Multiple companies, or occasionally even an entire regiment dispersed into such 4-man teams and led by senior NCOs or junior officers, advanced as a “cloud” in loose coordination hundreds of yards or more ahead of the massed main body of a command.
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It was their job to engage in a stiff rolling firefight with enemy skirmishers, drive them back to their own main body, and suppress or even directly engage that force with their aimed fire from behind cover.
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The massed battle line to their rear, while always capable of repelling an advance of the enemy skirmishers or main line with massed volleys, far more often functioned as little more than a reserve for the skirmish teams. More companies were deployed into 4-man teams as needed.
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Massed lines were meant primarily for bayonet assaults, using raw human weight to punch holes through defensive positions, but in most cases even during these comparatively rare occasions, attacking lines were routinely screened by skirmish teams.
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Unfortunately, skirmishing operations were rarely accounted for in great detail in surviving reports. These usually focused on the comparatively rare maneuvers of massed troops in major assaults or defensive actions that were much rarer than skirmishing firefights.
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Even so, all Civil War officers and soldiers on both sides knew well the contemporary military maxim that: “Infantry burns the most of its powder as skirmishers.”
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Although we often think of Civil War tactics as antiquated or even crude by modern standards, most actual exchanges of fire in and out of major battles took place under circumstances that would seem remarkably recognizable by today’s modern grunt.pic.twitter.com/Uc3A5fHe9H
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Awesome thread I always wondered if these tactics were used during the Civil War. I knew they were used during the Napoleonic wars especially by the British with their new Baker rifles.
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I read more historical novels than histories, but such authors as Bernard Cornwell (Sharpe, but also an American Civil War series) and Simon Scarrow make it clear that skirmishing tactics were used in the Napoleonic wars by all armies, to weaken the opponent's main force.
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Any good reads on this for citation/info gathering?
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Outside of what emerges from the avalanche of soldier letters and diaries, and throughout the 128 vol. Official Records (ORs) the best sources on the nuts and bolts of skirmishing are in Casey's and Hardee's manuals, along with Craighill's 1862 "Army Officer's Pocket Companion."
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