Losses in Battle

[Scott Sheets]

A few of us are having a drill/tactics discussion regarding dressing the line during battle. Specifically what happens when men go down in the front rank. The question is whether the men outside of the direction of the guide dress in therefore shortening the line, or if the men in the rear rank step up, directed by the file closers. We are pretty solidly split into two camps on the issue. Those arguing for dressing and shortening the line point to the tactics which instruct you to maintain the touch of the elbow. Those arguing for the rear rank to step up point to the dangers of shortening a line. Unfortunately we have been unable to come up with primary sources to fully support either view. Can anyone point to a manual or account addressing the topic?

[jtrotta]

Re: Losses in Battle

This topic is discussed in Dom Dal Bello's Parade, Inspection, and Basic Evolutions of the Infantry Battalion on page 72 (in the fourth edition). He references Scott's 1835 Infantry Tactics to argue the need for the rear rank man to step into the front rank. According to Scott the following is instructed:

16. "Files having been formed, as often as a front or centre rank (if in 3 ranks) man falls or steps out of his rank, he will be immediately replaced, for the time, by his coverer in the next rank"

The benefits of this practice are described further by Mr. Dal Bello, but, in summary, they include:
1) the ability to maintain your front (as you mentioned),
2) the removal of the need for a front rank man to cross in front of a rear rank man who is loaded (safety concern),
3) the ability to maintain your file numbers (1,2,1,2...etc.) through the present situation.

[Scott Sheets]

Re: Losses in Battle

Thanks John. I knew I had read it somewhere, but I didn't want to offer my opinion and memory as proof. It makes complete sense and it was driving me insane looking for it.

[Michael Comer]

Re: Losses in Battle

But Scott's is dealing with a 3 man rank which is easier to move a man up to the front rank while maintaining a solid second rank. How do we know that transfers to a 2 man rank?

[john duffer]

Re: Losses in Battle

SCOTT'S was written for either two or three ranks and when adopted by the U.S. it's stated at the front that the three rank formation will not be used.

On a side note, and it may take a while to remember where I saw this, as gaps do open up - a whole file goes down or losses are in one portion of the line - the company can right face and men step forward if there'a space in front of them and when fronted you're back to a continuous two rank formation.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Losses in Battle

Took me a while to find it, but here, from the February 25, 1865 issue of the Army and Navy Journal, is a brief discussion of the point:

"Who steps into that vacant place in the front rank? Not always the man who is nearest, nor the man from whom it might be expected. For our own part, we have seen young boys as ready as any on these occasions, the readiness arising, however, not merely from being boys, but from that courage which was about to make them brave men, taking as yet but little heed to consequences. Mark the grown men who are foremost on these occasions they are of the *elite."

That's from Part III of a series. In Part IV, published on March 4, the author describes how to reorganize under fire, having previously suggested the colonel count files and equalize his companies before going into action:

"The commander of a battalion should take the first opportunity, from a lull in the battle, to *equalize his companies*, and thus be ready for any new movements. Doing this in the ordinary way occupies too much time, and besides orders for an immediate movement may be receive while it is still unfinished. A better method, although it has disadvantages, is, after re-forming the files, to have the front rank men count rapidly off the whole number of files from the right to the left flank; as the last man calls off this number to divide it into as many companies as seems best for manoeuvering, and then to assign the officers as nearly as may be to their original places, taking care, however, that each sub-division has a proper number of file-closers..."

This of course is very late in the war. I mention it not because it's likely it had any effect in changing existing methods, but because it may in fact reflect some of the procedures that had already developed from the actual experience of war. From the author's experience, anyone might step into the front rank and you'd straighten out the resulting mess whenever you got a chance.

If we go by other accounts, such as Sherman's summation in his memoirs, much of the fighting later in the war was done in one rank anyway, the famous "heavy skirmish line." The experience wasn't uniquely American, but something Du Picq mentions, quoting a Prussian officer as saying, "In examining the battles of 1866 for characteristics, one is struck by a feature common to all, the extraordinary extension of front at the expense of depth Either the front is spun out into a single long thin line, or it is broken into various parts that fight by themselves. Above all the tendency is evident to envelop the enemy by extending the wings. There is no longer any question of keeping the original order of battle..."

[thomas aagaard]

Re: Losses in Battle

If we go by other accounts, such as Sherman's summation in his memoirs, much of the fighting later in the war was done in one rank anyway, the famous "heavy skirmish line."

Curious - Do he actually tell us that it is in one rank?
(don't have his book at hand)

Iam asking because the danish 1863 drill books use half its pages on how to fight in open order, since that was to be the main way of fighting.
But in the danish system you still fight in two ranks. there is just a bigger distance between each file.
(four paces, instead of the usual width of a hand) Resulting in a formation that got something like 2½ times the men pr. x m of frontline, compared to the standard US skirmish line)

It is my impression that the Prussian similar used two ranks.

Also, if you take 100 men in one rank and compare to 100men in two ranks, but with both having the same length of front, then logically the two rank version give you a much bigger change of incoming fire going between the men when taking fire at 100 yards from the front. And it would be easier to move true woods and similar. But you loose very little firepower.

So to me a two rank version, with a yard or two between each file makes much more sense, than using one rank...

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Losses in Battle

In Chapter XXV of his Memoirs (p. 885 in the one-volume edition I have) Sherman states, "We were generally in a wooded country and, though our lines were deployed according to tactics, the men generally fought in strong skirmish lines..."

There's been previous debate on what constitutes "heavy" or "strong" skirmish lines. I assume it's a one rank formation with closer intervals than five paces. That's the idea I get from other anecdotal accounts, Upton's provision for fighting in one rank in his Tactics, and W. R. Livermore's description of skirmish lines of varying density in his "American Kriegsspiel."

The two rank version you mention from the Danish tactics sounds to me very much like one of the methods of "extend intervals" used in Napoleonic rifle and light infantry tactics. It does give you more rifles per meter than intervals of five paces between men in a single rank, but you can get perhaps a better result with two and a half paces between single men and a shallower target.

As near as I can figure out from the partial translation of the 1846 Prussian tactics in my possession (developed for troops armed with the Dreyse), their skirmish line was formed by sending out the third rank of fusiliers, shouting "Schwarmen!," and having the left guide run out the distance you want the men to occupy, the men following and taking intervals accordingly. It results in a single rank of varying intervals according to the distance taken.

This is wandering a ways from the original question, but I think it may still be relevant. It may be that the practical difficulty of maintaining a two-rank close order of battle under fire was just another problem that the attempts to fight in one rank were supposed to solve.

[Matthew Joe Mallory]

Re: Losses in Battle

This topic is discussed in Dom Dal Bello's Parade, Inspection, and Basic Evolutions of the Infantry Battalion on page 72 (in the fourth edition). He references Scott's 1835 Infantry Tactics to argue the need for the rear rank man to step into the front rank. According to Scott the following is instructed:

16. "Files having been formed, as often as a front or centre rank (if in 3 ranks) man falls or steps out of his rank, he will be immediately replaced, for the time, by his coverer in the next rank"

The benefits of this practice are described further by Mr. Dal Bello, but, in summary, they include:
1) the ability to maintain your front (as you mentioned),
2) the removal of the need for a front rank man to cross in front of a rear rank man who is loaded (safety concern),
3) the ability to maintain your file numbers (1,2,1,2...etc.) through the present situation.

What would happen to the rear rank once the coverer replaces the front rank man?

[jtrotta]

Re: Losses in Battle

What would happen to the rear rank once the coverer replaces the front rank man?

I can't find anything further, but I would imagine the rear rank would not dress down until 1) instructed by the line/field officers, or 2) a whole file is knocked out. I think the issue would be solved when the company is reformed after the current emergency has ended. Based on the other references provided in other posts above (i.e. "heavy skirmish line"), the maintenance of two well dressed ranks may not have been a big priority while hotly engaged.

As a private in the rear rank, I have always found myself placed behind someone much taller than me when I am instructed to dress to the right. Which makes for obvious challenges. By not mixing file partners, i.e. by not having the rear rank only dress right, I think you avoid this situation. (This assumes that you form company with tallest men to the right).

Just trying to think this through too. Hopefully someone can provide more concrete evidence/instruction.