What the Regular Army Officers Knew

[sauguszouave]

I started a new thread to continue a side discussion that came up in a thread in Camp of Instruction about rifle pits

The thing is, in the Civil War, comparatively few officers on either side were graduates of West Point or other military schools (for example, VMI) compared to the number of volunteer officers, who usually had little or no training in field fortifications. Hence, the somewhat haphazard location of many lines of works (with engineer officers often having to correct the alignment of the line after troops started digging) and the sigificant differences in how "rifle pits" and other elements of a field fortification system were actually built. Well, that and the terrain, soil conditions, and availability of materials for revetments and headlogs and obstructions, and the military situation on a given battlefield...



I must admit that I'm not familiar with what the typical Regular (or ex-Regular) knew in the Civil War. What I do know, however, is that not all officers in the Regulars were West Point graduates, and certainly the U.S. Regulars expanded significantly during the Civil War from 25,000 or so prior to the war (about a third of whom I believe "went South" at the start of the conflict) and the end of the war. I'd imagine that the wartime expansion of the Regulars, while not as significant a proportional increase as the total U.S. Army as a whole (due to the huge number of volunteer regiments), somewhat diluted the pre-war skills, ability, and even discipline of the Regulars.

I think the background of officers in the war, especially what technical training they had, is not a well-researched area. Anecdotal research I've done tends to show more background than many people seem to give the soldiers credit for.

For example, people like to make fun of George Custer for graduating at the bottom of his class at West Point. However, when I started researching the ante-bellum curriculum at the USMA I discovered that in common with most 19th-century universities, West Point had annual comprehensive exams. Students who did not pass their comprehensives were "sent down." That, in combination with the number of students who left voluntarily meant that two thirds of each entering class did not graduate. In other words, Custer was in the top third of his entering class. For every West Point graduate kicking around at the start of the war, there were two other people who had been exposed to some part of the West Point experience. One good example is Arthur Forrester Deveaux who commanded the 19th Mass on the third day at Gettysburg. Prior to the war he had dropped out of some of the finest colleges in the nation, including West Point and Harvard. He was also a business partner of Elmer Ellsworth and a member of the Illinois National Guard. During the war he was also a brigade commander and one of Hancock's divisional inspectors general.

Grenville Dodge is another example. He was not a professional soldier, per se, but he graduated from Norwich with a degree in civil engineering and then goes off to survey railroad rights of way. Many West Point grads who stayed in the army spend their careers doing civil improvement projects (George Meade built light houses on the NJ shore, Silvanus Thayer built forts in Boston Harbor) so men like Dodge didn't actually have that different a background. The experience they lacked was in chasing bandits on the frontier, and I wonder how useful that experience was to the Civil War officer. Grenville Dodge certainly didn't lack for physical courage under fire. On top of that, the Federal army didn't hesitate to high civilians for engineering jobs. The US Military RR is the extreme example of that. Both the construction corps and the transportation corps were staffed mostly by civilians saving the army from having to divert regulars from more strictly "military" functions.

The question of how much the war diluted the regular army officer corps is also an interesting one. Promotion in the pre-war army was glacially slow and based strictly on seniority within a regiment or department. Many regular officers were serving with company-grade rank who had been in the army for decades. Their promotion to field and general grade in the volunteers didn't dilute the ranks of field and general officers, instead it created openings at the bottom for lieutenants. On top of that, many of the best professionals had left the army for more lucrative private jobs which often were some form of civil engineering. George McClellan was surveying railroad rights of way before the war having resigned with the rank of captain. I'd like to know how many professional soldiers returned to the ranks because of the war compared to the number that was already there? Also, staying in the regulars even during the war didn't get you advanced very fast. The officer commanding the battalion of regular engineers in the Army of the Potomac was only a captain.

Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Was the typical 1860 or early 1861 US Army commissioned officer a graduate of West Point?

Was the typical 1862-1865 officer in the Regulars a West Point graduate?

[Michael Comer]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Paul,

That's interesting stuff and is certainly something that is overlooked quite a bit I believe.

You make a good point about Custer and the same has been said about Grant. Those that are near or at the bottom of the class are deemed to be less than adequate in some way. While times and curriculums certainly change I think there is a parallel between then and now in many ways. My son graduated West Point in the class of '05. I believe there was about a 20-25% loss rate from their plebe year until graduation. So even the 'goat' of the class is, in reality, a pretty sharp cookie. I would imagine the same was in effect then.

[A Sykes Regular]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

If one looks at the company rolls and assignments of USMA graduates to the field (speaking of infantry only), by and large most - but not all - company level commissioned officers in the regular army of 1860-1861 were USMA graduates, though regimental commanders were pretty much all West Point grads (albeit as much as 30 years earlier). USMA grads who stayed with the regulars throughout war included Ayres, Poland and Lovell and many others. Other Regular officers took up command in Volunteer units, usually with a higher brevet rank. The 4th US Infantry's commanding officer - Julius Adams - for example was named Colonel of the 67th NYSVI.

There are a few examples of officers in 1861 that were not USMA grads. These were apparently for the most part NCOs that were promoted to junior officer rank, like Thomas Parker (Sgt. in the 8th US Inf, promoted to 2nd Lt in the 2nd US Inf in Oct 1861 - he had just made his way back from an escape from captivity in Texas). Parker was killed at Gaines Mills.

From 1862 onwards, an increasing number of junior officers were either directly appointed from civilian life or were NCOs brought up to the ranks. The 11th US Inf has several examples of the latter. Francis Almond Field, a Sgt. in the 8th US who was promoted to 1st LT in the 11th US (and brevetted to Capt after Gettysburg). Another example from the same regiment is David Hazzard, who mustered into the 11th US, Co. F in 1861 as a private. By Gettysburg, he was serving in the 11th Inf as a 2nd LT, and was brevetted Capt in Oct 1864.

Commanding the 11th US was DeLancey Floyd Jones, a longtime Regular officer and USMA grad. After 1862, regimental command still remained by far under USMA grads. Company command and junior officers, however, now had quite a bit more diverse background.

For some more info on the academic course of studies from 1860-1862, you can find some of the info posted at http://www.usregulars.com/USMAhome.html

Some anecdotal evidence on discipline ... I've been doing research on my ancestor - an enlisted man in in the 6th US Inf. Judging my the number and substance of court martials to which he was subjected, discipline and enforcement of many seemingly trivial rules (given the circumstances) remained vigorous right through his mustering out in 1863.

Was the typical 1860 or early 1861 US Army commissioned officer a graduate of West Point?

Was the typical 1862-1865 officer in the Regulars a West Point graduate?

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

I think that while Regular Army officers were pretty up to date with the cutting edge of military science but the vast majority of the officers were not Army regulars. Thus they had to 'learn-on-the-job'. And even low ranking RA offciers were pushed pretty quickly up the ranks of the Volunteers in order to get them combat ready.

So while the RA was well educated and well led the majority of the officers and troops did not benefit from that education.

The other thing to remember about West Point is that it wanted to produce top quality Engineer and Artillery Officers. Cavalry came next and the infantry had to make due with those who didn't fill the top three.

Again the best of West Point were very good at things like engineering, topography, etc so they could lay out a defensive line with the best of them.

The guy elected to be the Colonel of the 22nd whatever really didn't have the benefit of that education and he represented the majority of the available line officers.

[tmattimore]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Probably the most important thing taught at West Point were the staff functions. If the best army in the world cant get from point A to point B with its units intact, food, ammo, artillery, wagon trains etc. it is not likely to win.

[Ken Cornett]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Ed,

were these Non-Com's usually asked to take these officerships, or were they "ordered" to do so? If they could refuse, did it become a black mark on their record?

[sauguszouave]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Was the typical 1860 or early 1861 US Army commissioned officer a graduate of West Point?

Was the typical 1862-1865 officer in the Regulars a West Point graduate?

Kevin,

That's exactly what I want to know, and I don't believe that anybody has ever counted up the bodies to be able to accurately answer the question, though Ed Czarnecki's material is close. Or a similar question about the volunteers, viz, what was the typical 1862-1865 volunteer officer a graduate of? I own all the Adjutant General reports from the Civil War from Massachusetts and a couple of years ago I tried taking officers at random and mapping their career paths. I gave up after a short time because of how time consuming it was. The ones I looked at though had pretty much come up through the ranks. There were certainly colonels who had been appointed colonels to start with. But by the second year of the war, there were a lot of them who had served in many grades. What is so bad about on-the-job training? Does two years of combat experience as a company-grade officer make you more or less fit for battalion command than a West Point education? There are certainly enough examples of West Pointers who crashed and burned when given senior commands. How does that play out at lower levels?

I realize I'm asking lots of questions and providing no answers, but I think this is an area that hasn't been adequately explored. Uptonians simply assert that volunteers are nothing but cannon fodder. Loganians (is that a word?) assert that the volunteer army was the best in the world by the end of the war. Yet nobody seems to have done the math to support either of these assertions. Using Arthur Devereaux again as an example, he musters in in August 1861 as the Lt.-Col. of the 19th Mass and ends the war as the colonel of the regiment. But what that doesn't tell you is that he spent two years at West Point, he was the son of an Adjutant-General of the Commonwealth, he had been in the Illinois NG with Elmer Ellsworth (the greatest drill master of 19-century America) he had been the company commander of Co H of the 7th Mass Militia before the war, and he had been the company commander of Co J of the 8th Mass Vol Militia for the first three months of the war. He was actually offered the colonelcy of a regiment in August and turned it down to serve under his friend and previous commander, Edward Hinks, in the 19th Mass. That is way, way more military experience than your average OCS officer in the US infantry had in WWII. Russell Weigley points out in his book "The American Way of War" that the average infantry combat replacement in WWII had 13 weeks of training. Most infantrymen in the Civil War had more than that, and their job was considerably less technical than that of a WWII infantryman.

What I want to know is not just what was the background of a particular officer, but what was that officer's path to advancement? How much had they seen and touched before they got to a particular assignment? How many 1st lieutenants started and ended the war as 1st lieuts. vs. how many ended up brigade commanders? I think that is where you would really start to see whether the army was as amateurish as some people think. The US Marines are proud of their "mustangs." Is coming up through the ranks a handicap or an asset? Before the Vietnam War, being a helicopter pilot was a big deal restricted to college grad officers. But when they started running out of pilots and couldn't get enough college grads through the flight programs fast enough, they started training warrant officer pilots. What they found was that the warrant officers actually made better combat pilots than the college grads had. The bottom line is that intellectual theories about who will perform best in combat don't always turn out to be right. I would be curious to see some solid statistics on who actually did the best in the Civil War.

Best Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[sauguszouave]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Paul,

That's interesting stuff and is certainly something that is overlooked quite a bit I believe.

You make a good point about Custer and the same has been said about Grant. Those that are near or at the bottom of the class are deemed to be less than adequate in some way. While times and curriculums certainly change I think there is a parallel between then and now in many ways. My son graduated West Point in the class of '05. I believe there was about a 20-25% loss rate from their plebe year until graduation. So even the 'goat' of the class is, in reality, a pretty sharp cookie. I would imagine the same was in effect then.

Micheal,

The practice at most colleges and universities back then was to test all the students in all the subjects they had studied every spring. Spring was hell if you were in college. It was sink-or-swim time. Every year a bunch of students would be sent home in the Spring. The only difference between West Point and any other school back then was that if you passed your comprehensives you had to go sleep in a tent on the parade ground.;)

Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[Tom Ezell]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

As with most things, somebody's already done a dissertation on this topic... Check out William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps,1784-1861 ISBN 0-7006-1114-2, University of Kansas Pres, Lawrence, KS (1992). It's on the Army's required reading list for field grade officers, so ought to be easily available through the usual vendors. My copy came from the PX.

Based on the trend of discussion thus far, you might be surprised... and it's definitely a good read if you portray a Regular officer or an old officer from the antebellum Army or Mex War volunteers.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

I'm a lot more familiar with Civil War volunteers than Regulars, hence I'll only ask questions on this thread because I have little real info or knowledge to offer about Regulars.

That said, the one post above about volunteer officers, while tempting to spin off to discission, I'll avoid for now, because I don't wish to hijack this thread on Regulars. :)

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Paul:

I wouldn't disagree that "learning on the job" can be just as good as a formal education. Sometimes better because it is based on real experience as opposed to theoretical.

But initially there weren't enough RA offciers to go around and the troops paid the price (as they do in all wars) for the new officers learning curves.

Even the RA officers had to 'unlearn' so things they thought they knew based on combat experiience. Nobody appears to have been prepared for the deadly accuracy and range of the rifled musket. And officiers had to learn how to manuver vastly larger bodies of men than they were used to. Provide an adequate logistic train, etc, etc.

So everybody had some degree of 'on the job' training.

And in the end the volunteer officers couldn't have been too bad, after all they did help win the war.

[A Sykes Regular]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Check out William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps,1784-1861

Tom Ezell cites a key piece of research. This excellent work provide good insight to many of the questions being posed in this thead. On the positive side, the regular officer corps of 1860-1861 had become a more professional, relatively closely-knit group of men, with shared training, learning and experience, and mindset. However - following Skelton's conclusions in a bit of a different direction - the case could also be made that this regular officer cadre may have been stultified by perhaps a overly conservative/cautious set of ideas and values, that had helped define pre-war career success (or at least longevity).

So, in addition to the question of "what they knew," there is the key question of "how they viewed the world." So while regular officers may have had the benefit of military education and pre-war field command, there may have been a cultural aspect that caused some to be seemingly slow to "learn on the job" (or at least cautious about innovation).

p.s. - too bad this thread is in the sinks... there's a reasonable historical discussion here...

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

Nobody appears to have been prepared for the deadly accuracy and range of the rifled musket.

This, too, is fodder for a separate discussion, but I'll bite on this one right here:

What makes you think that commissioned officers understood and USED the increased range and accuracy of the rifled-musket from 1861 through the end of 1863? Quite often they (particularly the older guys, some of whom had fought in Mexico) throught it necessary to let the enemy get right up in their face before firing. As just one illustrative case, Col. Dennis O'Kane of the 69th Pennsylvania Vols, defending Gettysburg's "copse of trees" on July 3, 1863, waited until the Confederates were only thirty yards away before ordering his men to fire; some of them had already discharged weapons without orders as the Rebel line loomed ever larger.

That I can tell, it wasn't until at least the spring campaigns of 1864 that both sides started opening fire at longer ranges. For example, during the battle of the Wilderness, when the 140th New York Vols' line stepped out of the woods on the east side of Saunders's Field, the Confederate main line on the far side of the field--which is certainly wider than a quarter-mile across--opened fire and hit twelve men in the 140th's line, forcing the New Yorkers back into the cover of the trees. (Source: 140th New York regimental history by Brian Bennett)

Probably eight or ten years ago "North and South" magazine had a great couple of articles titled, "The Rifled-musket Revolution?" that seriously questioned--with a lot of evidence--the widely held opinion that Civil War battles were so bloody due to the increased range and accuracy of the rifled-musket. The articles convinced me that there was little real use of the range and accuracy of these weapons until the final year of the war.

[A Sykes Regular]

Re: What the Regular Army Officers Knew

I'll bite on that one too. Whether or not the officers in the regular infantry (or volunteers for that matter) truly comprehended the implications of improved weaponry, there does not appear to be much to say that such understanding changed the way they approached business. As late as the action in the Wheatfield, emphasis remained on closing on the enemy and maintaining rigid lines (as noted repeatedly in the ORs). While the regulars did sucessfully shore up Sickles evaporating line, the result of the near decimation of the regular army.