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why didn't the Confederates try a guerrilla warfare strategy?
Why didn't the Confederates, when it became clear that meeting the superior firepower of the Union on the open field was a losing game, attempt more of a "war of the flea" type conflict with the north? If they had burrowed into the low-lying mountains and forests of the American Southeast, they could've made the guerrilla war in Spain against Napoleon look like a pillowfight by comparison.
I remember reading somewhere that Robert E Lee was offered the choice of retreating into the Blue Ridge mountains to further prosecute the war guerrilla-style, but declined because he thought too much blood had already been shed or something.
?
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Because they didn't have the support of most people in the south, which would of been necessary for a guerilla warfare strategy. Sure many racist white southerners were against reconstruction, that doesn't mean they supported the old aristocracy. Besides the south already realized the war was over, to the point where they started training their own slaves to be in their army. There were a lot of veterans who came to the western U.S. as well, and settled in the territories, who started gangs of their own, such as Jesse James.
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In some cases guerrilla skirmishes were indeed carried out between the Confederate and Union troops, in Kentucky specifically. In fact I think every engagement other than Perryville in Kentucky was of a guerrilla nature.
For a prolonged guerrilla strategy where an armed group takes refuge in the mountains, though, would require cooperation, participation, and dedication from the population in the mountain region, such as what the Cuban July 26 Movement was able to achieve in the Sierra Maestra. I am not sure if such a relationship could have been realized?
Yeah, I guess it really does depend on popular support or at least sympathy from the local populations. I'm not sure how much of that still existed by the end of the civil war
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there was plenty of guerrilla warfare going on during the civil war in the united states. it started openly in the mid-1850s in kansas five years before the official declaration of the civil war, when pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces attempted to settle the state to win the territory to their side of the union/confederacy dispute.
john brown was part of these battles, leading a raid on osawatomie creek - a slaveowner settlement - where a small unit hacked several pro-slavery settlers to death.
later, after the war broke out in 1861, years of pitched guerrilla attacks between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces continued in kansas and missouri with numerous raids and massacres. quantrill's raiders were an infamous band of confederate guerrillas who were inducted into the confederate army early on in the war, and conducted the lawrence massacre. lawrence, kansas, was a stronghold of anti-slavery forces and quantrill's irregulars killed dozens of people there and burned down much of the town.
there were also the proto-klan forces of nathan bedford forrest in tennessee, and other less important cores of guerrilla-style fighters. the issue for the confederates (as os cangaceiros points to) is that guerrilla warfare relies on support from the people, and the population dynamics of many areas - especially in the black belt where most of the southern population resided - weren't conducive to having mass support for pro-slavery guerrillas.
Part of the reason also lies in the preferred manner of fighting which resembled the European style of field combat. Abandoning this kind of warfare for a complete 360 to guerrilla warfare would have required a dramatic shift in military thinking and seemed unlikely at the time; skirmishes are one thing but conducting a whole war on a guerrilla basis is another I think.
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I agree. A lot of the confederate generals were from West Point and most likely learn methods of conventional warfare and the military culture at the time preferred that; officers/generals preferred it. If they did include any guerrilla fighting it was probably part of an overall conventional military strategy. I doubt the Confederate leadership desired to fight a primarily guerrilla war.
Second, the demographics (thus why not much guerrilla fighting even at the end of hostilities). You had areas and such were there were a substantial black population who would be opposed to white-supremacist guerrillas. Although, there was arguably a bit of "irregulars" I guess if you think of the original KKK (and perhaps others) but they were more of some kind of "gang" or say like "terrorists" and not much a guerrilla fighting force.
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I think you're right. I don't know if this was a factor or not, but I've read that the South was disliked by the poor farmers in more remote regions; and that the term "Hillbilly" comes from small farm Southerners who supported the North.
But regardless, I think the main thing was that they didn't have the material ability to wage a war like that: what good is a slaveocracy without their plantations and slaves - they had nothing to base a guerrilla war on (though guerrilla tactics were used by both sides throughout in limited ways).
Many of the same politicians and landowners actually were integrated into the new U.S. after reconstruction ended, and the north only abolished slavery out of necessity, so there was a lot less tension between the Federal Government and the southern planter elite anyways.
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On a side note, why did armies in the times of the American revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and so on fight all in neat ranks, marching in lines and so on?
They didn't. The 'jaegers' (German skirmishers, the name means 'hunters') and 'rangers' (American units based on hunter-trappers, first seen in the French-Indian War/American theatre of the Seven Years' War) would operate in a much more 'modern' way - they didn't form up in lines, they dressed in an early form of camoflage ('rifle green' in the British Army probably came from the jaegers employed by the Crown in the American Revolution).
The use of rifles might be a factor. Most infantry units used muskets that weren't very accurate and didn't have a great range. That sort of forces you as commander to concentrate your fire, I suspect. So lots of guys with muskets standing in lines.
Rifles are more accurate and have a higher rate of fire, but they require more training. So you tend to get smaller units that learn to hide, I guess...
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This is a major factor, I believe. Of course, the other points about the problems of achieving mass support are important too.
As mentioned before, all the major officers of the war on both sides were educated at West Point, where "European" warfare was taught I assume.
During the American Revolutionary War, guerrilla warfare was practiced in the southern swamp lands and probably in the forests of New England. The colonials knew their land better than the British troops and used it to their advantage.
The American Civil War has been called the first "modern" war, because it was the first war that utilized such modern weaponry like the miniball-loaded muskets, repeaters, and other sorts. I've heard before that the tactics of the Civil War were severely behind the technology of the war.
Ideology is important for an army's success, too. And the Civil War eventually became rather messy at times. I've heard numerous stories of northern soldiers asking southern ones why they're fighting, and the southerners said "Because you're down here, yank." Let us remember that Robert E. Lee was asked to lead the Union troops but chose the Confederacy because he loved Virginia too much.
I don't buy the reason was that they lacked mass support.
Certainly they did lack support, however there are many instances of guerrilla struggles being waged (and lost) without support. The isolated and unpopular guerrilla band is hardly unheard of.
There are no examples of guerilla war working without popular support.
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"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
Indeed. There is more to the guerrilla strategy than the strictly military aspect. The greater part of the strategy is dependent upon the political climate of the region and the attitudes of the masses in the surrounding areas.
There was no guerrilla warfare because that would entail abandoning the plantations, which were the only power centers that existed in the south.
^Along with the fact that the slaves, the backbone of the plantation and what made them run, got the fuck out of dodge at the first sign of the Union Army being near. Ironically, the Union soldiers were able to take the slaves back as contraband, so they used the southern confederacy's own attitudes of black people being property to justify the mass fleeing toward the north of black people.
This massive break for the north on behalf of the black slaves was actually one of the reasons that led to the Republican government considering to step up from preserving the union to abolishing slavery, namely that it put the government in a position where they were forced to have a discussion on the issue and come to a conclusive decision.
Not working, but attempted
As noted by another member, they did. Just to add a side note to that, the term 'Guerrilla' entered the English lexicon during the Napoleonic Wars, based on the contact between the British Army, under Sir Arthur Wellesley (late the Duke of Wellington), and the Spanish and Portuguese insurgents who called themselves 'guerrillas', which translates to 'little war'.
Not in the case of the English riflemen of the Napoleonic Wars, a veteran rifleman was expected to be able make two aimed shots with the Baker Rifle per minute. While a veteran soldier was expected to be able to make as many as three to four shots a minute with the Brown Bess musket. The Baker Rifle came into its own in skirmishing, which is where troops would move ahead of the main column or line and pick off as many of the enemy as possible before retreating back into the line before they were overwhelmed by the opposing force. The extended range and accuracy of the rifle, even after considering the reduced rate of fire, gave the skirmisher a distinct advantage. For some reason while the British employed Riflemen, the French did not, which is odd given the successes achieved by the British riflemen.Originally Posted by Blake's Baby
I spent way too much of my childhood and early teens reading books about the Battle of Waterloo.
There you go, I thought rifles had a higher rate of fire. Learn something new every day, and all that.
Because Napoleon didn't fight in America, where the British developed their rifle regments, maybe?
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
