during the civil war why did they line up like a death quad?

Question

anybody can see that they are going to get shot by just standing there with a big target on their chest "shoot me'
what idoit commander ordered this squad death row in battle

Answer 1

Because those were the tactics of the period. They were in what is called "line of Battle". It was a fairly effective way to move large numbers of troops around in confined spaces and bring the maximum firepower to bear on the enemy in a short amount of time. A company (100 men) could move from a column (marching) into line of battle less than a minute.

The tactics were developed when smooth-bore muskets were the predominate weapon. Muskets were reasonably accurate at about 50 yards, thus the reason for the lines.

In the years just before the war, the rifled musket was developed and was deadly accurate at 100 yards and fairly accurate at up to 500 yards. There were cases where a well sighted Enfield hit targets at 1100 yards. The 1863 Springfield was fitted with a sight guaged to 500 yards. It's really a matter of the tactics not keeping up with the weapons, at least when the war broke out.

The American Civil War brought about tremendous and dramatic changes to warfare.In that four year period warfare evolved from the Napoleonic tactics you describe to trench warfare. The weapons also evolved from single shot smooth bore and rifled muskets to the earliest machine guns.

Also born of the American Civil War were aseptic medical techniques. The biggest single killer in the war was not, shot or shell or bayonet, but disease.

Try not to judge the people of the past by the standards of today, for without their failures and successes we would not exist.

Answer 2

The technology was ahead of their tactics. When the Civil War broke out, the rifle was a brand new invention never before used in full scale warfare. All military tactics were based off of the Napoleonic era, where the musket was the primary weapon. Muskets were only accurate a couple dozen yards and even then the bullets swerved around making them that much less precise. The only way to use muskets effeciently was to line up shoulder to shoulder and charge up a hill to an enemy line.

With the invention of the rifle, which could kill at half a mile and accurate to 200 yards, lining up shoulder to shoulder was suicide but they did it because that was the state of warfare at the time. However, after the first year or two more and more commanders were opting for trenched warfare (Petersburg, Vicksburg, Fredricksburg to some degree). Also, as the war progressed skirmish lines were used more frequently, but still it was believed that the way to destroy an army was to line up and charge.

Answer 3

All the idiot commanders did that in the early days of the war, it was the traditional style of fighting that had been develop quite successfully by Napoleon during his rise to power and he was defeated with the same tactics. The Charge of the Light Brigade written about a foolish Calvary charge in the Crimean War should have been read by military commanders as it for told the end of the Napoleonic tactics and the emergence of technological war. But even those lessons were not learned from the American Civil War, if you will simply look at the ignorance of WWI

Answer 4

At the time this idiotic was the in style of war. Think of the hopolite in Greece and the Legionnaire in Rome. Same style. The Americans changed this during the revolution to win the war. Then they immediately forgot this during the war of 1812. Napoleon was using the same style at the time in Europe. It was just dumb troop commanding. As for the idiot commander they all were doing it so it did not seem as bad.

Answer 5

That's the way it was done in Great Britain, where the majority of those folks learned to do it, or it was passed down from, the earliest "gorilla warfare", was during the revolutionary war when minutemen started taking cover behind elevated positions, trees, fences, etc, to avoid getting shot. Just a little shot of knowledge for ya.

Answer 6

It's because of the single shot guns prevalent at the time. First row fires, starts reloading, 2nd row fires, starts reloading, 3rd row fires, and hopefully 1st row reloaded and ready to go. You have to remember that preloaded cartridges were a luxury at the time, you had to load gunpowder, tamp, musket ball, then ready to go.

Answer 7

And whose idiot idea was it to send massed infantry against fortified positions backed by massed artillery? Fredericksburg and Cemetery Ridge come to mind, you'd think that flanking movements and defending high ground would've been the winning strategies....

Answer 8

i think to show balls.they moved forward slowly because balls that big are heavy.