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The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Modern War Studies)

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The flyleaf of Earl J. Hess's "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth" promises "a completely new assessment of the rifle musket, contending that its impact was much more limited than previously supposed" and at the start of the book's Introduction Hess states that "the prevailing view of this weapon has been that it revolutionized warfare because of its increased range." Well, back in the 1980s in his "Battle Tactics of the Civil War" British military historian Paddy Griffith stated that "it is difficult to find any evidence at all to support the suggestion that Civil War musketry was delivered at ranges much longer than those of Napoleonic times" and furthermore concludes that "Civil War musketry did not ... possess the power to kill large numbers of men, even in very dense formations, at long range." For the past twenty years, this understanding has, among those of us who study and think about such things, been pretty much the orthodox view, not heresy. See, for example, Brent Nosworthy's "The Bloody Crucible of Courage" and Joseph Bilby's "Civil War Firearms" and "Small Arms at Gettysburg" for quite clear statements about the matter. (To be fair, Hess in his new book cites Griffith, Nosworthy, and Bilby for their work in this area.)

But, if Hess's "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat" might not be as groundbreaking as the flyleaf description and author's introduction indicate, the book nonetheless provides a solid, detailed underpinning for this relatively new understanding of the practical use and limitations of the prevalent American Civil War infantry weapon; and the book may spread that notion to a wider spectrum of Civil War readers than heretofore has been the case. Hess has performed a valuable service in digging through mountains of primary source material to quantify the impact of rifle muskets on Civil War combat, yielding numerous statistics in support of his conclusions that firefights occurred mostly at ranges far under the theoretical capacity of the weapons and that Civil War battles were no more bloody or indecisive than earlier battles when smoothbore muskets were the rule.

Perhaps of particular value is Hess's assessment of the impact of rifle muskets upon skirmishing, sharpshooting, and sniping (Hess takes pains to differentiate between the terms, noting that they are often incorrectly used interchangeably). He concludes that the widespread use of the weapons permitted large numbers of soldiers to act in the skirmishing role, not concentrating that duty upon a couple of picked companies from each regiment or in elite units such as described in Fred L. Ray's "Shock Troops of the Confederacy: The Sharpshooter Battalions of the Army of Northern Virginia." Hess states that "Lee's sharpshooter battalions were unique and impressive examples of Civil War specialist units. But there is no convincing evidence that they consistently dominated the skirmish line or regularly outshot their opponents during the Overland or Petersburg campaigns ... In the long run, it might have been the wiser course for the Federals to insist that all their regiments be able to skirmish rather than rest that important duty on a small cadre of elite troops."

I might have wished that Hess, perhaps in an appendix, gave a little more technical information about the performance and trajectory of rifle muskets, although in his basic text he does provide a clear description of limitations imposed by the high arching flight of the bullets. And I could wish for a specific comparison between rifle muskets and smoothbores at close range (say, less than a hundred yards), the smoothbores firing both the traditional single round balls or the more effective "buck-and-ball" ammunition, although it may well be that there is insufficient primary source material available to do a meaningful study (based upon records of test firings and modern experiments, I think that rifle muskets and smoothbores with buck-and-ball were at least roughly equivalent at such ranges, and decidedly more effective than smoothbores firing single round balls alone; this may in part explain what firefights during the American Civil War tended to be at somewhat longer range than those during Napoleonic times. even though at distances far less than the theoretical capabilities of rifle muskets.)

Any small quibbles or unfulfilled wishes aside, I find Hess's "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat" to be an important contribution to better understanding the realities of Civil War battles, and to place those battles in their proper context in the general history of warfare.

Hess's book is an interesting compendium of anecdotes about Civil War soldiers' relationships to their weapons. It is based on a diligent survey of original and second source literature. It is, however, based on little understanding of actual firearms. Hess also seems to lack an understanding of real world military technique, except as described by others. This is a common failing in book historians.

His justifiably reviled statement about parabolic trajectory is a result of this lack of understanding. The only reason the parabolic trajectory is not a problem with a smoothbore, is that you can't hit anything at range, so you never shoot at long range. Parabolic trajectory and dead zones is a problem with modern ammunition as well. If Hess had researched modern literature, he would have understood this. Hess correctly recognizes that the problem requires training to fix; training that was generally absent during the Civil War.

Hess states that the muzzle velocity of the .58 rifle musket was inferior to that of the older smoothbores. Others, who have actually fired the weapons over a chronograph, indicate otherwise. Hess relishes complaints of the .58's mighty kick without wondering how a weapon that throws a heavier ball at the same velocity would kick less. Maybe our revolutionary forbears were made of stouter stuff than the Civil War weenies. Or more likely, Soldiers have been complaining about recoil until the M16 came along. The venerable British Martini of a later period was described by Tommy Atkins as "The rifle that kills at both ends."

"The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat" would have been a far better book, had Hess taken the time to pick up a good replica 1795 or Brown Bess Musket and a replica 1858 Rifle Musket, taken them to the range, and pounded his shoulder to pulp. Fire them over a chronograph. Learn the drill of loading and firing. Do the shooting. Do the boring statistics. It is inexcusable to write a review of an obtainable weapon without actually having used it.

Hess reviews the butcher bills of Civil War, Revolutionary, and Napoleonic battles, and compares the casualty rates. But without an analysis, even a superficial analysis, of what caused these casualties, the raw numbers mean little. Livy reported that 45,500 foot soldiers were killed at Canae. Does that imply that the sword and spear were superior to the machineguns and artillery of The Somme?

What could have been a great book, a standard reference in the field, is merely a good book. It's a shame.

Beware of writing books about firearms. The firearms world is filled with people who will argue with you.

This is a reasonably interesting book except for one error. Unfortunately this error is one of the major points made by the author. He notes that "bullets fired from the new musket followed a parabolic trajectory unlike those fired from smoothbores" I wish he had let us all in on what kind of miraculous trajectory is followed by the ball fired from a smoothbore musket. ALL ballistic projectiles follow a parabolic trajectory. The ultimate range and the steepness of the trajectory at various ranges is dependent on the initial velocity of the projectile and its shape, not on whether it was fired from a rifled barrel or a smoothbore.

If the smoothbore had such a superior trajectory, why would the army want to switch to a more expensive, less capable weapon?

I think the authors point that the average soldier's lack of training in estimating ranges and making the sight adjustments necessary to hit at those ranges was well taken. This one fact would negate a lot of the rifles theoretical advantages, and probably explains why the ratio of hits to shots fired was so low.

Another important factor in explaining why the rifle musket failed to live up to its potential is simply the stress of combat inevitably degrades both the weapon and the soldiers theoretically possible level of performance. Its one thing to be able to hit a target at 500 yards on a target range, it's something else entirely when the target is shooting back.

Studying the Civil War is a process in which we start to move from who and when to why. Who is the process of learning about the personalities involved and how the interact. When is learning about events during the war, both of these can be very detailed. The majority of books written about the war deal with who or when. These books tend to concentrate on the selected subject and do not deal with the physical actions of fighting. Why were officers always telling men to "aim low"? Why do we have so many accounts of bullets flying "overhead"? These accounts are always part of a battle history. We read this and continue with the main who or why subject, so these questions tend to be overlooked or given very few words. Why books are attempts to explain the reasons why these things happened.
The American Civil War is the only major war fought with a muzzle loading rifle musket. Even as the war ended, early versions of the modern rifle were starting to be issued. A rifle musket had an extended range and could be lethal at a thousand yards and was expected to be used up to 500 yards, the old smoothbore musket was good to about 100 yards. Many people, starting with the war and continuing to our day, are enamored with this new weapon. They assume that a solider armed with a muzzle loading rifle musket would start killing at 800 yards away. This idea leads to the assumption that the greater capabilities and longer range made attacks costly, prolonged the war and made decisive battles impossible. However, very little of happened. At Gettysburg, if 150,000 men fire 40 rounds each for three days is eighteen million rounds fired. The statistics for other Civil War battles are similar with few men being hit for the number of bullets fired. Additionally, men carried forty rounds. If a muzzle loading rifle musket could be fired three times a minute, they had less than fifteen minutes worth of bullets.
A number of authors are doing why books. Paddy Griffith, Brent Nosworthy, Mark Grimsley, Brian Holden Reid and Earl J. Hess are doing excellent work in this area. Their books are about training, standard operating procedure and how men used their weapon. Earl J. Hess is one of the most readable of this group. He has the ability to give us enough information to understand but not so much to induce sleep.
Earl J. Hess has written an intelligent understandable account of the value and limits of the muzzle loading rifle musket. He has pulled together all the facts in a readable and enjoyable way. He covers the problems with the flight of the bullet, lack of training, difficulties in identifying targets and rates of fire. All of this gives the reader a look into life on the firing line with the touch of elbows. The development, use and training of snipers. What it was like skirmishing and the start of modern infantry tactics.
This is a readable technical book for any person trying to understand how regiments fought. It should not be limited to reenacters or those who wish to specialize in weapons. Each Civil War student needs one good why book to help them understand the war. This is one of the best and should be considered for your library.

Recently Civil War books have been exploring the details of the struggle such as fortifications, small unit combat, and small arms. This work features the latter. The author has done an excellent job in compiling interesting data about rifles used in the war and he obviously is an expert on the subject. Twelve tables support the thesis of the book, which is that the use of the rifled musket did not change combat in the Civil War as much as previously thought. First hand accounts of combat are used throughout the book so that it is much more than just a statistical summary. The account of skirmishing in the Atlanta Campaign is superb as is the discussion of snipers.

So who should read this book? I have a friend who collects guns and hunts with a Civil War sniper rifle and he would love this book. Reenacters would benefit from the accounts of the combat and weaponry. The general reader who enjoys reading about battles or leading figures of the War may find the subject too narrow.

I read that there were something like six thousand books on the Civil War. So I realized that I would never be a 'real' Civil War expert.

Now that I have read this book I have developed some compassion for those poor SOBs who are professional Civil War scholars. Every sensible issue has long been throughly discussed. In order to write something 'new' a scholar must search for a new perspective - a nugget of new truth is this well scrutinized ground.

Hess states his thesis in the first sentences of the prolog. Before the war experts expected that the rifled musket would allow engagements at several hundred yards - far more than the 50 yards engagement distance of smoothbores. In fact the rifled musket was used by main battle lines at only about 60-70 yards. That's it. That's the whole point of the book.

Hess also indulges in what another reviewer called "voodoo balistics". He thinks that a rifle's projectile follows a parabolic trajectory but that a smoothbore musket's ball flies level. He claims that the soldiers inevitably fired over the heads of the enemy with the new rifles because they never understood this fact(?).

I know this thesis is wrongheaded because Hess himself proves it in subsequent chapters.

The real revolution was not in rifling so much as it was is ammunition. The Minnie ball was a fast loading projectile. Rifles has been around for centuries but they had always had the trade off of accuracy for rate of fire. The Minnie ball suddenly erased the speed penalty of the muzzle loading rifle. Its introduction was expected by the experts of the day to revolutionize the battle field - and it did - just not in the way they had predicted. With smoothbore muskets and linear tactics the engagement didtance was about 50 yards or less. Some expected that with rifles that didtance would be 100 or 200 hundred yards. Hess's point is that this expectation proved wrong as indeed it did. But so what? The rifle had many other profound effects.

Hess's book has a chapter on snipers. Remember there is no such thing a a sniper with a smoothbore gun. Hess's book also has a chapter on skirmishers. Again skirmishing requires rifles. Infantry men operating alone or in small groups couldn't be effective with smoothbores. Muskets were always used in massed groups. He has chart after chart showing skimishers and snipers engaging at great distances: 200, 500, 800, 1500, and 2000 yards. Compare that with his statistic of smoothbore accuracy. At 62 yards less than half of shots hit the target - a target that was 5.5 feet wide and 10 feet tall (roughly the size of a man on horseback).

Hess relates how Civil War soldiers on both sides when in trenchs had to keep their heads down. If they stuck their head up they would have it blown off. This is a reality of a battlefield only where there are rifles. A smoothbore musket just can't hit small targets. Officers in the musket period considered such pot shots just a waste ammunition.

Consider also the tactics of the French and the English in the previous big conflicts waged with smoothbores. The French formed a tighthly packed column that marched slowly toward the enemy. Almost every General on both sides knew about Napoleon and his tactics. But no one ever adopted the slow moving column, because the rifle musket made such a tactic suicidal.

We know that on the battlefield soldiers with smoothbores (mostly Confederates) quickly swapped them for rifles. Just as they prefered breach loaders and repeaters. Hess claims that smoothbores were just as effective as rifles. I guess those soldiers hadn't read this book.

Hess is just flat out wrong when he implies that the adoption of the rifle had little effect. He can only get away with this silly statement because he sets up a straw man expectation which he then refutes. The poor doofus is so desparate to say something original that he denies the obvious.

This book uses a lot of rather obscure historical data to generally refute the common notion that the US War Between the States was uniquely dangerous for the soldiers. A common understanding is that the new rifled musket combined with old smooth-bore tactics caused much higher casualties, but the author uses historical data to show this is not the case. A very good read.

A readable,logical and compelling analysis of the Rifled Musket as used in combat in the American Civil War. This book would be of some interest to history buffs. It is a must for American Civil War aficionados, especially Collectors, Miniature Wargamers and reenactors.

The book attempts to evaluate Paddy Griffith's thesis that the ACW was the last Napoleonic War rather than the first modern war and that the rifle musket didn't significantly change the battlefield environment. Hess looks closely at a whole slew of primary sources for different ACW battles and essentially supports Griffith's conclusions, albeit far more thoroughly than Griffith did. Hess points out that achieving long range with the weapon required a very pronounced parabolic arc, which created a lethal beaten zone at the beginning and end of the range, but a immune zone in the middle and that the longer the range the greater the immune zone. Because of this, maximizing the effectiveness of the rifled musket required a high degree of training in range estimation, training which few Civil War infantrymen received.

Hess also shows that such training was carried out effectively for small numbers of men on both sides when both armies created dedicated sharpshooter units. Finally he wraps up the book with an anecdotal look at snipers in the ACW.

The only flaw I can see in the book is the absence of a summary chapter which clearly lays out his (and Griffith's) hypothesis and brings all the threads of evidence that he provides to either confirm or deny the hypothesis.

Although it is a bit dry (how could it not be?) it has a lot of useful information. If you are a ACW scholar or even a serious amateur, you'll want to read this book.

There is an admirable movement under way to analyze historic combats, with the aim of figuring out what actually happened, and why. Unfortunately, while the intentions of this book are laudable, the execution is incompetent. Professor Hess hasn't a clue how to go about his task, rendering his book completely worthless except for his citation list.

The author has somehow come to the conclusion that the percentage of casualties suffered in a battle, when both sides have the SAME type of arms, tells you how effective DIFFERENT weapons are. Since the percentage of forces killed and wounded in battle didn't much changed over the years from the introduction of bayoneted muskets to rifle-muskets, he thinks the weapons must be equally lethal, and there was no point in issuing rifles to Civil War troops. The problem is, battles that Prof. Hess himself cites in classical times were even more lethal at time. Therefore, we should conclude that anyone who had had the vision to arm his troops with swords and bronze armor would have rolled over his opponents.

In fact, when casualties get too high, troops tend to retreat, or surrender. The percentage of casualties between opponents with the same weapons tells you something about an army's moral, but little about how well the one weapon works compared to another.

Another problem with this book is that much of it centers around ballistics, a subject the Professor has absolutely no understanding of. Instead of learning about it, he mostly relies on a diagram on the bottom of pages 38-39 of Jack Coggins's excellent and highly recommended book Arms and Equipment of the Civil War. In the drawing he uses, Coggins shows how the trajectory of a bullet fired by a kneeling man at a target exactly level with his rifle's muzzle, and 300 yards away, would pass over the head of a man 5 ft. 8 in. tall if the man was between 75 and 250 yards away, reaching a peak altitude of 3 ft. 7 in. above the rifle's muzzle. The drawing is only relevant, however, if you assume Civil War rifles sighted for targets 300 yards away, fired with the muzzle more than 2 ft. above the ground. As a rule of thumb, a rifle used in combat accurate to three minutes of angle should not be sighted for a greater distance than around ".35 to .4 seconds", that is, the distance the bullet reaches three-and-a-half to four tenths of a second after it is fired. The bullet will never get more than about ten inches above line of sight, which is about the size of a human head. Coggins's 300 yard example is a rifle sighted to .94 secs, and illustrates the problems a sniper faces when firing at long range. It has little to do with ordinary soldiers in combat. (I pass over in charitable silence Hess's evident belief that when bullet hit trees 20 to 100 feet above the ground, it was due to the technical characteristics of the rifle, rather than scared soldiers firing high).

Prof. Hess takes a better approach when he looks at actual estimated ranges from various sources. Further, he gives the source of each example, and some of the text. Alas, he didn't think much about what he was reading. His quotes are full of examples along the lines of 'We wanted to open fire, but our officer made us wait till the enemy was only X yards away.' There are two problems with this. First, Hess apparently assumes that all firing takes place at range X yards, which is manifestly untrue (see e.g. the Confederate retreat from Fort Stedman, where the Union infantry opened fire as the retreat commenced, and continued firing till Gordon's troops were back in their trenches, the average range changing throughout).

Second and more importantly, Hess mistakes tactics for weapon capability. Modern rifles can easily hit man-sized targets at out to over 600 yards, but almost all firing takes place at 300 yards or less. Edward Ezell, in The Great Rifle Controversy: Search for the Ultimate Infantry Weapon from World War II Through Vietnam and Beyond cites data conducted by the U.S. Army's Office of Operational Research in 1952, showing that half of all firing was conducted at a range of 250 yards or less, and that 250 yard the probability of actually SEEING the enemy fired at was only about 20% to 25%. Holding your fire while the enemy closes may or may not be the right move in any given circumstance, but it doesn't tell us anything about the capabilities of the rifled musket.

Further, Hess seldom thinks to compare descriptions of Civil War fighting with battles conducted by forces exclusively with smoothbores. The accounts I've read show great marked differences in tactics.

Finally, Hess is highly selective of evidence. For instance, he uses Coggins's diagram on the bottom of pp. 38-39, but ignores one on the top of those two pages, and the accompanying text, which say that the rifled musket was much more effective than the smoothbore musket at ranges over 100 yards. He cites the egregious Paddy Griffith as an authority, mentioning his Battle Tactics of the Civil War (Yale Nota Bene), also known as Rally Once Again, but doesn't mention Griffith's conclusion that the average range of infantry firing in the War of the Rebellion was 120 yards early in the war, increasing to 180 in the last year or so. Griffith's own figures in Forward into Battle: Fighting Tactics from Waterloo to the Near Future show smoothbores being used at an average range of 65 yards. Hess even cites the proven-to-be-fictitious Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture as if it were a source of actual facts! (I don't have room to properly eviscerate the books mentioned in this paragraph here, but see my reviews of them all). You can "prove" anything if you leave out the evidence against your proposition.

This book is only worth buying if you collect fictitious "non-fiction". Otherwise, the most it warrants is borrowing from the library to copy the sources cited. SOME of them are worth reading.