfirst into enemy fire? And lastly, why did the Americans use some of these tactics during the American revolution against the British, but in a war nearly 100 years later they didn’t use the same tactics?
Sorry for the long post! Thank you for any answers!
The simple answer is that they did utilize cover. Spreading a unit out and having the soldiers in it individually take cover even predates the civil war. Light infantry tactics like that were utilized greatly during the much earlier 7 Years War, and even before.
While battles of the civil war are popularly depicted as just lines of men marching against eachother, the reality is a lot more complex. The line of battle formation was by no means the only formation that would appear on a given battlefield. It was simply an effective formation for condensing firepower and manpower, especially when attempting to smash a hostile position. Open order formations would be utilized for much of any skirmishing or screening performed. If given a suitable amount of time, units on the defensive could even entrench themselves, essentially giving up any kind of de jure formation at all.
It is true that the standard infantry weapon used during the civil war was quite accurate. A veteran marksman can effectively utilize one out to 500 yards or possibly longer. However, the vast majority of soldiers lacked the training or experience to make the most of the accuracy of their weapons. Therefore, combat tended to take place at ranges only slightly farther than earlier conflicts that had significantly less accurate weaponry.
A small note on the revolutionary war: The pop history perception of it is that the Americans won because they utilized rifles and cover. This just isn't really accurate to reality. The Americans fought largely as the British did, and would meet British lines of battle with their own in the larger battles of the war. In fact, the British also utilized plenty of light infantry tactics (having pioneered them in the 7 Years War) and rifles.