Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Dimitri hits the nail square on the head
Fellow blogger Dimitri always makes me think. I find this recent post of his particularly worthwhile for all armchair generals to direct their attention to. (that sentence ended oddly didn't it).
http://cwbn.blogspot.com/2012/05/in-praise-of-slow-marching.html
Mannie (on vacation - at home)
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7 comments:
Having been a victim of hard marching in my younger days, I've often pointed out the effect on soldiers of hard marching to Gettysburg. Hancock's 2nd Corps may have reached its destination on June 29th, but not allowing his men to remove their socks and shoes when crossing streams meant that hundreds of men dropped out of the march with blisters. In the 124th NY, 264 men left Emmitsburg, MD on July 1 for the fast seven mile to Gettysburg. Only 105 would actually arrive on July 1. Others would catch up on July 2, but 24 never made it.
John C. Nicholas
to direct their attention. period ;)
Interesting. It makes one take a look at the long standing concenses that Jackson was the greatest general of the Civil War and little Mac the worst.
Interesting post.
Reading again E.P. Alexander's 'Fighting for the Confederacy' he mentions again the intense straggling of the Confederate Army in the Antietam Campaign. He also points out how A.P. Hill had to famously rush to Antietam and had plenty of men fall out but just enough men were left to play a important role in the battle.
Wilbur Fisk in his wonderful collection of letters 'Hard Marching Every Day' has some really good accounts of the affect of marching on the average soldiers of the Army of the Potomac especially in the Gettysburg Campaign. He talks about how men just died of the heatstroke and the monotony of it all.
Chris
I seem to recall an incident on the North Carolina coast where a Federal Colonel double quick-timed his regiment for over two miles to get to an engagement. By the time they arrived, most of them were winded and a large portion wound up being captured by the enemy. I don't recall the specifics, but perhaps you or another reader has heard of this as well.
Hmmm; I dunno. If Dmitri makes the point that hard marching is not always the best solution, I think we ought to take care not to assume that easy marching is always the best solution either. Part of it, I think---a part which Dmitri doesn't consider---is the importance of perception. Wallace's march to Shiloh is a great example of that. In the strictest technical sense, Wallace was correct to march as he did, at a normal pace; "Grant wants me to bring the whole division, not a part of it," was his reply to Rawlins' badgering him to move faster. Yet undoubtedly, the perception of that normal march---that while five other divisions are fighting for their lives, the sixth was taking it easy---bore bitter fruit, at least for Wallace. Is it possible that this played a role in at least some commanders deciding to move their troops a bit faster than usual, because they were concerned that being seen obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit would come back to bite them?
my it's been a while since your last post - miss the regular scoop. hope that this blog hasn't been "laid to rest"!
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