The Last Hundred Yards and Cold Harbor

The title above refers to a modern phenomenon of infantry warfare. Our support weapons are so powerful they can generally cover infantry approaching a position until them are approximately 100m short of it; then they have to lift their bombardment and the infantry is on its own to advance the last 100m by employing their own weapons systems etc. It seems to have its' origins along with the introduction of modern infantry tactics, which occurred during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Certainly by WW2 the average infantry firefight is 100m or less, which is why nations have moved away from full power rifles to smaller "assault" rifles.

In the American Civil War the "last hundred yards" is also a tactical feature, although for different reasons. Paddy Griffith in his Battle Tactics of the American Civil War was the first to show that engagement ranges in the ACW had not increased since Napoleon and Wellington's days, a finding confirmed by Brent Nosworthy and Joe Bilby (although both come up with slightly different conclusions). Others have also wrote on this issue (notably Earl J. Hess), but I have not yet read their books so couldn't comment. So the "last hundred yards" is prettymuch the deadly space* covered by the infantry weapons as used in that war. Beyond 100m is prettymuch the province of the artillery** and some specialised sharpshooters (see chapter 5 of Nosworthy's "Roll Call to Destiny" for a case study involving the Union suppressing Confederate guns by infiltrating sharpshooters forward).

So we have the question of how did attacker behave faced with this problem, on both the physical and psychological level.

On the physical level, if we had an army of robots then we could simply have them charge forward, taking some fire and some casualties, then they could get onto the enemy position quickly and will the minimum of casualties. In a volley of rifle fire in the ACW far less than 1% of the balls found a mark. A brigade of 1,000 men***, faced with another brigade of 1,000 men would typically suffer 3-8 casualties in each volley.

It is worthwhile to step back and examine why the rifle was so ineffective, and who was doing the killing. In his book On Killing, Grossman (expanding on Marshall's Men Against Fire has shown that in battle only a small fraction of the combatants actually employ their weapons systems effectively ("shoot to kill"). In unconditioned troops this may be as low as 2% (the percentage of society who are "killers", of whom half are sociopaths), but is typically (WW2 figures from Marshall) in the 10-15% range.

Thus, in that 1,000 man brigade, perhaps 100-150 men are actually trying to kill the enemy. This would also fit with hitting rates amongst well conditioned troops of the era (the British regular, who had accidently been through a dehumanising process much like that devised by Marshall, hit with about 5% of shots during the Crimean War). The remainder of the troops stand in the firing line, load and fire, but do not properly apply their fire and it is ineffective. However, this may explain the sudden jump in lethality of fire observed in the ACW at around 30-40m; at this range even unaimed fire will become partially effective, supplementing the "core group" of shooters. Even without this, their numbers offer psychological support to the core group, and intimidate the approaching enemy.

Considering the psychologically of an attacker, especially the perception of risk by those exposed to fire. Faced with any deadly event it is human nature to overestimate (usually by several orders of magnitude) just how deadly it is. Crossing 100m of ground would usually expose the attacker to 2 volleys of rifle fire, hitting maybe 1-2% of the attackers. Even adding in the unaimed fire which is likely to be partially effective in the final volley, casualties by rifle fire are likely to not be decisive.

Of course, we need to also consider the effect of the artillery. Guns are very lethal for several reasons, one of which goes back to Grossman and Marshall; the gun is a crew-served weapon, the gun team assumes corporate responsibility for the weapons system and bypasses inhibitions against killing as a result. Gun teams always shoot to kill, especially at longer ranges****. The guns also exert a psychological effect by their sheer nature, the boom of a 12 pounder blasting out more than 2lbs of gunpowder is a far more acute psychological trigger than the cracks of a battalion of 250 riflemen expending the same quantity of powder.

Within 100m, 12pdr canister will be fully effective. Each canister shot contained 27 balls. A 6 gun battery thus puts out about 100-162 effective balls (depending on divergence angles, drift etc.) into this area. Note the similarity to the volume of effective infantry fire and compare to the quote:

"A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets." - Sherman

Paddy Griffith (amongst others) has estimated that a well handled gun firing canister at close range will usually fell (when fired against close order infantry) 7 men. Given the more open order troops of the ACW tended to fight in, this must be considered to be the upper limit and that 2-3 per blast of canister is more likely. However, even 2-3 per blast makes a battery of 6 guns worth 2-3,000 muskets in this situation (if the 7 hits per blast were applied, then the 6 guns would be doing the killing of over 6,000 men; the infantry component of a small Corps!).

Given the above, I wish to make a case study, and I have selected the slaughter of the attack on the entrenchments at Cold Harbor on the 3rd June 1864.

This is an interesting action as a certain breed of civil war historians tend to overplay the events a lot. The likes of McPherson, Sears etc. all compress the ca. 12,000 casualties of a fortnight of combat into 8 bloody minutes on that day, thereby massively exaggerating the lethality of it, and thus advancing the idea that the ACW was a "modern war" or an early rehearsal for the Great War. In fact the charge lasted about an hour, not 8 minutes, and cost the Union about 3,500 casualties. The actually lethality is thus about 1/30th that a certain breed of ACW author would have us believe. (see Rhea, Cold Harbor, pp359-362)

The attacking Union force consisted of three Army Corps; Hancock's 2nd Corps on the left, Smith's 18th Corps on the right and Wright's 6th Corps in the centre. Warren's 5th and Burnside's 9th Corps were in a different sector. Command arrangements were awkward, only 3 of the 5 infantry corps reported to Meade (2nd, 5th and 6th Corps were the consolidated Army of the Potomac). Burnside, due to his seniority, commanded an independent 9th Corps (although he waived his seniority and took orders from Meade), whilst Smith's 18th Corps was a detachment from the Army of the James, and thus reported directly to Grant. There was no unity of command during the attack, and all three Corps Commanders fought their own battle without regard to those on their flanks; thus we can regard the action as three separate, but simultaneous attacks.

Lee meanwhile had occupied the same position as held by Porter's 5th Corps at the Battle of Gaines' Mill, even using Porter's works, which he improved.

Wright's attack in the centre was pathetic. However, we may perhaps excuse Wright and his subordinates, since two days earlier he had been thrown at exactly this position with no recce, with deadly results. Wright however had a much narrower frontage than the other two Corps, and this allowed him to deploy in depth, attacking in column of brigades. However, the successive waves were only 50 yds apart, and due to the ballistics of the rifled musket this meant that the target solution simplified greatly, so musketry was far more effective. Neill's division approached to 70 yards from the Confederate outposts, where they were content to exchange musketry with the enemy sharpshooters in their skirmish screen, while taking heavy artillery fire.

In Russell's Division, Upton (commanding 2nd brigade) simply refused to attack. The divisions' 3rd brigade went forward, unsupported, and simply advanced to a point where a low rise hide them and stayed there. The brigade commanders of 1st and 4th brigades concurred with Upton, and their division commander decided not to attack with them, but to support Gibbon (in 2nd Corps) if practicable, which is was deemed not to be. No brigade in Russell's division attempted to attack.

The veteran Ricketts at least attempted to attack with his division, but was funnelled into Bloody Run Ravine, which large quantities of Confederate artillery was zero'd on. The troops attacking mistook the advanced Confederate skirmish line manned by the 19th, 28th and 56th Virginia to be the main position, and became fixed by engaging in a firefight with it, whilst under heavy fire from enemy artillery. They attempted to advance no further.

Baldy Smith's 18th Corps decided to attack straight up the ravines leading to the Confederate position, unaware that the enemy had adopted a horseshoe formation around this obvious approach route and could bring massed fire down on it. Faced with this fire coming in from all three sides, Smith tried to engage all three simultaneously, splitting the momentum of his command and causing them to become bogged down in the enemies killing area.

Hancock did much better. He directed his 2 lead division commanders, Barlow and Gibbon to attack whereever they felt, and kept his 3rd, Birney, as a reserve ready to exploit or reinforce either. Gibbon formed his two lead brigades as a single line, overlapping lightly with the two brigades of Russell's division which were actually ahead of his right wing. His other brigades, Owen's and Tyler's were kept in column of battalions behind the battleline as a reserve. Barlow, with a narrower frontage, adopted a similar formation but only formed two brigades as a single line (although the 7th NYHA was ahead of the line), with 2 brigades in reserve.

In concept it seems that the lead brigades were to move forward and fix the enemy, whilst the brigades in tactical reserve were to make sledgehammer "storming" attacks through the first line to create lodgements, which the reserve division (Birney's) would then exploit. Taken from this PoV Hancock alone appears to have a maneourvist mindset.

In execution, after a brief (10 min) bombardment, Hancock's lead 4 brigades stepped off. Barlow's two lead brigades seized the Confederate first line almost at once. However, an attacking force is at its' most vulnerable in the moments after the completion of the attack as it regroups. Disrupted, and with the supporting brigades being tardy, 2 Confederate brigades put in a counterattack which reached bayonet point and pushed the Union troops back.

Gibbon's leading brigades ran straight into a swamp 200m ahead of their line of departure which disrupted them. Smyth's brigade used the disruption as an excuse to call off their attack, leaving Tyler to go in alone with his green (in two senses, since they were mostly Irish) troops. They became pinned down under heavy fire in front of the enemy works and suffered heavily. A few regiments managed to retain enough order to reach the enemy lines, but unsupported, none penetrated. Attempts to get the two brigades in column to mount an assault failed because their commanders refused the orders, one of which had only 150 yards of open ground (3 volleys) to cross.

So why did this attack fail? It certainly wasn't caused by the physical power of the Confederate defence, since in only one place (the extreme left flank) was this actually challenged. In most places the attacking Union troops simply advanced to a convenient piece of ground (something like a swale), took cover and engaged in a firefight. In doing this they were prolonging their stay in the killing area, usually within point blank range (less than 100 yards) of the enemy. By prolonging their exposure to fire they ensured they took more casualties than simply storming the enemy line would have caused. In the one sector of the battle where the attacker did not stop they overran the enemy first line with rapidity, causing a large number of casualties for comparatively few of their own. It was a counterattack at bayonetpoint which drove them back with heavy casualties.

So why did the Union attack fail? Simply because the power of the Confederate fortifications defeated the attackers will to attack them at all levels. Even some division and brigade commanders are stating this is suicide, even in front of the men. This is gross negligence of the highest degree. In this attitude of malaise, the men simply demonstrated their bravery by advancing a bit (to satisfy honour) then settled down to do something them considered less risky, take some cover and shoot back. In doing so they doomed the attack, and doomed the attackers to much higher casualties than if they had conducted a vigourous storm (which would have the bonus of destroying the Confederate Army as well as saving lives).

Hesitation in the attack is fatal. This is a well known aspect of war which seems to have bypassed the Union troops on that day. In this case the hesitation may have added 9-10 months to the war and cost tens of thousands of lives.








* Deadly Space is a ballistics term describing the area where bullets are in an area that they could hit a target. Shots at "Point Blank" only have one Deadly Space, from the muzzle to the point the ball hits the ground. For a rifle-musket of the type used in the ACW this "Point Blank Range" is slightly over 100yds, depending on various factors including the weapon, the elevation of the shooter etc. If the rifle is elevated even slightly then two different deadly spaces will be created with a zone of immunity (to borrow the naval term) inbetween them. Even with extremely well trained riflemen there is a major dropoff in effective fire as soon as an elevation variable is added to the target solution.

** As another aside, the same factors as my first note apply to artillery. Point blank fire (i.e. a levelled gun firing at targets less than first graze away) was found to be much more effective than longer ranged fire. Depending on various factors this range is 300m or less for solid shot, and about 100m for canister. For this reason many experts advocated sticking with solid shot at well below the extreme range of canister.

*** 1,000 men is perhaps typical of an ACW brigade, although there is a lot of variation, especially in the early war, and when newly raised green regiments were posted to brigades (where often a new regiment had more men than the rest of the brigade put together).

**** Above 600m the human being loses its' appearance as "a human being" and dissolves itself into simply another target, much like a bullseye. This removes all inhibitions against shooting to kill. Indeed, it was noticed in the age where battles were fought with long range musketry (i.e. the latter half of the 19th century) that when an approaching formation came to within 5-600m suddenly the fire became less effective, not more. This is likely due to a large proportion of the riflemen no longer properly applying their fire against that are now human beings rather than an abstract target.

Baggage Trains

This paper is worth reading if interested in the problems of supplying armies in the Civil War. However, it may require an academic network to view....

One of the more interesting facts is that Sherman (an officer known for loudly stating he travelled light) had the largest baggage train to man ratio known in the war. Little wonder that nearly half his army drove wagons.

As an aside, a while ago I had the problem of trying to calculate the number of men a baggage train used. My answer (from various references to the size of baggage trains and the number of men in them, usually from reports of cavalry raids) was that a baggage train consumes nearly 8 men per wagon. In other words, 5,000 wagons needed about 40,000 men to run them.

This becomes very significant if you ever try and calculate fighting strengths of armies as opposed to their PFD....