A Dozen Inexpensive Ways to Improve Your Personal Impression (By Cal Kinzer)

[DeoVindice61]

Spoiler

It was common sense in those days to stand still while you are being shot at.

The hell it was. Common sense would have told them to run for the hills. It was desire to win the battle and fear of punishment that got men to stand still under fire. Couldn't have been common sense as that's not a very sensible thing to do.

They were lazy? huh?

Civil War Veterans are not lazy Duuring..... Have some respect. They had some gut to face volley in the face of enemies yet at same time, maintaining their line forward. Altough i'm not trying to be rude of make a big deal out of it but I just had to say that was straight out unnecessary to comment like that...

He's not wrong, though, is he? perhaps he could have said it more eloquently, but soldiers fighting in the US Civil War (and all wars) were above all else humans. Humans are lazy; they hate to carry heavy loads and they hate to walk long distances, and will always try their best to weasel out of doing it or try to make it easier to do. That's why kit was abandoned or destroyed.

Napoleonic soldiers carried an average load of 25-30 kilograms, so you can be sure they dispensed with as much of their gear as they could as soon as they could. By the end of the retreat to Corunna, for example, the British soldiers had almost none of their issued equipment left, save for their weapons and parts of their uniforms. Knapsacks and their unneeded contents were widely gotten rid of. I'm sure soldiers in the US Civil War did the same, but I just found it a bit hard to believe that they'd get rid of their kit at the beginning of a campaign under the watch of their superiors.

[close]

Oh yes by all mean, I agree with you. But I'm just replying to Duuring because in his previous post. He appear to make ACW bunch of lazy bones and Napoleonic as opposite of his claim toward to ACW.

[Landrik]

by John Stillwagon

It's a small world afterall. John Stillwagon is the platoon sergeant for the Red Guard. The Soviet unit who I keep on talking about.

[Duuring]

Spoiler

It was common sense in those days to stand still while you are being shot at.

The hell it was. Common sense would have told them to run for the hills. It was desire to win the battle and fear of punishment that got men to stand still under fire. Couldn't have been common sense as that's not a very sensible thing to do.

They were lazy? huh?

Civil War Veterans are not lazy Duuring..... Have some respect. They had some gut to face volley in the face of enemies yet at same time, maintaining their line forward. Altough i'm not trying to be rude of make a big deal out of it but I just had to say that was straight out unnecessary to comment like that...

He's not wrong, though, is he? perhaps he could have said it more eloquently, but soldiers fighting in the US Civil War (and all wars) were above all else humans. Humans are lazy; they hate to carry heavy loads and they hate to walk long distances, and will always try their best to weasel out of doing it or try to make it easier to do. That's why kit was abandoned or destroyed.

Napoleonic soldiers carried an average load of 25-30 kilograms, so you can be sure they dispensed with as much of their gear as they could as soon as they could. By the end of the retreat to Corunna, for example, the British soldiers had almost none of their issued equipment left, save for their weapons and parts of their uniforms. Knapsacks and their unneeded contents were widely gotten rid of. I'm sure soldiers in the US Civil War did the same, but I just found it a bit hard to believe that they'd get rid of their kit at the beginning of a campaign under the watch of their superiors.

[close]

Oh yes by all mean, I agree with you. But I'm just replying to Duuring because in his previous post. He appear to make ACW bunch of lazy bones and Napoleonic as opposite of his claim toward to ACW.

I love it when people aren't offended by what I say but by HOW I say it.

Anyway, not my intention etc etc, as said before. My point was that the reason they trew away items wasn't because of some tactical reason or anything. It was self-preservation. I'm not saying ACW were more lazy. I even gave an example to show Napoleonic guys did it too, yet you all seem to ignore that.

Docm, I meant that fighting in a straight line, shooting at your opponent, was a common and accepted way of fighting.

[Docm30]

That developed not so much from common sense, but from centuries of fighting. That's really the only way one can find the most effective way to fight.

Anyway, I think Napoleonic soldiers were probably a lot more inclined to hold on to their equipment because, unlike Americans in the US Civil War, they often operated in foreign and hostile areas, where one wouldn't know the terrain and it'd be a lot harder to survive and get aid from the locals than it would be when fighting a war in one's own country. That makes everything you own a lot more precious.

I realise that southerners didn't exactly welcome Union soldiers (or northerners rebels), but I don't think their hostility was usually comparable to the kind you'd experience in a war between sovereign nations.

[DeoVindice61]

That developed not so much from common sense, but from centuries of fighting. That's really the only way one can find the most effective way to fight.

Anyway, I think Napoleonic soldiers were probably a lot more inclined to hold on to their equipment because, unlike Americans in the US Civil War, they often operated in foreign and hostile areas, where one wouldn't know the terrain and it'd be a lot harder to survive and get aid from the locals than it would be when fighting a war in one's own country. That makes everything you own a lot more precious.

I realise that southerners didn't exactly welcome Union soldiers (or northerners rebels), but I don't think their hostility was usually comparable to the kind you'd experience in a war between sovereign nations.

 


Oh trust me, there are quite many amount of stories of crazy southners acting out on union troops during reconstruction.

[Olafson]

Still, there are no things such as different languages etc..
Besides, just a few months before the war, the USA still were one nation. Sure, it was split into two groups, but these groups did not fight each other or were in war. You can not compare it to a war between two nations that have been in war for centuries. Mistrust and hatred were much more common than in the Civil War.