Posted on 01/31/2014 11:47:48 PM PST by Berlin_Freeper
Repeating rifles were beginning to be used, particularly by union cavalry, but for the most part the single-shot breechloader was the state of the technology for infantry weapons in 1861. And revolvers, of course, in the hands of a few.
And cannons. Lots of cannons, often loaded with grapeshot.
But like you said... all the Europeans at least had the opportunity to learn from the horror of our civil war, gatling guns or no.
Two Gatling guns at Petersburg fits the description of not widely used. Hell, if Grant had 2 M-60’s it would not have made much of a difference.
I'm not interested in getting into a did so/did not discussion, but please note that wiki, which isn't noted or accuracy, doesn't give any specifics about where/when etc.
I still maintain that the gatling gun wasn't widely used enough to be considered in any discussion of the tactics of the time, if at all.
It's never shown up in any of the literature I'v read from the period.
Maybe someone who knows more on the subject than either of us can weigh in on the subject.
Wait... M-60 machine guns, or M-60 tanks?
machine guns
I think the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria now have the best genealogical claim to the British throne, descending from the Stuarts.
2 M-60 tanks would have definitely shortened the activities around Petersburg.
Hold on there fella.
Atlanta fell to Sherman’s Army in early September 1864. He devoted the next few weeks to chasing Confederate troops through northern Georgia in a vain attempt to lure them into a decisive fight.
The Confederate’s evasive tactics doomed Sherman’s plan to achieve victory on the battlefield so he developed an alternative strategy: destroy the South by laying waste to its economic and transportation infrastructure.
Sherman’s “scorched earth” campaign began on November 15th when he cut the last telegraph wire that linked him to his superiors in the North. He left Atlanta in flames and pointed his army south. No word would be heard from him for the next five weeks. Unbeknownst to his enemy, Sherman’s objective was the port of Savannah.
His army of 65,000 cut a broad swath as it lumbered towards its destination. Plantations were burned, crops destroyed and stores of food pillaged. In the wake of his progress to the sea he left numerous “Sherman sentinels” (the chimneys of burnt out houses) and “Sherman neckties” (railroad rails that had been heated and wrapped around trees.).
Along the way, his army was joined by thousands of former slaves who brought up the rear of the march because they had no other place to go. Sherman’s army reached Savannah on December 22. Two days later, Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln with the message “I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah...”
It was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Sherman stayed in Savannah until the end of January and then continued his scorched earth campaign through the Carolinas. On April 26, Confederate troops under General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina; seventeen days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
“Oh God, the time of trial has come!”
November 19, 1864
Slept in my clothes last night, as I heard that the Yankees went to neighbor Montgomery’s on Thursday night at one o’clock, searched his house, drank his wine, and took his money and valuables. As we were not disturbed, I walked after breakfast, with Sadai [the narrator’s 9-year-old daughter], up to Mr. Joe Perry’s, my nearest neighbor, where the Yankees were yesterday.
Saw Mrs. Laura [Perry] in the road surrounded by her children, seeming to be looking for some one. She said she was looking for her husband, that old Mrs. Perry had just sent her word that the Yankees went to James Perry’s the night before, plundered his house, and drove off all his stock, and that she must drive hers into the old fields. Before we were done talking, up came Joe and Jim Perry from their hiding-place. Jim was very much excited. Happening to turn and look behind, as we stood there, I saw some blue-coats coming down the hill. Jim immediately raised his gun, swearing he would kill them anyhow.
‘No, don’t!’ said I, and ran home as fast as I could, with Sadai.
I could hear them cry, ‘Halt! Halt!’ and their guns went off in quick succession. Oh God, the time of trial has come!
A man passed on his way to Covington. I halloed to him, asking him if he did not know the Yankees were coming.
‘No - are they?’
‘Yes,’ said I; ‘they are not three hundred yards from here.’
‘Sure enough,’ said he. ‘Well, I’ll not go. I don’t want them to get my horse.’ And although within hearing of their guns, he would stop and look for them. Blissful ignorance! Not knowing, not hearing, he has not suffered the suspense, the fear, that I have for the past forty-eight hours. I walked to the gate. There they came filing up.
I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full.
To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds - both in vinegar and brine - wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard.
‘I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders.’
...Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, - a lame boy he was, - but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said:
‘Stay in my room.’
But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield.
Sherman himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as the sad moments rolled on, were they passing not only in front of my house, but from behind; they tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back-yard and lot field, driving their stock and riding through, tearing down my fences and desolating my home - wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it.
...As night drew its sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison with the fear of being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat! I could give my guard no supper, so he left us.
My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. My carriage-house had in it eight bales of cotton, with my carriage, buggy, and harness. On top of the cotton were some carded cotton rolls, a hundred pounds or more. These were thrown out of the blanket in which they were, and a large twist of the rolls taken and set on fire, and thrown into the boat of my carriage, which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God, the cotton only burned over, and then went out. Shall I ever forget the deliverance?
November 20, 1864.
About ten o’clock they had all passed save one, who came in and wanted coffee made, which was done, and he, too, went on. A few minutes elapsed, and two couriers riding rapidly passed back. Then, presently, more soldiers came by, and this ended the passing of Sherman’s army by my place, leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And a much stronger Rebel!”
References:
This eyewitness account appears in Lunt, Dolly Sumner, A Woman’s Wartime Journal, An Account of the Passage Over a Georgia Plantation of Sherman’s Army on the March to the Sea, as Recorded in the Diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt (1918); Buel, Clarence, and Robert U. Johnson (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol.IV (originally published in Century Magazine, 1888; reprint ed., 1982); Miers, Earl Schenck, The General Who Marched Into Hell (1951).
You don't notice the obvious difference between this mode of warfare and what Dolly Sumner Lunt describes?
Notably the lack of throat-cutting. And her carriage home burned but actual house left intact.
Gatling guns would have been a great deal more effective in a defensive role than against entrenched enemies. Wouldn’t have been all that much use for the Union in besieging Petersburg, or for that matter for the CSA in anything other than a frontal assault by the Union.
Okay thanks for making my point. One wealthy union general bought some Gatling guns on his own and now here we are reading about them at the same time and in the same context as crude hand grenades that accomplished nothing for those using them. One would conclude that the Gatling gun was of equal importance.
The article you reference makes them sound like a curiosity and an abberation suited more for defensive action than offensive as was the case of the union forces attacking Petersburg.
None in use at Gettysburg Antietam or anywhere else the union was on defense. No disrespect but your assertion that Gatling guns were regularly used is an exaggeration.
But back to your real point - with observers here, with the technology obviously evolving and with with visionaries like Longstreet spelling it out for them its hard to understand in 2014 how the Europeans didn’t see it coming.
Maybe they just didn’t GAF and just wanted to throw a really big war.
Excellent point. I once heard somebody use the example of a young man who entered the House of Lords in the last year of Queen Victoria’s reign. At that time he would have been among the 400 or so families who ruled England and by extension a quarter of the world’s population. By the time he passed on his title 50 years later he and his whole class were largely irrelevant. It was an amazing transfer of power, all the more so for being largely peaceful.
Agreed; the will to fight was certainly gone. My understanding of their manpower shortage in the years after the war is explained from the following quote:
“One variety of war damage was more difficult to repair. France’s manpower losses were enormous; in proportion to population and to the number of men under arms, they exceeded those of any other warring nation. The dead totaled 1,357,800 and the wounded 4,266,000, and these losses were, of course, concentrated in the active male population. The effects were intensified by the fact that the rate of population growth had been declining since the mid-19th century. Thus the nation entered the postwar era with a serious labor shortage and with a gravely unbalanced distribution of population. Since there was no sustained increase in the birthrate, the only solution seemed to be the encouragement of immigration. During the 1920’s about 3 million immigrants entered the country; but because most of the new arrivals were single men who lived in relative isolation in rural districts or mining towns the effect on long-term population trends was slight.”
http://longtail.hubpages.com/hub/france-after-the-first-world-war
Actually.......I don’t think that’s quite correct.
“One variety of war damage was more difficult to repair. France’s manpower losses were enormous; in proportion to population and to the number of men under arms, they exceeded those of any other warring nation. The dead totaled 1,357,800 and the wounded 4,266,000, and these losses were, of course, concentrated in the active male population. The effects were intensified by the fact that the rate of population growth had been declining since the mid-19th century. Thus the nation entered the postwar era with a serious labor shortage and with a gravely unbalanced distribution of population.”
http://longtail.hubpages.com/hub/france-after-the-first-world-war
Also, as a percentage of losses expressed in terms of losses v. men mobilized, it seems that France suffered a significantly higher percentage of losses. See: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/FWWcasualties.htm
This is also expressed at: http://weimar.facinghistory.org/content/casualties-world-war-i-country
What I believe to be more telling is found at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
Here we see the German total population before the war at 64.9 million while total French population was a mere 39.6 million.
I think Der Furer would argue his Two Front strategy in WWII is the biggest Boner in modern history...
Though electing Dumbass Hope-n-change boy twice may ultimately win out on both...
In researching population numbers I uncovered an interesting resource!
You can see population growth/shrink by country along with debt figures and the like at:
http://countrymeters.info/en/United_States_of_America_%28USA%29/
The Russian Federation is going backward in population; French debt is out of control, (as is US). Germany shows as very strong in terms of fiscal management.
Interesting stuff!
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