Which manual was used?

[thomas aagaard]

Re: Which manual was used?

yes two different manuals, but when we are talking the prewar army you can't look at one of them isolated since both was in use at the same time.


Now when talking the volunteers I do think they would try to use the right interval, if not told to otherwise by someone with prewar army experience.
If you do it by the book it don't work well. The short step forward on the right foot give you a way of standing that is not practical and to be able to fire to the left you have to bend forward a lot... again not practical.

So I think there must be some factor we are missing or misunderstanding.

Some likely solved it by changing the way they stepped. Something like the danish way do work better if you want to hit something. Others likely did something like what Upton describes after the war.

The french book:
Any of you read the French book? (I have looked at is, but I don't know speak the language)
Is it more clear in what your is suppose to do?

The Regular army's influence:
I don't think The regular army had much influence of the volunteers in the early war, since there where no infantry companies east of the Mississippi when the war broke out. So you would not see any professional soldiers who drilled the recruits.


But when we talk civilians who signed up that had military experience there where many. Some who served in the US army at some point and many immigrants had served in their home country... and some had combat experience. The revolutions of 1848 resulted in a number of civil wars across Europe...

Offcause I have no idea if this number was 0,1%, 1% or 5%

[john duffer]

Re: Which manual was used?

The french book:
Any of you read the French book? (I have looked at is, but I don't know speak the language)
Is it more clear in what your is suppose to do?

I have originals of both the 1831 and 1845. HARDEES is pretty much a word for word translation of 1845 except for inches instead of metric. I didn't find anything that shed more light one way or another. The 1831 has some additional remarks added that makes me think the centre and rear fire to the left of the kneeling front rank but the rear fires to the right of the centre. I'll post it at some point.

On a side note SCOTTS is pretty much just a translation of the 1831 except for his method of forming the company which I couldn't find in the French manual. He was still using the English short men in the center method in the 1829 ABSTRACT and wonder if this new method was borrowed or something he devised.

[john duffer]

Upton

Even though it's post war UPTON is presumably a good indicator of what was being done at the end, or at least what they wished they were doing. The CW manuals are mostly from the 30 year period before the war and even the bulk of the 'cutting edge' improvements are from 1845. (Look at how much space is given to forming square so you won't be ridden down by charging currisseurs). Oddly UPTON helps both prove and disprove HARDEE, et al being right interval.


PROVE - UPTON clearly uses the left interval. To do so he adds how the rear gets their piece to the left, changes the foot movement to the left rather than right and explains how to return the piece to the right afterwards. This is a lot of information to have been left out if HARDEE didn't plan to use the right.

DISPROVE - This would seem to support Silas' theory that folks were using the left interval. For UPTON to include it seems like they were using the left but having to change the movements in HARDEES to make it work or at the least thought it a more practical method and wanted to switch.

[thomas aagaard]

Re: Which manual was used?

To be honest I question how much Hardee planed anything... compared to simply translate the book with out thinking that much on how it would be understood by the reader.

Since both Scott and Hardee are direct translations. Guess we should ask the French how they did it and why the text was changed the way it was... :-)



Do any of you know if the work of the US commission (who decided on the use of hardee's book) still exist?
If so it might tell us what questions and commends they had...




The square:
Since it is originally an European book you need to look at European warfare. And it did have heavy battlefield cavalry that was used successfully up to and including the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. So it makes sense for it to be there.

And since it was also useful against hordes of zulus or similar armed with spears it stayed in the European drill books. And I do believe Upton also have it.