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NO, this will not be an analysis of some of the bias in the movie, we've done this to death when it first came out. I am FAR more interested in a few trivia issues that arose while watching the movie this weekend.

1) Anyone can tell me what the significance of the Union units that wore red shirts and bandannas in the battles. What regiment were they or who did they represent?

2) I THINK the tactical neccessity for marching together and standing against massed fire (which my modern mind can't easily wrap around) is because of the accuracy of the rifles of the time. To increase their effectiveness I assume or am I wrong?

3) What is the difference between these tactics and Napoleonic tatics or is there no difference? I thought I read someehwere that the Union and Confederates were fighting using old tactics against modern 'relatively' weapons and thats why the casualties were so obscenely high.

4) What IS it with the funky facial hair? Seriously those beards look absolutely ridiculous. Once again, vague memories remind me that someone wrote that the officers of that era were extremely young so they wore beards to make them seem older.

I'm only at the half way point right now so I'm sure I'll have more questions later.

Well, I liked the movie for it was.. could've used about an hours worth of cuts.. like getting rid of those goddamn women!!

1) I believe they were called the Zouaves, Pennsylania infantry

2) A lot of their tactics were leftovers from the Napoleonic tactics of massing fire at the enemy due to the ineffectiveness of single rifles in terms of accuracy and rate of fire. However, that was the great tragedy of the Civil War as weapons became MASSIVELY superior to the old Napoleon era weapons.

With the advent of the mini-ball and other innovations as well in all fields of weaponary, the destructive power was greatly magnified. Also, the Generals were all veterans of the Mexican-American war where such tactics were the norm.

However, credit should be given to the Generals as they quickly started adapting their tactics on a broad scale to try to deal with the destructiveness of their new toys. The Union generals of course were a wee bit slower at this and kept trying to ram their forces up against the Confederates (Fredricksburg comes to mind from Gods and Generals). Also, the value of entrenched position came into play, and it can be argued that Trench Warfare was birthed during the Civil War.

One battle comes to mind where for some reason Lee, who was the great innovator and knew the folly of attack entrenched position still proceeded to do so, AND against greater numbers.. Gettysburg. Which is what has sparked a great debate as to WHY Lee ordered that charge and perhaps more extreme, perhaps it wasn't Lee? A lot of people like to blame Longstreet since Lee is considered a god by a lot of people. But personally, I think it was pride. Lee knew he had good men and good commanders and they've always kicked the Union's asses.. so I think he was gambling that they could take the center.

3) Read #2

4) Well, fake beards almost always look fake unless extreme care per person is put into it. But also, some of the characters, they did have intentionally flamboyant facial hair as was their character.

Hope this helps.

Stravo wrote:2) I THINK the tactical neccessity for marching together and standing against massed fire (which my modern mind can't easily wrap around) is because of the accuracy of the rifles of the time. To increase their effectiveness I assume or am I wrong?

It's not accuracy but rather the concentration of fire. At the time, it really was the only way to concentrate enough fire to achieve the needed results.

3) What is the difference between these tactics and Napoleonic tatics or is there no difference? I thought I read someehwere that the Union and Confederates were fighting using old tactics against modern 'relatively' weapons and thats why the casualties were so obscenely high.

Kind of. Both sides began using other tactics towards the end of the war, but the thick lines of infantry (backed by artillery) remained the principle maneuver in that war.

Stravo wrote:
1) Anyone can tell me what the significance of the Union units that wore red shirts and bandannas in the battles. What regiment were they or who did they represent?

Duryée's Zouaves, the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry. The united copied the uniforms of the real Zouaves who where an elite unit of French infantry.

http://www.zouave.org/origins.html

2) I THINK the tactical neccessity for marching together and standing against massed fire (which my modern mind can't easily wrap around) is because of the accuracy of the rifles of the time. To increase their effectiveness I assume or am I wrong?

The rifles where fairly accurate. However they fired slowly. If your being attacked by a mass of men you need a similar dense mass of men to produced a sufficient volume of fire to stop their charge. It was also necessary to control the troops in action. Later in the war as men and commanders became more experienced skirmishing became more common but still could not dominate battles.

3) What is the difference between these tactics and Napoleonic tatics or is there no difference? I thought I read someehwere that the Union and Confederates were fighting using old tactics against modern 'relatively' weapons and thats why the casualties were so obscenely high.

The war opened with both sides attempting to use Napoleonic tactics but they didn't work in the face of greatly improved artillery and rifles. The civil war basically made its own tactics as it went along, and ones emphasizing ranged fire far more. The cavalry charge was also recognized as being completely useless, though it took Europe until WW1 to figure this out, despite similar lessons in firepower in the Franco Prussian war, and even then they kept large amounts of horse calvary.

4) What IS it with the funky facial hair? Seriously those beards look absolutely ridiculous. Once again, vague memories remind me that someone wrote that the officers of that era were extremely young so they wore beards to make them seem older.

That was part of it; it was also just the style of the time.

Stravo wrote: (snip)

4) What IS it with the funky facial hair? Seriously those beards look absolutely ridiculous. Once again, vague memories remind me that someone wrote that the officers of that era were extremely young so they wore beards to make them seem older.

I'm only at the half way point right now so I'm sure I'll have more questions later.

Others have answered the first 3 far better than I could have. However, the facial hair was a realitively new fashion at the time of the Civil War.
Up to this point, the fashionable gentleman was clean-shaven, as can be seen by the portraits of the US Presidents, Senators, and 'men of means'. A beard was viewed much as long hair was viewed in the 1960's. It was scandalous, shocking, flamboyant, rebellous, even scary to young children.
There are newspaper cartoons of the era making fun of bearded men. One that comes to mind has the caption "Young Elizabeth did not know what to make of the mass of facial hair on her uncle's face, and knew not where to kiss him hello!" The uncle has a full beard that covered all but his eyes and nose.

On a side note, the phrase "SideBurns", came from Union General (Franklin?) Burnsides, who shaved his chin and cheeks, but grew and styled the hair growing from hairline to chinline just in front of his ears.

Trytostaydead wrote:A lot of their tactics were leftovers from the Napoleonic tactics of massing fire at the enemy due to the ineffectiveness of single rifles in terms of accuracy and rate of fire. However, that was the great tragedy of the Civil War as weapons became MASSIVELY superior to the old Napoleon era weapons.

Generals in that war were still using Napoleonic-era tactics well into 1864. That's how John Bell Hood got a third of his army slaughtered at Franklin, as well as U.S. Grant's wracking up such horrendous casualties at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbour.

With the advent of the mini-ball and other innovations as well in all fields of weaponary, the destructive power was greatly magnified.

Slight correction: it's the Minié ball, after its inventor Claude Minié.

One battle comes to mind where for some reason Lee, who was the great innovator and knew the folly of attack entrenched position still proceeded to do so, AND against greater numbers.. Gettysburg. Which is what has sparked a great debate as to WHY Lee ordered that charge and perhaps more extreme, perhaps it wasn't Lee? A lot of people like to blame Longstreet since Lee is considered a god by a lot of people. But personally, I think it was pride. Lee knew he had good men and good commanders and they've always kicked the Union's asses.. so I think he was gambling that they could take the center.

I think there's a different explanation for Lee's behaviour at Gettysburg. The month leading up to the battle, he had been down with dysentery and also he had suffered the initial symptoms of the heart condition which would kill him seven years in the future. He had only returned to active command as his army was heading down the Emmitsburg Road toward Gettysburg. After the defeat, when Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis to offer his resignation, he cited his own physical infirmity as reason for the president to seek a younger, more energetic replacement. Lee also certainly had to know that the South was running out of men and materiél to carry on the war effort and hence, the South was running out of time. And he may have felt that he was running out of time as well.

For these reasons, I believe it was less pride and more desperation that drove the decision to charge the Federal centre. I think Lee saw Gettysburg as his last chance to win the war for the South while it was still possible. And that's why he dismissed Longstreet's well-founded objections and took the gamble.

Perhaps, Lee was not drawing as much support from the North as he had hoped he would to help supply his army. In fact, he would later on go to regret marching his troops Northward.

However, I am not sure about it being desperation. Perhaps his head was not right those days and the new illnesses and stress really fogged his judgement. But he really marched in blind that day and due to.. dangit, was it Ewell or Early, they lost a key hilltop. Also, the idea of attacking the center across open field, over barriers and up an incline kind of makes you go:

Though don't rag on Grant too much either. The man knew what he was doing. He couldn't out manuever Lee, that much was pretty certain. With Lee in constant fallback, they held the cards especially with Longstreets prowess at mounting defenses. Grant knew one thing, Lee's army was slowly being bled dry while his was constantly increasing.

And to be honest, Grant could have won the war at several points if not for the bungling of his commanders (lesson learned, do not let politics dictate promotions.. but we never learned did we?

Is there a reason why the union commanders were so inept? It seems that Civil War history is riddled with Union Commanders bungling their way through the battles and making errors that the Southern commanders did not. The Southern commanders seemed more daring, quicker on their feet and better able to motivate their men.

What was it about Southern men that made them such able commanders?

Stravo wrote:Is there a reason why the union commanders were so inept? It seems that Civil War history is riddled with Union Commanders bungling their way through the battles and making errors that the Southern commanders did not. The Southern commanders seemed more daring, quicker on their feet and better able to motivate their men.

What was it about Southern men that made them such able commanders?

Well, to be fair not every Union commander was inept, there were many damn good ones. But for every good one, there were about a gazillion who were appointed their position.. even Chamberlain was offered his own unit but he wisely declined for some service time to learn the trade. Also, many of the good Union commanders had a tendancy to get shot a lot it seems.. putting themselves too far forward is a baaad thing.

As far as commanding generals go, there were a share of bungling generals that should've been shot on sight to save thousands of lives, and those that were adequate. Meade himself wasn't bad.. just too cautious.

The Southern men were quite different. Many of the commanders and their commanding general Lee, were hard-veterans. Graduating from the VMI or Westpoint a lot of these men were top of their classes (except Pickett, but we forgive him). I guess, partly a lot of these men were aristocrats.. they were well-educated and had honor and duty drilled into them.. or were fanatics, like Jackson which made them fearsome because they were fearless on the battlefield.

But don't belittle the average Union fighting man either. It took A HELL of a lot of guts to keep marching into certain death.

No, I certainly am not belittling the Union fighting man, many times teh Southerners were shocked or awed that the Union men kept on coming during some nasty battles. Both sides obviously had brave and well motivated men. It is the officer corps I question. Even Grant seems to rely more on suffocating numbers, while Lee is the nimble field commander, focussing on manuever and attack.

Stravo wrote:No, I certainly am not belittling the Union fighting man, many times teh Southerners were shocked or awed that the Union men kept on coming during some nasty battles. Both sides obviously had brave and well motivated men. It is the officer corps I question. Even Grant seems to rely more on suffocating numbers, while Lee is the nimble field commander, focussing on manuever and attack.

Yeah, true. And the tragedy is that Grant will always be associated with a butcher as he pushed his men through the mill. But he had proved himself before as great tactician before being named commanding general of the union forces. There was a good reason he used attrition, he himself, and probably no one else in the Union could beat Lee and his officers. The one time when they did was when they blew up a great big mine underneath Lee's lines but then Grant's commanders bungled it up again (Burnside).

What's makes the Civil War such an awe-inspiring awful tragedy is perhaps fate. As Shaara pointed out in one of his introductions, for some reason Westpoint and VMI pumped out extraordinary officers that were tested on the fields of Mexico and the frontiers. And these officers developed bonds probably stronger than brothers to each other and then were ripped apart as each had to make a choice between home or country. Even amongst the veteran soldiers as well.. and then they would spend the next few years killing each other. Perhaps that's the lesson we take from the Civil War and the price they paid was great enough that thank God it was never repeated again.

Sea Skimmer wrote: The war opened with both sides attempting to use Napoleonic tactics but they didn't work in the face of greatly improved artillery and rifles. The civil war basically made its own tactics as it went along, and ones emphasizing ranged fire far more. The cavalry charge was also recognized as being completely useless, though it took Europe until WW1 to figure this out, despite similar lessons in firepower in the Franco Prussian war, and even then they kept large amounts of horse calvary.

Let us not forget similar experience WRT calvary in the Crimea.

An additional question:

Why do you think the film wasn't bloodier? Did the relative lack of bloody fighting serve some purpose?

Everyone knows that the CW was a brutal affair. Perhaps battlefield amputations and the like would've served little purpose--that kind of thing has been done in film before, I think, or at least implied--but why weren't the gunshot wounds more graphic?

Could it be that some of the G&G staff felt too much violence would be ripping off other films with epic-scale battles (Braveheart comes to mind)? Or would that detract from the style of their story-telling?

I honestly don't know; I only watched some of the battles, and pretty much ignored the dialogue after I heard Robert Duvall's shaky "Southern" accent. He's usually awesome, but I just couldn't stomach much of that. (It's a personal quirk. I find bad Southern accents in films very grating and unprofessional, killing my suspension of disbelief. Even freaking S. NATIVES can't do it well...Julia Roberts was raised in Georgia, and the way she talked in "Steel Magnolias" was THE most over-the-top shit I've ever heard.)

Howedar wrote:

Let us not forget similar experience WRT calvary in the Crimea.[/quote]

There where multiple successful Calvary charges in that war, The Heavy brigade actually made a very successful charge right before the Light Brigade got its self slaughtered. In the Franco Prussian War there was exactly one successful charge, and it was overrunning a position that had just been shelled for several hours and lacked sufficent infantry support. About a dozen other charges where torn up as badly as the Light brigade. Yet that one successful charge was used to justify the horse Calvary though the 1920s.

Why do you think the film wasn't bloodier? Did the relative lack of bloody fighting serve some purpose?

Everyone knows that the CW was a brutal affair. Perhaps battlefield amputations and the like would've served little purpose--that kind of thing has been done in film before, I think, or at least implied--but why weren't the gunshot wounds more graphic?

Yeah, because they wanted kids to see the movie as well. They wanted High School kids to be able to watch the movie as they did Gettysburg and quite a lot of history teachers took their classes to see it.

Sea Skimmer wrote: There where multiple successful Calvary charges in that war, The Heavy brigade actually made a very successful charge right before the Light Brigade got its self slaughtered. In the Franco Prussian War there was exactly one successful charge, and it was overrunning a position that had just been shelled for several hours and lacked sufficent infantry support. About a dozen other charges where torn up as badly as the Light brigade. Yet that one successful charge was used to justify the horse Calvary though the 1920s.

Yeah, I know that there was a little bit of successful calvary action in the Crimea. My point was that that war should have shown the European powers that horses were definately on their way out.

Of course, militaries historically can be very short-sighted.

Trytostaydead wrote: Yeah, because they wanted kids to see the movie as well. They wanted High School kids to be able to watch the movie as they did Gettysburg and quite a lot of history teachers took their classes to see it.

I read you. I'd wondered about that for a month now--thanks

seanrobertson wrote:

Trytostaydead wrote: Yeah, because they wanted kids to see the movie as well. They wanted High School kids to be able to watch the movie as they did Gettysburg and quite a lot of history teachers took their classes to see it.

I read you. I'd wondered about that for a month now--thanks

Also in the director's commentary he states that he did not want to focus on the blood and gore for an artistic reason, he wanted to focus on loss of life more than blood gore and maiming. He said out of all the effects of war it is the loss of life that is most tragic. So you have Trytostaydead's RL reason and the Director's artictic vision as well.

Stravo wrote: 2) I THINK the tactical neccessity for marching together and standing against massed fire (which my modern mind can't easily wrap around) is because of the accuracy of the rifles of the time. To increase their effectiveness I assume or am I wrong?

Yes and no. Warfare during this time was (and still is) mostly about psychology. The ACW was in many aspects the end of an era, but the original thinking about lining up the troops as seen in Gods and Generals was to amass enough pressure to break the enemy lines as well as his morale. During the ACW due to the advancement of the firepower the advantage lay with the defender rather then the attacker wich had been the case earlier. This then had devastating effects on the attacker, wich on the eastern theater mostly was the Union.
Earlier the effect of the amassed firepower had been (and during the ACW still was) largly ineffective as far as casualties went, the usage of volleys was used to increase the psychological effect of the casualties suffered.