Quote Originally Posted by Kraxis
My only knowledge of the ACW is basically the Osprey series (oh yes I knew the way the war was fought and by whom for what reason and where, but never any details on the battles themselves), and I must say that compared to the Napoleonic battles there is a severe lack of subleties and refined tactics. And those books were in many cases written by authors who are very proud and perhaps suffer from a bit of a minority complex, so it isn't as if the authors are biased against the ACW.

Take a look at Shiloh or Antietam and you will find mishmash battles where the initial plan was fine, but the generals were simply not up to the job, and thus the battle devolved into a scrum where it was basically who could deal out the most damage the fastest head on.

Many would argue that the CSA had good generals, but I think it came more down to their troops than their generalship, but I would agree that the CSA generals were better commanders (than their northern counterparts, save Sherman and Grant), just not anything great.
Shiloh and Antietam were early war battles. The generals were indeed not up to the job in the early years. In the East it was the Union generalship that was poor. In the West it was the CSA generalship that was terrible while Union generalship was largely mediocre.

Shiloh had problems from the outset with the CSA deployment. The attack was carried out with the 3 corps attacking in 3 successive parallel waves. It should have been done with the corps divided into 3 wings. Shiloh was thicket and creeks interspersed with fields. No corps commander could maintain control over several miles of front through such terrain (or even open terrain for that matter.) Once the initial attacks had stalled, the corps commanders took command of the intermingled forces in their area as wings. Bragg failed to use flanking forces to envelope the hornet's nest, and thereby blunted his attack by successive piecemeal frontal assaults.

Antietam I am less familiar with since I haven't studied it in detail. I've read some accounts of it and other battles where Union commanders stuck to the Napoleonic tactic of holding 1/3rd of their forces as a reserve. That worked when your opponent did the same...but wiley folks like Lee and Forrest would throw in everything they had at the decisive points, giving them localized superioriety in attack or equivalence in defense that was sufficient to hold. These generals were more modern in their approach...and less traditional.

Much of the war was bludgeon style, but terrain was a large part of it. As best I can tell, europeans at the time were not fighting the majority of their battles in heavy forest and thicket. It was hard to see the ends of a regiment in such conditions or even to identify the enemy. Once division or corps commanders sent their forces into the woods, much of the fighting devolved to brigade control (at best) or regimental level control.

There are plenty of examples of large scale flanking moves and such. Bull Run was such an attack, and nearly succeeded. Most ACW battles revolved around gaining or holding some vital transportation link (cross roads, or rail hubs, or mountain passes.)

Wilson's Creek is an interesting very early battle. I've been over this battle field a few times and the woods and hills make it tough to maneuver or see (only about 60 miles from where I grew up, and very much the same type of hills woods, and streams.) The Union commander Lyon had quite a few 90 day men who were about to complete their tour. His force was only about 40% of the size of the CSA and Missouri State Guard units nearby who were massing for an attack. So Lyon did a night march out of town and attempted a daybreak pincer attack to disperse them and thereby gain time for his Federal forces. His main body fought very well. Interestingly, his pincer attack failed to have the desired effect, arguably because it was led by an experienced European (German) of mediocre skill and poor judgement, Franz Sigel--who had fought in the German revolution of 1848. While Sigel was initially successful in scattering the rebel forces by bombarding their camp, he mistook an advancing CSA regiment for the gray clad 1st Iowa. When they unexpectedly fired on his force from 40 yards, his men scattered. This doomed the vastly outnumbered main force, which repulsed three counterattacks on their line, losing Lyon in the process. Despite being very early in the war, the Federals withdrew in good order even though they had suffered 25% casualties, lost their commander, and had a handful of cavalry while the rebels had thousands of mounted men.