Hagerman\'s the American Civil War

¶ … Hagerman's the American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare

In Hagerman's book, we see that in many ways that the American Civil War was the first modern war, at least in the area of technology and the deployment of mass citizen armies. However, in terms of tactics, the American soldiers of the North and South were not prepared for this new type of warfare in training or in doctrine. The new technologies, especially long-range rifle technology that could bring down a soldier at hundred of yards down range on the battlefield clashed with the old training of soldiers who were firing muskets at less than one hundred yards. This horrible increase in firepower doomed open frontal assaults and by the battle of Petersburg in late 1864 to early 1865, the horrible visage of trench warfare that would become so widespread during World War One was prophetically seen. This new firepower reduced the effectiveness of artillery from the offense to the defense only and made cavalry fight dismounted next to cavalry. These same cavalry troops then were employed in new roles spurred by the new technological innovation that appeared in the repeating carbine. These roles included areas as far afield as reconnaissance and in the attack and defense of lines of communications.

The industrial revolution in general challenged the military establishments of the time. Other new technologies such as the electric telegraph and railroads revolutionized communications and transportation. The shear scope and size of the American countryside caused many aspects of traditional European warfare to break down. While new technologies definitely had their impact, "low tech" approaches were also used. As General William T. Sherman's slow, methodical advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta and then through the Carolinas, it was necessary many times to "get off the grid" and live off the land. Increasingly, the Civil War was the first total war. It does seem fitting that General Sherman was the best practitioner of the art of total war since he predicted it. His nervous breakdown and public ridicule were now vindicated as the North got down to the really gritty business of taking the War to the people of the South and against them, their territory, resources and communications that inevitably supported the enemy armies in the field. While genocide was not yet a factor here, it would become so when these Civil War standards were later applied to the later wars against Native Americans.

There was not doubt that by the mid-nineteenth century, nationalism and civil war bred new rules of war. Sherman's total war operations fulfilled the predictions of German military Karl von Clausewitz who had predicted before he died in 1831 that the growing involvement of nationalist armies of citizens would make war more emotional, intensifying the conflict with civilian populations. Such developments were the product of new types of social organization brought about by the late industrial age. High commands developed new types of organization as individual commanders became less of a factor and teams of staff became more important working together. While still informal, good staff work became more and more important in and of itself.

As Hagerman points out, it was not really von Clausewitz, but Henri Jomini that largely influenced Civil War officers. Jomini was better know in America and was the tactician that American officers wanted to follow. Von Clausewitz would become more widely know only after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. In the chapter on Jomini, Hagerman notes this "French Connection" fully that "Jomini's writings set the dominant trend in Continental and American strategic thought until German victories in 1870 pushed Karl von Clausewitz's interpreters to the center…"

To sum up, Hagerman attempts to add some very new contributions to how the Civil War and modern military culture are understood. It attempts to bring new approached to the analysis of the theory, doctrines and practices of fortifications and the effects that this had upon the development of trench warfare. A new analytical approach to how field transportation developed and its components of supply and maneuver during the Civil War is also tackled. These observations are combined with the developing tactics and strategy concerning the dominant problem of field command, including the up and coming subject of trench warfare and the efforts of the field commands logistically to support field army mobility. In the pursuit of knowledge of these technological issues, tactical and strategic themes and organizational theory that dominated America at the time are woven in as well, such as the emergence of an industrial society and its impacts upon U.S. history.