 Good day. I'm Colonel Jerry Morlock, the Director of the Combat Studies Institute. You're about to use a video series which our instructors have prepared for the sole purpose of improving your presentation of M610, the Evolution of Modern Warfare. We've taken care to make the course that you teach as similar to the one taught at Fort Leavenworth as possible, and choose to add these tapes to your libraries in order to give you every advantage as you prepare to teach this new course. These tapes are similar to the weekly train-up sessions which we utilize to prepare our instructors here at Fort Leavenworth. My intent for the tape sessions was to provide you insights and tips on ways to approach the lessons of M610 that were not available in the instructor notes. I've drawn various instructors, military and civilian, into the sessions based upon their specific expertise and historical background. They were asked to just talk to the lesson structure and content, giving you some additional information on the historical context, and differing views on how to approach the lessons. These tapes will provide you a wealth of knowledge and direction that will significantly improve your readiness to teach our new history course. One word of caution regarding how to use these training tapes. They are not designed to be substituted for your instruction during the individual lessons of the course. As instructor preparation tapes train the training material, if you will, they are inappropriate for direct instruction to students and are not intended for that purpose. Our intent with these tapes is to improve your ability to lead the students' seminars by sharing tips and advice from some highly qualified experts. The Combat Studies Institute stands ready to provide whatever additional expertise or assistance that you may require, and we've included the institute's phone, mail and email contact information on the tape if you should need it. Good luck with the evolution of the Modern Warfare Course. Have a good time. I'm Dr. Glenn Robertson, and this morning we're supposed to talk about Lesson 6, the American Civil War 1862-65, as part of M&S Course 610, the Evolution of Modern Warfare. I'm joined this morning by two of my associates, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Bassett and Lieutenant Colonel Dave Chuber. Our goal this morning is to talk a little bit about this lesson, to provide some assistance in ways to teach this lesson, and to provide some ideas on alternative approaches. This lesson offers both great opportunity and a large number of pitfalls. The American Civil War, in its military aspects, is more or less unique in American military history. It's unique in a number of respects. One of those that would concern you as instructors is that most students, no matter what age or station in life, come into this lesson believing they know a great deal about it. They've all heard of the Battle of Gettysburg, or the Battle of Shiloh, or U.S. Grant, or Robert E. Lee, or Abraham Lincoln. So they come into this lesson with fixed notions already. Some of those notions are correct. Some of them probably will need some modification. So you're going to begin this lesson with students who already have fixed opinions. That's not necessarily bad, but it is something you have to think about. Given these fixed opinions, and given the short amount of time that you have to teach this lesson, there is another pitfall that you should be aware of. And that is that this lesson can degenerate into a simple statement of battles and campaigns. There were over 4,000 engagements in the American Civil War. Most of them small. Most of them not important enough to be mentioned in this class. But there are a large number of battles and campaigns to be followed throughout an area as large as Western Europe, the Confederacy. If you attempt to simply do a recitation of battles and campaigns, I believe you will probably be trapped in minutiae, and you will be trapped in the preconceived notions, particularly on the Battle of Gettysburg, for instance. So the way to teach this lesson, the way that we are going to recommend to you, is that you not adopt overtly the chronological focus of moving the armies in all the theaters through all of the campaigns. Instead, we propose an alternative approach that will use chronology as a baseline foundation, but not as an overt listing of battles and campaigns and commanders and numbers and strategies and tactics. We propose to take the chronology as a framework, but to use that chronology where it fits to consider the theme of change in warfare over time, accelerated by the pressures on both contending parties in the American Civil War. In your last lesson, you finished up with a case study, the Battle of First Bull Run in 1861. Certain parameters came out of that case study, such things as the type of battle, the type of tactics, the type of strategy, and at the highest level, the war aims of the contending parties. Toward the latter part of this lesson, you will also have a case study, the so-called Battle of the Crater, or the Petersburg Mine, in 1864. And that case study, when juxtaposed with the First Bull Run study from last lesson, will give you an opportunity to show the changes on various levels of warfare that have taken place in the very short period between 1861 and 1864. So, a way of comparison is these two case studies. So, what we propose to do this morning in our discussion, to assist you in preparing this lesson, is to talk about the changes that occurred in warfare within the American Civil War between 1861 and First Bull Run and 1864 and 65 in the sieges of Petersburg and the Atlanta Campaign, things like that. And to do that, we propose to really work through the levels. We'd like to discuss a little bit about war aims of the belligerents and national strategies of the belligerents and then gradually work down through operations to tactics. And our theme will remain constant throughout this session, and that is to help you to show your students the rapid changes that occurred at all of these levels over a very short period of time. And of course, in addition, we'll point out places where things did not change very rapidly, most especially in the realm of tactics and the losses associated with rifle firepower. So, that's our suggestion to you to see the Civil War in this military lesson, not as simply a recitation of facts, dates, commanders, campaigns, and battles, but to see it thematically in terms of war aims, in terms of national strategies, in terms of key points, centers of gravity, and how those things all changed. And then as we move down through the trilogy of strategy, operation, and tactics to again show how change occurred between last lessons, 1861 battle, and this lesson's late war battle, the battle of the crater. So that's our suggestion to you on how to cover a course lesson that is both seemingly familiar to the students and yet frequently devoid of analysis and lost in the welter of facts. With that in mind, I'd like to turn to Colonel Bassett and see what he can tell us about war aims of the two belligerents, 1861 and how they changed in 1865. Well, I think at the strategic political level, certainly the war aim for the Confederacy being independence and for the Union being preservation of Union are remained or retained through the course of the war. Something will happen in 1862, directly to this theme of change, and that is the realization by the summer of 1862 by Abraham Lincoln that what in 1861 had been a strong desire to prosecute this war in such a way that reconciliation following the conflict would be both possible and relatively rapid is changing. We've talked about this a little bit. We address it some in the course here. The Emancipation Proclamation is an important point to illustrate how for the Union this war is changing and war aims are changing. But the one thing I would caution to you with regards to the Emancipation Proclamation is it can be an issue that will hold the group's attention and keep discussion for potentially an over long period. I would suggest to you a technique for doing this would be to find that quotation early in the widely reading where Abraham Lincoln says to Congress in December 1861 that the Union must be preserved and hence all indisputable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme measures which may reach loyal as well as disloyal are indispensable. This desire on Lincoln's part to preclude a remorseless revolutionary struggle. And then the classic quotation, the letter that Lincoln sends to Horace Greeley on 22 August 1862 where he says to Greeley in response to an editorial Greeley had written if there be those who could not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery I do not agree with them. If there be those who could not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. Now that's what Lincoln says as late as August of 1862. Speaks to the point that for the Union, for Abraham Lincoln at the beginning of this war this is a war to preserve Union. Not a war to end slavery. Yet on 22 September he will issue the Emancipation Proclamation which will have the fundamental impact on this war that it will make a settlement of the conflict on terms of status quo antebellum or those conditions that exist prior to the war impossible. Now why does Lincoln do this? He will argue in favor of emancipation to his cabinet and to the public as a war measure. He will argue for it as a means of striking at the military and economic resources of the Confederacy. It strikes at their manpower base. Every black that leaves, every slave that leaves a plantation becomes one less individual productively employed for the Confederacy and potentially one more individual serving the Union. He feels it will have some political benefits for his administration for the North. It assuages, it plays to the radical Republican element in his own party that has been such a really a nuisance to him in the preceding months. It's going to have some diplomatic benefits particularly with England. And he feels it will have a psychological impact on the South. Now it is the stick to the carrot of what he will soon articulate as a relatively conciliatory reconstruction policy. So it is first and foremost a war measure and it represents how this war is changing. It will add for the Union now a second war aim and that being to end slavery. So I think at the strategic political level that is one instance that can be cited for how this war is changing, how it is evolving through its course. A war which for the Confederacy meant a fight for independence. And for the Union which initially meant simply restoration of the Union as it was over the course of four years takes on quite a different set of goals. Restoration of the Union as it was is no longer exactly the goal of the North. Either through expedience or through morality. It now has become a larger fight for human freedom and the end of slavery. You can find books arguing Lincoln was simply a crafty politician. And books that argue that Lincoln ultimately came to understand the great wrong that slavery represented. But either way, whether expediency or simply justice, the war aims modified for the North. And the means to achieve those aims modified as well. Dave how much, how important do you think it is to bring this out in this lesson? And how much time do you think should be devoted to it? The time length should be minimal I think. You have, it is an important factor. But the time that you have to do this lesson is, you got a lot to put in it. And I don't think you can devote a whole lot. The biggest part that you can devote is show both sides. As Bill showed what the Union needs, you need to at least show a little bit about how the South saw it. The emancipation proclamation. For them they believe that Lincoln frees no slaves with this political maneuver. They see no slaves being freed in the South because they still have control of theirs. He does not free the slaves in the North which he does have control of at that time frame. And for also the South looks as this is Lincoln's way to do, to move a rebellion within the rebellion. To have slave uprisings. Which even Great Britain at the same time looks at that this is an act that's unconscionable in the war at this time. So the biggest thing I think we need to do during the emancipation proclamation show that at least both sides, for the Union and Lincoln, maybe harsh Greeley and the rest of the abolitionists, we could bring that out. But for the South at the same time they're going on with the war and as business as usual to continue to fight and gain their independence along with this they believe their constitutional right even under the Union before they broke away. You know sir I would almost recommend that the emancipation proclamation be mentioned purely in the context of the political aims changing in 1862. And then move on into how the military strategy is changing over the course of the war. Maintain your focus at the military level which in which there's much to be done with the readings that you have for this particular lesson. And possibly the best way to do that is to take Dr. Robertson's piece and for those of you that have not noticed, the case study you did on First Bowl Run was written by Dr. Robertson, our deputy director. But take that and take that discussion of Scott's anaconda plan and the eventual strategy that is adopted and the reasons for pursuing that strategy in 1861. And then go to the Wigley Reading and point out to your students that in a footnote to the Wigley Reading and in fact you can refer them back to page 493 in the American Way of War they provide a letter that Lincoln sends to one of the subordinate generals Don Carlos Buell in January of 1862 where he articulates what he believes to be the best union military strategy for this war and that being one that employs all the resources of the union at the same time advancing on a variety of fronts and causing problems for the Confederacy with their fewer resources identifying weakness, exploiting that weakness and really bringing the advantages of the union to bear in the most effective manner. Wigley does a very good job then talking about how Halleck for one responds to this. It is not Jominion in the sense of achieving mass and focusing on the attainment of interior lines and exploitation of interior lines but this is the concept, the general concept that the union will finally adopt and adopt successfully by 1864 that which is embodied in Grant's instructions to his generals another primary source which you have available to you in your readings for this particular lesson. So I think maybe showing what Lincoln is thinking as early as January 1862 discussing the reasons he has so much difficulty promulgating this military strategy and how by March 1864 he now finally has a general in chief that understands this concept and is able to frame a plan that executes simultaneous advances on a variety of fronts could be useful to you and takes you into the campaign of 1864 where you can then compare that with what has happened earlier. Even on the sides for the Confederate side you can see with Don Carlos Buell, Lincoln and Halleck there's a disagreement on how to develop this plan and it is a developmental phase of how they're going to do that or they're going to achieve success with the Confederacy I think the Confederacy has the same problem they have a large area that they're trying to defend with a lot smaller army and they have some of the same problems although they look toward interior lines where hopefully they can move troops from one place to another their problems are even greater in not having the industrial base of the north they're also having the problems of because their agrarian culture anyway they don't have the resources and they must gather those resources from another area which is why they want recognition from Europe and to do that they have to be able to bring those resources in to their ports and then with what you see with the Anaconda plan it affects their whole plan and how they're going to do that because not only with the blockade, the Anaconda plan the fighting in different areas, the interior lines unless they can control certain resources like the supply routes or MSRs of the railroads they will not be able to shift troops from one to the other and eventually the north itself will use the railroads as points that they will try to seize very early in the war whether north or south officers in high positions who are faced with prosecuting the war for their respective war aims will have the very difficult problem of figuring out how to operate with much larger numbers over vast distances some of them will intuitively understand this process but not very many others will look to the intellectual heritage that they had received in their professional training two lessons earlier in your lesson four you had no doubt a discussion of Germany and Klauswitz Klauswitz was not translated into English until after the American Civil War so American Civil War officers north and south were not familiar with Klauswitz's concepts be they friction or center of gravity or all of the other terms that we've now imbibed so much over the years but those Civil War officers who had been professionally trained were no doubt at least familiar with the concepts of Antoine Henri Baron de Geomanie Napoleonic staff officer, theorist, intellectual a man who tried to interpret the successes of the great Napoleon Bonaparte and put those successes into book form and then of course he was ripped off by Americans Dennis Hart Mahan at West Point Henry Wager Halleck, pre-war officer who left the service and now has come back in and will ultimately for a time be general in chief Geomanie and his interpreters are in the saddlebags intellectually of officers north and south Geomanie talked about the decisive point place the bulk of your forces in a concentrated form at the decisive point while the enemy can only place part of his forces there if you're a northern staff officer I frequently argue in my classes on this subject to my students and you have received this training and you remember it what in 1861 is the decisive point that you should concentrate at and as the war progresses does that decisive point change it really gets to the Clauswitzian centers of gravity in some respects although for Geomanie place seemed to be more important than intangible centers what if you were a staff officer for the Union in 1861 would you think the decisive point was? Bill? Sir I think in 1861 it would be the capital of the Confederacy it would be Richmond Alright by 1864 Dave is that still true? I don't think so I think about 64 it is the Confederacy as a whole every piece of terrain that's not covered by a Union troop or Union Army is still alive is still in rebellion and by 64 the south is still the south as long as it still stands or a flag flies over one of its large cities or the fields are being told by slaves or bread is being ground in Shenandoah Valley those areas are still parts of the Confederacy and they still believe in the idea of a separate nation and see I would argue that it is by early 1863 and it is embodied in this plan of 1864 that we look at in this lesson that Lincoln and then Grant as general in chief understand that the strategic center of gravity for the Confederacy that which the Union must attack is southern will to sustain this fight and if that is the strategic center of gravity Lincoln over time and again embodied in Grant's plan for 64 has identified some operational centers of gravity that will facilitate the unions of successfully breaking the Confederate will to continue this fight in the east Lincoln has been saying since 1862 that it's Lee's army that his commanders must orient on Lee's army destroyed if possible although he's not particularly confident that his commanders are capable of beating Lee in that manner but certainly it is Lee's army and not so much Richmond that the eastern commander should be orienting on in the western theater it's a strategy of exhaustion to sign to grabbing initially Chattanooga and then after Chattanooga falls in November 1863 Atlanta as a means of controlling territory that is resource rich for the Confederacy that as Dave was talking a little earlier interdicts the Confederates ability to transfer troops and supplies both within theater and from theater to theater and finally it affords them forward bases to build resources to build armies for further actions deep into the Confederacy it is the development now of a military strategy that understands and applies Union resources in different theaters toward different operational centers of gravity but all designed toward destroying the Confederacy's will to continue the fight and crucial to that is to attack the legitimacy of Davis's government not only with the southern people but also with the nations of Europe could preclude intervention I think the Confederacy also looks at the will of the north to continue this war to the point that that's not only do they do certain things in hopes that maybe the raid or the movement into Pennsylvania and to Gettysburg not only feeds their army but it also if they can defeat a Union army on Union soil that the will of the north itself the people will continue to see in the newspapers and blackboard name after name of its sons being killed in the south or killed on its own soil that they too will look at this is a useless war and what are we fighting for initially it was the Union now it's for slavery forget slavery let the south go that is what the south is hoping for that either they get recognition which is by this time I think is just about gone but maybe the north will be tired of this by 64 and their will will be somewhat broken itself and at least in support of the war well sir if I could speak to that real quickly and it also I think talks to the depiction of Robert E. Lee and Wigley's American Way of War which is not very complimentary where he argues that Lee does not have a strategic vision I think possibly evidence that he in fact does and speaking directly to Dave's point is this quotation from early 1863 where Lee will write and I quote is successful this year 1863 next fall will be a great change in public opinion at the north the Republicans will be destroyed and I think the friends of peace will become so strong that as that next administration will go in on that basis we have only therefore to resist manfully I think reflecting in early 1863 that General Lee understands that the strategic center of gravity for the north is popular will is public support for the war and that through continued operations that a threat union forces fought their military forces that will will continue to erode and that the Democratic Party in the north will gain in power and possibly turn Lincoln out of office in the election of 1864 and Lincoln himself believes that too he says the same that he does not think he will be his party will elect him and he does not think he will be he will win and he believes that and that comes to the point that unless there is a victory which will later we will see with Atlanta that even Lincoln himself feels that the people's will to support the union calls is failing notice that we begin in 1861 talking simply about a place on to Richmond is the way to win go to Richmond capture Richmond and the war will be over you will also see that early in the war in Henry Halick's desire to go to Corinth, Mississippi a strategic railroad junction well he gets to Corinth he takes Corinth and the war goes on some people argue that Vicksburg is such a key place on the Mississippi River Vicksburg falls on July 4th 1863 and the war goes on another 18 months places are important as a means of implementing war aims but what you've just heard in our discussion is more a discussion of intangibles will the will of the north to keep up the fight the will of the south to continue to resist and then it becomes a question of how do you break that will or how do you maintain that will these are intangible things but strategy which began simply in the seizure of places now has to deal with the breaking of will or the maintaining of will places still are important Richmond is a critical industrial center Atlanta is an important industrial center and transportation hub Chattanooga is an important center of resources and transportation assets but the Confederacy can continue to exist with the loss of a great many places although at some point it drops below the line of being viable as a nation can it exist without the Trans Mississippi? it's arguable of course and it may have to do with where you come from your own heritage but I believe the Confederacy could have existed as a viable nation without the Trans Mississippi which to some degree negates the criticality of Vicksburg could the Confederacy exist without Richmond? the thirteen colonies existed without any of their major cities which the British took at pleasure in the War of the Revolution had things changed by the 1860s had our society become so different that's a question that you can raise in terms of comparison with earlier lessons what does it take to make a viable nation? Places, factories, farms the will of the people and you can probably add to this list you can get if you choose a pretty good discussion on this realm of strategy places versus intangibles and of course the discussion of what does it take to remain viable as a nation ultimately of course strategy has to be translated into operations and here too you can show change over time accelerated by the pressures of war the early campaign tempos 1861, 62 and to some degree 1863 really can be characterized as short campaigns, quick battles indecisive battles and then long rest periods between campaigns the army of the Cumberland for instance in the middle part of this war both chronologically and geographically sits for in some cases six months between the Battle of Stone River in December 1862 and it's advanced to Tahoma in 1863 six months of inactivity the army of the Potomac will fight a battle in the early half of the war and then sit return to its starting point there is a type of tempo represented by short campaigns long rest periods broken by indecisive battles but by 1864 again you see a change if you characterize Grant's Overland Campaign beginning with the wilderness in May of 1864 culminating with the beginning of St. Petersburg in July 1864 you see an entirely different tempo of operations similarly in Sherman's Advanced Award Atlanta from Chattanooga against the army of Joe Johnston you see a similar phenomenon smaller battles still indecisive but not long rest periods between battles and you will see the armies the major armies remaining in contact on virtually a daily basis so that every day there is fighting not two-day battles and six months of rest or three-day battles and four months of rest it's a battle every day this has to do of course with retaining the initiative and this allows you to look at a succession of commanders and you have a great many to choose from your readings tend to focus you in a particular way and of course on the most famous of the opposing commanders Grant and Lee when he had the opportunity Lee always tried to maintain the initiative when he had the opportunity Grant always tried to maintain the initiative Dave how important do you think initiative is as a concept for these commanders I think with initiative if it's not kept up and the pressure is not put on the enemy then the loss of maneuver itself will stagnate either the battlefield itself the commander has to have the ability to move he has to have the ability to try to outflank or to gain that advantage on the battlefield to destroy his enemy and if when those things bog down and the battlefield becomes stagnant then you have to go to a different type of tactic let's turn now to tactics because at the ultimate level strategy becomes operations which becomes tactics and tactics in the American Civil War is a subject that is much argued about again you can get into minutiae of how to maneuver regiments from column into line but there are some larger questions in regard to tactics that really have to do with the interrelationship between tactical doctrine capability and the American Civil War is an excellent case study of the disconnect that occasionally occurs between technological capabilities and tactical doctrine and so we probably ought to spend some time with that just as you should spend some time with that Dave can you outline for us very quickly the nature of the technological change that occurs just prior to the American Civil War I think the most important change will come with the rifle musket before 1855 the U.S. had smoothbore muskets although they had changed over in 1842 to percussion ignition but they have not changed the range or changed the bore itself by the rifle musket in 1855 the smoothbore was firing at a range of 50 to 100 yards and now with the 55 musket the range could kill out to a thousand yards this this was noticed by very few or some in the regular army one by the name of General Hardee was not at that time but as a captain later in Confederate army he will become a general and he changes he writes a manual and tries to change somewhat at least to adapt to that rifle musket but all he does is step up the pace of crossing what I would call and Jameson does too and others would call the deadly ground that space between where the rifleman is firing and where you start off in the killing zone between that 1,000 yards up to going through his lines at where he is standing at and I think between the rifle musket and then later on which we will see with artillery we see these ranges increase but we don't see a lot of innovation although we do with one or two leaders up to being one of them looking at how to change the battlefield to prevent the massive killings that we will find and how to develop counter to some of these weapons that are being developed and used on the battlefield of that time here to for all of the major combat arms infantry artillery and cavalry had a role to play on the battlefield artillery because of its longer range could drive up to within 400 or 500 yards maybe even less of an opposing infantry line in the pre-rifle age and if the guns could be massed as Napoleon was want to do batter the defender unmercifully and open great holes which could then be exploited by a bayonet charge of infantry or a mounted cavalry charge three of the combat arms in the pre-1855 period could play on the battlefield the rifle musket changed all that artillery now could not drive up to within 400 yards of an opposing infantry line the horses would be shot down the gunners would be shot down and the guns would be lost so artillery was pushed further to the back edge of the battlefield where problems of fusing and range estimation and frangibility of shells and lack of recoil systems all reduced the effectiveness momentarily of artillery cavalry the rifle musket banished it to the edges of the battlefield and cavalry until it developed a firepower revolution of its own with new technology was forced to fall back on scouting and screening and that most favorite of cavalry occupations in the civil war riding arrayed but cavalry could not stand against formed troops with a rifle musket for the opposing infantry lines the rifle musket meant that the bayonet had come to be essentially a weak weapon except in rare circumstances better as a can opener or a candle holder and a device to strike terror into the heart of the defender for infantry too being in that beaten zone of 400 yards instead of 50 to 100 meant that they would have more ground to cross so instead of facing one or two aimed shots they would face 10 or 12 aimed shots and the result was a holocaust of blood on any civil war battlefield where two armies came together with purpose and desire to win so the casualties are going up and up and up the question arises in this late 20th century how could people not have seen that how could they have been so stupid the answer is they did see it and they weren't so stupid you do those people of the 19th century and injustice to believe that they couldn't see these simple truths and they saw them but they believed they couldn't change what we've tried to do in this brief discussion is really walk you through what we believe to be a useful way of taking a subject that many students believe they know everything about and a subject that can be extremely complex and tried to handle it in a meaningful way of about an hour we started at the top with war aims we worked down through strategy operations and finally to tactics in the school of the soldier what we've showed you as a way of teaching this is to see it in terms of the theme of change in warfare accelerated by the pressures of serious conflict things that started out in 1861 as simply restoration of the union versus independence by 1865 has changed into a larger moral question of human freedom what we've showed you in terms of strategy has changed from simply a place to more intangible things like national will what we've showed you in operations is that the tempo over the war changed from short battles and long rest periods to battles that seem to be endless and contact over months not two or three days so the nature of operations changed the one area where there was very little change especially for the infantry was in tactics where technology had made a quantum leap forward and doctrine was struggling to catch up and no matter what the pressures of war were that was impossible to do we believe this thematic approach of accelerated change over time is probably the best approach to take in this very vast subject of the American Civil War we've given you a couple of case studies and if you use first pull run and the crater and juxtapose them by the end of this lesson you can show your students how warfare has changed in this vast arena national aims strategy operations and tactical doctrine we hope that this will be something for you to think about and a way to get important points across as you work through this lesson I want to thank my associates Colonel Bassett Colonel Chuber and we wish you the best of luck as you work through this lesson