Confederate officers examination

[Steve Acker]

I am looking for information on the examination taken by Confederate officers, expecially related to the Army of Tennesse in 1863. I have heard of it, but am looking for more specifics on the examination and its contents.

Thank you,
Steve Acker

[LWhite64]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Steve,
I might be able to help you out, I have part of one of the tests from a service record.

Lee

[Steve Acker]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Lee,

I sent you a PM.

Steve Acker

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Confederate officers examination

I am looking for information on the examination taken by Confederate officers, expecially related to the Army of Tennesse in 1863. I have heard of it, but am looking for more specifics on the examination and its contents.

Steve:

Here is an exam that was administered to new/prospective lieutenants by a board of officers in Shreveport, LA in 1863:

1. How is a company formed?
2. How many officers are there in a company, and how are they posted?
3. How many kinds of wheeling are there? List them and explain how they are executed.
4. By what sequence of commands may a company marching in line of battle be taken into platoons? Explain the movement.
5. If the right be in front, where is the guide? And why on that side?
6. How may the company be so formed [right in front]?
7. The company being in column and on the march, how may files be broken to the rear? How do you cause them to re-enter into line?
8. In order to deploy a company as skirmishers, how is it divided?
9. In how many ways may a company be deployed as skirmishers? List them.
10. If you wish to deploy the first platoon forward, which commands are necessary? Explain the whole movement.
11. Explain how firings are executed, show it advancing, retreating, and at the halt.
12. How many companies constitute a regiment, and how are they posted with regard to the rank of Captains?
13. State the different methods of pulling from order in battle to order in columns, and vice versa.
14. When in line of battle, how may a regiment be thrown “perspecticulously” forward upon first companies?
15. When in line of battle, at the halt, what is necessary to be done in order to form square, and when formed, how may it be reduced?
16. Being in columns, when the right is in front, where is the guide? When is the exception to this rule?
17. When can a defile be passed, which is in rear of the left wing of the regiment?

[neocelt]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Tom,

Can you please provide the full bibliographic citation for this?

Thanks a million!

[Steve Acker]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Thanks Tom. Between your stuff and what Lee White sent, I now have a better picture of the testing of officers. For fun I took the test. I need to study a bit more.

Thanks again,
STeve Acker

[Brian Wiswell]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Steve,

Sent you a PM.

Brian Wiswell

[Brian Wiswell]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Tom,

Would this same test also be used in the ANV?

Brian Wiswell

[DougCooper]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Tom and Steve - great stuff! Can you or Lee send the info he provided to coop2911@msn.com. The Shreveport origin of the list is fascinating. Tom was it connected to any particular drill manual for reference?

[Steve Acker]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Doug,
I sent you an email. Enjoy.
Steve Acker

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Tom and Steve - great stuff! Can you or Lee send the info he provided to coop2911@msn.com. The Shreveport origin of the list is fascinating. Tom was it connected to any particular drill manual for reference?

I'll have to dig way back into a stack of floppy disks to find my original source, since this was a tidbit that I collected way back when I ran the old CIVIL_WAR echo on FidoNet. It came from one of the old veteran's mementoes, one of the fellows who had to take (and passed) the exam. Name and exact source I'll have to go back and dig for in my old Fido stuff.

Doug:
Most of the Confederate drill manuals that I have seen associated with the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy have been copies of knock-offs of the 1855 manual. LTC Hardee wrote the original book on guv'mint time and it was considered to be in the public domain. And while copyright law was a lot looser in the 1850s, it was non-existent in the fledgling Confederacy, and everybody with a printing press got into the drill manual business. This was the reason for Hardee's 1861 edition's prominent notice,

That the COPYRIGHT EDITION of my INFANTRY and RIFLE TACTICS, published by S.H. GOETZEL &CO., in Mobile, is the only COMPLETE, CORRECT, AND REVISED EDITION, and THIS EDITION ONLY contains the IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES which I have recently made, adapting the manual to the use of the arms generally in the hands of the troops of the Confederate States.

Nathaniel Cheairs wrote a very nice little biography of Hardee a long while back that has really good info on the drill manual business back in the wild & crazy days of 1861. It's well worth adding to the library.

Tom
(formerly FidoNet's 3821/16 & 3821/0)

[neocelt]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Tom,

Please do keep looking for the bibliographic citation--being able to say WHERE one's data was found is almost as important as the data itself! Or to look at it another way: Undocumented material is merely hearsay (and its corollary: Context is everything!). Also, the biography you referred to is called General William J. Hardee: Old Reliable by Nathaniel Cheairs HUGHES. And while Hughes' insight into the cutthroat world of after-market manual publishing and copyright infringement is certainly enlightenting, he completely buggered Hardee's role (or more accurately, lack of same) in the development of the 1841 Cavalry Tactics. But in all fairness, he ain't the first academician to have perpetuated that niggling little faux pas.

Cheers,

[neocelt]

Sources please!

Tom and Lee,

I'll repeat my request for the bibliographic sources for your respective contributions to this discussion: Lee, can you please provide the relevant reference for the service record that you cited? Tom, can you please dig out the bibliographic data regarding the veteran who cited the test taken in Shreveport?

Thank you!

[LWhite64]

Re: Confederate officers examination

Nick,
I will have to go and look back at the service records to find out the officer in question, when I took the notes I was looking for something else and didnt take down his name. At this time all I can tell you is that the information came from the Compiled Service Record of a Junior officer in the 26th Tennessee Infantry. I might be able to get to the library this week and check.

Lee