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Post by yanmacca on May 16, 2017 12:52:24 GMT
That is interesting Mac, as I have read that even the British army had men who were considered officers even though they got the rank through the back door, you know with their daddy buying the rank for them. So I wonder if you did have the case of men being made officers because of their status in life and not their military prowess.
Were junior officers thin on the ground during the ACW? Were people like Judges and Politicians made into officers to fill in the gaps? If so you could be led by men who had less military training then a buck sergeant.
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Post by quincannon on May 16, 2017 14:23:13 GMT
There were very few officers on active duty in the Regular Army. Of these about half went south.
There were very few of those that had any experience above company level
There were volunteer militia units in every state. These were men who would meet and drill on a regular basis, once a week, twice a month and so forth. They might even go off for a week or so each year to practice their military skills. These volunteer militia were the foundation stones of the National Guard.
Each state was required by law to also have organized on paper what was called the militia. In theory every county or portion of a big city was to form a company or battalion, several counties a regiment and so forth. These men were usually mustered once a year, their names and addresses verified, and new members enrolled. They might even spend the afternoon drilling, then everyone went home.
So to answer the question there was not much in the way of trained officer leadership available. Officers were commissioned by the state governors for units raised by that particular state. I bet you can guess how that went. Once organized a unit would be mustered into active Federal service, and off to war they go.
This was the 1775 to 1975 mobilization based army. That is how we did it. It never worked very well, except in World War II, and even then it had its frustrating moments.
Frankly we really did not need anything more. We had the two great oceans to protect us, so why have a large standing army. For those adventures overseas the oceans gave us time.
SO - When you hear someone say bring back the draft, and you still do hear that, remember why in this technological age where oceans do not protect, and training Private Sunffy can take up to two years to insure his proficiency, that is why we have a standing half million man active army, and an Army Reserve and National Guard that have been moved up a notch for a strategic reserve to that of an operational reserve.
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Post by yanmacca on May 16, 2017 14:33:07 GMT
Britain ceased national service in 1960, but eight European countries still have conscription Turkey, Germany, Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece and Norway.
At its height around 6000 British men [well teenagers], were called up every two weeks, giving a total of 2.301.000 between 1947 and 1960.
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Post by quincannon on May 16, 2017 14:57:15 GMT
Conscription is only good if the person conscripted is in for the long term. By that I mean they serve their two years and for the next eighteen they are placed in a reserve unit near their home, and are subject to recall, and more importantly periodic recall for training, at least a month a year. Most democracies would not stand for that unless there is a clear and present danger from their neighbors. Israel has such a system, and apparently it works well for them, but Israel is a small country, and the bigger the country, and the more mobile the countries population is the less effective the system becomes.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on May 16, 2017 16:01:10 GMT
Mac You have asked a great question regarding the number of trained soldiers who participated in the ACW. The following quote came from West Point in the Civil War. (1) "Nine hundred and seventy-seven West Point graduates from the classes of 1833 through 1861 were alive when the Civil War began. Of these men, 259 (26%) joined the Confederacy and 638 (65%) fought for the Union. Eight did not fight for either side. Thirty-nine graduates from these classes who had come to West Point from Southern states fought for the Union and 32 who had come from Northern states fought for the Confederacy."
While this is only a partial answer since it does not number the WP Graduates from 1862 to 1865 or those of other military schools. Virginia Military Institute (VMI) provided about 1,800 graduates that participated in the War including 19 that served in the US Army. (2) The South Carolina Military Academy (The Citadel) provided 209 graduates that served in the Confederate Army(3)
With your military experience you can easily see the critical shortage faced by the Confederates in providing trained officers to their three branches of service. I found these figures in an short paper presented in 1912 by Randolph H. McKim, a former Confederate officer entitled" "THE NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY"(4)
Men
529 regiments of infantry, 840 each 444,360
85 battalions infantry, 400 each 34,000
127 regiments cavalry, 600 each 76,200
47 battalions cavalry, 400 each 18,800
261 batteries light artillery, 70 each 16,270
[Pg 27]5 regiments heavy artillery, 800 each 4,000
6 battalions heavy artillery, 400 each 2,400
8 regiments partisan rangers, 700 each 5,600
1 battalion partisan rangers 350
601,980
It is believed that Confederate strength of about 600,000 was the highest available and steadily declined as the War progressed. I expect QC and Deadwood would have additional information on this subject. Regards Dave
(1)http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/articles/military/west_point.htm (2)http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Military_Institute_During_the_Civil_War (3)http://www.citadel.edu/citadel-history/war-deaths/war-between-the-states.html (4)http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34334/34334-h/34334-h.htm
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Post by quincannon on May 16, 2017 16:47:57 GMT
On the surface those figures seem to represent authorized, by that I mean full up regiments by tables of organization. I highly doubt that any of those regiments and/or battalions ever reached those totals.
The numbers also seem a bit low for the artillery batteries. For a six gun battery, they should probably be a bit over 100. Four gun, 70 is about right.
At Chancellorsville, if the Stonewall Brigade is any good example, they had a bit over 800 effectives for the whole brigade of five regiments. Brigades of four regiments were found to be most effective for command and control purposes when they numbered between 12 and 1500.
As the war went on the brigade, not the regiment, became the primary maneuver unit. The regiments themselves in effect, and because of ever reducing strengths, made the brigades into nothing more than big regiments with a lot of colonels, and far too many captains. This is true of both sides.
The 20th Maine at Gettysburg only had about 300 or so effectives. They would not have even had that, had they not been reinforced just before the battle by leftovers from the then demobilized 2nd Maine.
Neither side ever really figured out a good way of keeping their units up to strength.
Here is an example of the overall average strength of Union Army Infantry Regiments at certain periods of the war:
Overall structured strength 1046
Shiloh (April 62) 560 Fair Oaks (June 62) 650 Chancellorsville (May 63) 530 Gettysburg (July 63) 375 Chickamauga (Sept 63) 440 Wilderness (may 64) 440
At the end of the war the 1st Infantry Regiment had a total of 45 all ranks assigned
What makes these figures skewed is that they were an average of all of the Union Army Infantry Regiments, meaning there were some always being organized at full strength, which pull the averages way up, and do not reflect the reality of units that had been in combat for a year or two.
The way to do it is organize-train-employ-withdraw-refit-train-employ, and keep that cycle up for the course of the conflict. We really (and I mean both we's) did not know how to do that, and the militia system in place during that time actually prevented doing it right.
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Post by yanmacca on May 16, 2017 18:30:14 GMT
You do see troops called Zouaves, which are originally French light infantry with a link to French colonies based in North African, but both North and South had Zouaves regiments and these were made up of Americans, but with fancy clothes.
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Post by quincannon on May 16, 2017 21:27:39 GMT
You see a lot of that in the early days of the civil war, and it was mostly those volunteer militia units that had styled themselves after the military fashion du jour in Europe. The 5th New York Volunteer Infantry is probably the most famous. As the war went into its second year most of that crap petered out. A lot of the Zouaves had their genesis in volunteer fire companies, which sometimes also formed volunteer militia units. One such, the Weccoe Fire Company still exists as the headquarters and headquarters company of one of the brigades of the 28th ID. Another of these old units still existing is the First City Troop of Philadelphia, which I think is now HHT, and maybe HHT and Troop A of 1-104 Cavalry in Philly. The Richmond Light Infantry Blues are still active as well as part of 1-183 Cavalry.
All these guys went to war in funny suits, not all of them Zouaves, but funny suits none the less.
A year into the war they were all lucky to have a shirt on their back.
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Post by Beth on May 16, 2017 22:38:58 GMT
Britain ceased national service in 1960, but eight European countries still have conscription Turkey, Germany, Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece and Norway. At its height around 6000 British men [well teenagers], were called up every two weeks, giving a total of 2.301.000 between 1947 and 1960. Doesn't Switzerland have conscription as well?
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on May 17, 2017 1:30:22 GMT
QC Don't forget the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Fire Zouaves) led by the darling of the North, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth. He met his fate so early in the War (May 1861) that he was soon forgotten after the casualties mounted month after month. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on May 17, 2017 4:37:01 GMT
He was a complete A Hole who could not climb a flight of stairs without getting his dumb ass shot.
I try to forget his regiment ever chance I get.
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Post by yanmacca on May 17, 2017 14:16:49 GMT
Yes you are correct Beth, Switzerland still has conscription, but I don't think many of them serve in their navy.
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Post by Beth on May 17, 2017 22:43:13 GMT
Yes you are correct Beth, Switzerland still has conscription, but I don't think many of them serve in their navy. Sam is in Geneva currently and thinks its one of the most beautiful places she's seen. Perhaps they can run the navy on Lake Geneva. I will be interesting in how she feels after her next to stops in Milan and Venice.
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Post by yanmacca on May 18, 2017 13:40:38 GMT
We are considering Italy as our holiday destination this year, I have been looking at resorts on the bay of Salerno, but you don't get as much for you money in Italy as you do in Spain. If Italy fails to provide, then we are looking at Ibiza as our next choice.
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