Fighting in open ranks

[RJSamp]

Re: Fighting in open ranks

Does anyone have a link to the picture?

Dave Prince
4th Texas Co. E

Memory never serves but it was in like an American Civil War Illustrated magazine article about 10 years ago......

and like I said, open to interpretation.

[RJSamp]

Re: Fighting in open ranks

RJ-

Could the artist that painted that not be a military-experienced man and not have painted it accurately..?

Food for thought... :D Johnny

Certainly, as equally nonexperienced as the artists that painted the ranks upon tightly aligned ranks advancing with precision and alacrity, as if on parade, into the teeth of the gathering storm.

And the 'combat' artists during the Overland/Wilderness battles that show troops fighting from behind cover.....or the picket 'line' woodcuts depicting combat on Culps Hill from behind clumps of boulders and large trees...

What I'm suggesting is that in 1862 artists tended to portray rigid Napoleonic evolutions advancing towards certain death......by 1863 they tended to show more 'open' ranks, clumps of men, lying down/seeking cover without orders when near danger. Off in the distance you can see rigid battle formations (see drawings of the Wheatfield battles) approaching the maelstrom.....but the men soon became 'disordered' as they fought on their own crook and tried to survive and fight off the enemy.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: Fighting in open ranks

Has anyone seen the PAINTINGS (water color?) from the period of the Regulars fighting at Chickamauga? They are in two ranks, but they definitely have some elbow room and the rear rank is a couple of paces (not quite 4 step Open Order) to the rear......

I'm currently reading Peter Cozzens's This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga and, oddly enough, within the past week I was reading of the US Regulars coming into the battle late in the morning on the first day of heavy fighting. The terrain included some ridges and some of the accounts I've been reading--and I admit I'm writing this from memory without the book nearby--talk of men being prone facing downhill. Of necessity that would require the front rank to be somewhat ahead of the rear rank.

Not having ever seen or heard of the watercolor painting referred to, I can't say whether this is what the artist may potentially have been depicting.

[john duffer]

Re: Fighting in open ranks

"The veterans by 1863-4 were seeking cover on their own volition....regardless of orders.....regardless of formation....the conscripts stood out in the open and became quick casualties......"

I think this is somewhat situational and you also have to weigh disorder in combat versus using an open order tactical formation on purpose. The Battle of Franklin showed that late 1864 Veterans would still do what they were told, with no "regardless of" factor. I admit that twenty minutes after contact there weren't a lot of parade ground formations standing about exchanging volleys, that's the disorder of combat. I just finished a book on Leipzig, and even in Napoleonic times those rigid lines weren't always rigid, "swarms" of skirmishers, clumps of men without officers fighting house to house, regiments ordered to lie down under fire, etc.

[Tennessee Boy]

Re: Fighting in open ranks

The 16th Tennessee at Stones River, were certainly fighting in what I would consider a very irregular, open skirmish formation. Not sure if that would class as in open ranks.

From the OR "Colonel Savage, finding the line he had to defend entirely too long for the number of men under his command, and that there was danger of his being flanked, either to the right or left, as the one or the other wing presented the weaker front, finally threw out the greater part of his command as skirmishers, as well to deceive the enemy as to our strength in his rear as to protect his long line, and held his position, with characteristic and most commendable tenacity, for over three hours."

James Thompson in this diary wrote " We were soon moved further to our right, as the enemy was extending his line in that direction. We were then formed into what might be called a skirmish line"

Held the line for 3 hours and lost over 50% of their men