American Civil War For Dummies. Keith D. Dickson
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transports. Another nifty trick is to cut the enemy’s line of communication. Whatever a commander can do to weaken the enemy, either by blinding or starving the army, will contribute to the enemy’s defeat. After this is accomplished, an enemy is often vulnerable to direct attack and defeat. Therefore, a commander must always be vigilant to these threats and take the necessary actions.
Taking the initiative: Who is on top?
When a commander has prevented the enemy from employing its tactical or strategic plans, whether on the offensive or defensive, this commander is considered to have the initiative. Whoever has the initiative dictates what will happen next on the battlefield. Tactically, the initiative can be lost, regained, and lost again depending on a variety of factors. The strategic initiative is usually up for grabs until one side begins to dominate. Victory in war is predicated on one side clearly gaining the strategic initiative.
Putting It All Together: Strategy to Campaigns to Battles
Now that all the terms and concepts are straight, I will walk through the whole process that characterizes war. After the political leaders have decided on the broad objectives of the war, those objectives become the guide for all military activities. In a campaign, the army commander can decide to initiate an offensive or defensive campaign, depending on the ability of the army to conduct operations (the status of supply, morale, training, and leadership all play a role in this decision), whether to operate on interior or exterior lines, or in response to enemy movements or activities. The purpose of a campaign is to achieve the strategic objective through movement (the act of physically moving a military unit by road, rail, or water to a specific place for a specific purpose) and battles (fighting), using maneuver to employ superior combat power against an enemy army’s weakest spot. Depending on the outcome of one movement, or even a series of movements in a campaign, the result is usually one or more battles.
Fighting battles
Given a strategy with an objective, an army commander develops a campaign; within the campaign the commander seeks to meet the enemy force at the most advantageous place and time. When these forces encounter each other, it is called a battle. Battles in a campaign are supposed to be planned events, meant to move the campaign toward its ultimate objective. Commanders now employ tactics (methods of employing troops in combat) to defeat or destroy enemy forces. As you may expect, what was originally planned to work according to the proper application of the principles of war often ends on the battlefield as a set of improvised tactical actions in the midst of a maelstrom of death and destruction. Regardless of how well the plans are followed, battles are
Won
Lost
Have no effect
A battle is called decisive when success on the battlefield translates into attaining or significantly furthering strategic objectives.
Win the battles — lose the war
This may sound strange but winning all the battles in a campaign and yet still failing to meet your strategic objective and thereby losing the war is possible. Such an event happened to the British army in the Revolutionary War and to the United States in the Vietnam War. The opposite holds true as well; you can lose all your battles, but still win your strategic objectives if the enemy no longer has the will to continue fighting.
The commander’s choices
In a battle, a commander uses tactics to attack or defend, depending on that commander’s assessment of the situation. In the attack, the commander can use maneuver, which is the positioning of forces to gain an advantageous position against the enemy. There are three basic choices in the attack:
Advance forces head-on to break through the enemy defenses
Envelop the defender from one or both flanks (the left and right limits of an army’s defensive line) by maneuvering forces around the enemy’s defensive line and then attacking
Attack from the rear (usually the result of maneuvering behind an unsuspecting or unprepared defender)
The rear area is where the supply depots are located and where the lines of supply and communication are located. The frontal attack is the least desirable (that’s usually where the enemy has concentrated combat power and is expecting to repel an attack), a flank attack is better (the enemy has less or sometimes no combat power on the flanks), and the attack from the rear is the best of all (no combat power and vulnerable, easy to destroy targets such as wagon trains and rail and telegraph lines).
These different types of attack can be combined into main attacks and supporting attacks. A main attack is where a commander employs the bulk of a unit’s offensive combat power. The intent of the main attack is to defeat the enemy quickly and decisively. Often, a commander will use a supporting attack — a smaller portion of a unit’s offensive combat power either to occupy enemy forces so they cannot reinforce (adding additional combat power to support other friendly forces), or deceive the enemy as to where the main attack will take place. Think of it in terms of a boxer who first comes at his opponent with a fake right cross to make his opponent react, then lands a roundhouse left. Like boxers, military commanders use tactics to try to employ more than one type of punch, usually in combinations, to put their opponents off balance and gain the initiative. In military terms, commanders employ a feint, in which the commander maneuvers forces to appear as if he is committing most or all of his combat power at a certain point. The feint is intended to deceive the enemy into thinking that this is the main attack. As the enemy responds, a vulnerability opens that can be exploited when the actual main attack is launched and can expose the enemy army to defeat and destruction. This type of employment of forces in space and time requires a masterful commander who appreciates the art of war.
Terrain and the defensive
The defender tactically seeks to present the strongest position to the attacker, with sufficient combat power to overwhelm the attacker at his point of attack. If the defender has chosen well, the terrain (the lay of the land) will strengthen the defense and weaken the enemy’s ability to maneuver and employ combat power. On a battlefield, some terrain is considered critical. As the name implies, critical terrain means that whoever controls this specific piece of ground will have a significant advantage over the enemy. Troops and artillery occupying critical terrain can mass firepower to destroy an attacker. If the defender loses this terrain, the army usually would be exposed to further attacks on its flanks or rear and be unable to defend itself effectively. The loss of critical terrain spells defeat and disaster. In the Civil War, critical terrain was usually single hills or ridges.
Ending a battle
At any time in a battle, either commander can order a withdrawal, better known as a retreat. The intention of a withdrawal or retreat is to end the fighting to avoid further losses or escape from a disadvantageous position. In the Civil War, the retreat or withdrawal signified that the army commander had had enough of battle and needed to regroup and decide what to do next.
Looking at the Civil War Army Organization
Because both Union and Confederate armies came from the American military tradition, they had the same organization. Within each army were three branches, corresponding to a particular combat skill: the cavalry, the artillery, and the infantry.
Eyes and ears: The cavalry
The cavalry — mounted soldiers lightly armed and able to move fast and far — served as the eyes and ears of the army. (See Figure