The Civil War Centennial HandbookPrice, William H.
History
The Civil War Centennial Handbook
Price, William H.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
In July, 1862 the first Negro troops of the Civil War were organized by
General David Hunter. Known as the 1st South Carolina Regiment, they
were later designated the 33rd Regiment United States Colored Troops.
Some 186,000 Negro soldiers served in the Union Army, 4,300 of whom
became battle casualties.
At the battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, the line of Confederate
trenches extended a distance of seven miles. The troop density in these
defensive works was 11,000 per mile.
Over 900 guns and mortars bristled from the 68 forts defending the
Nation's Capital during the war. The fortifications, constructed by the
Engineer Corps during the early part of the war, circled the city on a
37-mile perimeter.
During Sherman's campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, the Union Army of
the Tennessee, in a period of four months, constructed over 300 miles of
rifle pits, fired 149,670 artillery rounds and 22,137,132 rounds of
small-arms ammunition.
To fire a Civil War musket, eleven separate motions had to be made. The
regulation in the 1860's specified that a soldier should fire three
aimed shots per minute, allowing 20 seconds per shot and less than two
seconds per motion.
At the battle of Stone's River, Tennessee, in January, 1863, the Federal
infantry in three days exhausted over 2,000,000 rounds of ammunition,
and the artillery fired 20,307 rounds. The total weight of the
projectiles was in excess of 375,000 pounds.
At the Battle of First Bull Run or Manassas, it has been estimated that
between 8,000 and 10,000 bullets were fired for every man killed and
wounded.
The campaign against Petersburg, the longest sustained operation of the
war, began in the summer of 1864 and lasted for 10 months, until the
spring of '65. The fighting covered an area of more than 170 square
miles, with 35 miles of trenches and fortifications stretching from
Richmond to the southwest of Petersburg. During September, 1864, nearly
175 field and siege guns poured forth a daily average of 7.8 tons of
iron on the Confederate works.
The greatest cavalry battle in the history of the western hemisphere was
fought at Brandy Station, Virginia, on June 9, 1863. Nearly 20,000
cavalrymen were engaged for more than 12 hours. At the height of the
battle, along Fleetwood Hill, charges and countercharges were made
continuously for almost three hours.
The greatest regimental loss of the entire war was borne by the 1st
Maine Heavy Artillery. The unit saw no action until 1864, but in the
short span of less than one year, over half of its 2,202 men engaged in
battle were hit. In the assault on Petersburg in June, 1864, the
regiment lost 604 men killed and wounded in less than 20 minutes.
The largest regimental loss in a single battle was suffered by the 26th
North Carolina Infantry at Gettysburg. The regiment went into battle
with a little over 800 men, and by the end of the third day, 708 were
dead, wounded, or missing. In one company of 84, every officer and man
was hit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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