Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Another in my series of rather geek-like articles on Civil War artillery.
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Peace
Padre Steve+
The American Civil War was a transitional time for artillery technology, organization and tactics. The organization of the artillery service of the Army of the Potomac remained as it was up until the Overland or Wilderness Campaign, although “Corps brigades were increased to eight or nine batteries.” However, “having created a sound artillery organization and proven it at Gettysburg, the Union would have little immediate use for it” [1] as the changing conditions of war in the Wilderness changed how Grant and Meade organized the artillery.
The Artillery Reserve, a throwback to Napoleonic times, which had along with the rest of the Union artillery at Gettysburg performed so brilliantly in a defensive stand with wide open fields of interlocking fire would never again have such an opportunity to wreak destruction on advancing Confederate infantry in the open. Instead it was forced into the offensive in terrain that was seldom conducive to employing massed numbers of guns. During the campaign the Artillery Reserve consisted of “two field artillery brigades of twelve batteries each, one heavy brigade, which was largely employed as a guard and construction unit, and two brigades of horse artillery, which were on duty with Major Phil Sheridan’s cavalry corps.” [2] By the time of the Wilderness Campaign the size of the Army of the Potomac’s artillery numbered 274 cannon. [3] In terms of artillery types Hunt had 154 rifled guns and 120 Napoleons in the organic components of his army, of the rifled guns the majority were the 3” Ordnance rifles as Hunt had sent most of his Parrot batteries away due to their tendency to burst and their unpopularity with their gun crews. [4] The artillery was bolster with a battery of eight 24 pound brass Coehorn mortars. These were light weapons which weighed only 164 pounds and could be carried by two men. They “were fired at an angle of 45 degrees which permitted them to hurl a shell in a very high arch to a distance of 1,200 yards at full charge.” [5]
The campaigns of 1864 forced Union army commanders to change how they employed their artillery. This came first during the Wilderness campaign where the heavily wooded terrain, poor visibility, and an enemy dug in behind earthen walls and abattis limited the artillery’s effectiveness. The fighting between enemies that could barely see what they were shooting at resulted in close range firefights between infantry with few artillery pieces in direct support. When engaged, the artillery of both sides dealt death at close range in support of infantry, on the defensive the guns were dug in to protect them and their crews from the close range fire of enemy artillery and infantry. The heavy brush limited the ability of the artillery to move off the main roads as one artilleryman noted that they could do nothing “because no horses could have pulled a gun through the brush in which the infantry were fighting.” [6] One officer described the conditions of the Wilderness as “a wrestle as blind as midnight, a gloom that made manoeuvers impractical, a jungle where regiments stumbled on each other and the enemy by turns, firing sometimes into their own ranks, and guided only by the crackling of bushes or the cheers and cries that rose from the depths around.” [7]
With his guns finding little employment “Grant order that the Artillery Reserve be returned to Washington.” [8] To achieve the reduction in the number of guns without undoing his organization, Hunt recommended that the batteries be reduced from six guns to four. This was done but Hunt lost his Artillery Reserve as Meade had those reduced batteries reassigned to each of the infantry corps and the Reserve’s commander, Colonel Henry Burton, “appointed Inspector of Artillery.” [9] However, “most of the pieces ordered away were returned for the siege of Petersburg.” [10] Grant wrote:
“The Wilderness and Spotsylvania battles convinced me that we had more artillery than could ever be brought to action at any one time. It occupied much of the road marching, and taxed the trains in bringing up forage. Artillery is very useful when it can be brought into action, but it is a burdensome where it cannot be used. Before leaving Spotsylvania, therefore, I sent back to the defenses of Washington over one hundred pieces of artillery, with horses and caissons… and still left us with more artillery than could be advantageously used.” [11]
During the Wilderness Campaign the Confederate artillery suffered under similar conditions to Grant’s armies. Porter Alexander noted that when his artillery arrived that Lee, “directed me to send back all the artillery with our column to Parker’s Store, as there was no possibility of using it in the woods where we would be fighting, & it would be in the way.” [12] Where they were employed on the defensive the Confederate guns gave good account of themselves. Where they were not deployed attacking Union forces found their task easier, as when Winfield Scott Hancock’s massed attack at Spotsylvania succeeded, However, when the Confederates were able to deploy their artillery Union losses could be dreadful. This was the case at Cold Harbor where Grant ordered a frontal assault on well prepared Confederate defenders who had their artillery in positions where it had advancing Union forces in a crossfire.
The siege of Petersburg changed the way artillery was employed in the east yet again. “After Petersburg, field tactics were scarcely relevant, although concentrations of fire remained essential.” [13]
Many commentators after the war decried the effectiveness of the artillery by claiming that less than ten percent of casualties were caused by it. As J.B.A. Bailey notes, “This figure seems highly improbable, since the wound inflicted by a canister ball, which was the artillery’s most lethal projectile, would have been impossible to distinguish from that inflicted by a musket ball.” [14] However, even more important than the number of casualties inflicted on the enemy, but it was the shock power and deterrent effect that artillery had on the enemy, especially on the defensive. Colonel Jennings Wise, who chronicled the history of Lee’s artillery wrote:
“We often hear the sneering criticism that at such and such a battle but 1 or 2 per cent of the enemy’s loss was due to fire of the artillery. Any such test entirely erroneous. Not only do the guns exert a tremendous moral effect in support of their infantry, and adverse to the enemy, but they do far more. They often preclude heavy damage from the enemy by preventing him from essaying an assault against the positions the guns occupy. Then, again, by forcing them to seek cover, they eliminate their antagonisms to that extent… Let us hear no more of artillery efficiency as measured by the number of its victims.” [15]
Descriptions of the effect of the Union artillery on Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg bear this out. “The Confederate losses mounted at an alarming rate. The psychological impact of artillery casualties was great, for the big guns not only killed but mangled bodies, tore them apart, or disintegrated them.” [16] A survivor wrote his wife days later: “If the crash of worlds and all things combustible had been coming in collision with each other, it could not have surpassed it seemingly. To me it was like the “Magazine of Vengeance” blown up.” [17] A soldier of Kemper’s brigade recalled that “The atmosphere was rent and broken by the rust and crash of projectiles…The sun, but a few minutes before so brilliant, was now darkened. Through this smoky darkness came the missiles of death…the scene beggars description…Many a fellow thought his time had come…Great big, stout hearted men prayed, loudly too….” [18] Colonel Joseph Mayo of the 3rd Virginia regiment was heavily hit. One of its survivors wrote: “when the line rose up to charge…it appeared that as many were left dead and wounded as got up.” [19]
Notes
[1] Ibid, Bailey Field Artillery and Firepower p.203
[2] Ibid. Nesmith Stagnation and Change in Military Thought: The Evolution of American Field Artillery Doctrine, 1861-1905 – An Example p.35
[3] Ibid. McKenny The Organizational History of Field Artillery 1775-2003 p.68
[4] Ibid. Longacre The Man Behind the Guns: A Military Biography of General Henry J. Hunt, Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac pp.190-191
[5] Ibid. Nesmith Stagnation and Change in Military Thought: The Evolution of American Field Artillery Doctrine, 1861-1905 – An Example p.36
[6] Ibid. Longacre The Man Behind the Guns: A Military Biography of General Henry J. Hunt, Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac p.194
[7] Ibid. Fuller Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship p.214
[8] Ibid. Nesmith Stagnation and Change in Military Thought: The Evolution of American Field Artillery Doctrine, 1861-1905 – An Example p.36
[9] Lyman, Theodore, Meade’s Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman, edited by David W. Lowe, The Kent State University Press, Kent, Oho 2007 p.162
[10] Ibid. McKenny The Organizational History of Field Artillery 1775-2003 p.67
[11] Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant Volume 2 Charles L. Webster and Company, New York 1886 p.241
[12] Ibid. Alexander Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander p.359
[13] Ibid, Bailey Field Artillery and Firepower p.204
[14] Ibid, Bailey Field Artillery and Firepower pp.196-197
[15] Ibid. Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Civil War p.167
[16]Hess, Earl J. Pickett’s Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 2001 p.153
[17] Wert, Jeffery D. Gettysburg Day Three A Touchstone Book, New York 2001 p.181
[18] Dowdy, Clifford. Lee and His Men at Gettysburg: The Death of a Nation Skyhorse Publishing, New York 1986, originally published as Death of a Nation Knopf, New York 1958 p.294
[19] Ibid. Wert Gettysburg Day Three p.179
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