Flank Stupidity

Which of the two following plans seems most sensible to you?

If the fact that the British adopt plan B at Rouse's Point surprises you, then you may want to go away and read more of this blog. If it doesn't, and you'd like to understand how little sense their whole plan makes when subjected to careful thought, then you're in the right place.

As of chapter 3 part 2, Wolseley has been appointed as 'chief of staff'  to David Russell's division. Unfortunately, this role did not exist. At the time, British staff responsibilities at the divisional level were split between an assistant adjutant-general and an assistant quartermaster-general. Wolseley lays down the instructions in an autocratic style:

The discussion with the brigadiers and battalion commanders had been brief – Russell and Wolseley had laid out their plan, taken a few comments from the line officers, and were now summing up. There was no debate; it was clear this was the final plan... "Any final questions?" There were none; Russell’s - and Wolseley’s – orders were more than clear.

The author has made clear that this is intended to contrast with a more collegiate style among 'Hooker's "boozy band of brothers"', which reinforces the suggestion that the British are class-ridden and focused on an elaborate system of hierarchy and deference. Unfortunately, he admits that this interpretation of Wolseley's autocratic style is based on a single biography from the 1960s, and in turn on a single event (Tel-el-Kebir). Wolseley was commanding general in Egypt, rather than a staff officer: moreover, in the British practice, staff officers were there to support the commanding general and not to exercise command themselves.

We are also told that 'The officers were mostly in the scarlet of the infantry, although there were a couple of artillerymen in blue'. In reality, many of the infantry were likely to be wearing their blue patrol jackets, which were surprisingly popular.

Wolseley's instructions, like the description of the battlefield, change remarkably little as a result of the deletion of the railway:

“We shall attack precisely at dawn, after marching south to the border. We shall use the [railway/post road] to move the field artillery to the border... Once Col. Ross’ brigade is through the American defenses, Col. Browne’s brigade will move south, using the [railway/post road], and emplace the artillery along the [roadbed/roadway], facing east toward the fort. The distance is little more than a mile from one to the other. We will deploy the infantry in front of the artillery, at a right angle to the border. The first brigade, under Col. Browne, will be farthest to the south, and the second brigade, under Col. Ross, to the north...

“Col. Browne’s brigade will advance with the Rifles deployed as skirmishers and picked men of the 30th as the storming party, with sections from the volunteer engineers attached; the 1st of the 16th will deploy in open order as the flank guard to the south, while the Montreal Light Infantry will support the artillery. Col. Ross’ brigade will advance with the Royal Canadian Rifles deployed as skirmishers, with the 1st of the 17th Regiment and the 47th Regiment organized in the same way as the 30th; the 1st Volunteer Rifles will support the artillery line, along with the Montreal battalion. The artillery will be positioned [facing east on the roadbed/on the road facing east], with a militia battery on each flank and Battery D in the center – the 12 pounders have the longest range. The battalions organized for the assault on the fort, both the cover face and the west side of the bastion itself, will include a covering party of a hundred riflemen, a ladder party of about two hundred, a storming party of four hundred men of the 30th, and a reserve of eight hundred men of the 17th and 47th.

The most obvious question is why the artillery (and, in the first version, Colonel Browne's brigade) need either the railway or the road to move south. Both batteries of militia artillery, Montreal and Quebec, possessed 6pdrs and 12pdr howitzers designed for service with the horse artillery. These were lighter even than the 9pdrs which had been brought up the cliffs at the Alma, and were capable of some remarkable feats.

The history of the Montreal Field Battery shows how mobile these guns were. On 9 March 1862 they dragged their guns through thirty-two miles of snowdrifts, from Montreal to Chambly and back; on the 17th they made a similar trip to LaChine when the thaw made the roads nearly impassable; on 10 November 1862 they dragged their guns to the summit of Mount Royal. Clearly, the guns did not need to move in either via road or via rail.

We are also told that the artillery is to emplace 'little more than a mile' away from the fort. However, the maximum range of a muzzleloading smoothbore 6pdr was around 600 yards, and in operations at Taranaki the Royal Artillery's 12pdr Armstrongs opened fire at 800 yards. So why are they emplacing a mile away from the fort? There are two reasons for this.

The first is that TFSmith needs them to have to attack the blockhouses, rather than bypass them altogether - otherwise, as we have seen, his entire line of defences is completely useless. The second is that the entire battle is predicated on forcing the British to overstretch themselves, which sets up the conditions for the Union victory. As such, the British have to make stupid, nonsensical decisions. We can see this in the case of Sickles' flank attack, a diagrammatic representation of which is laid out below.

As can be seen, two battalions, attacking in 'line on each side of the road' across 'snow-covered fields, woodlots crisscrossed by deadfall, and mostly bare forest' are highly unlikely to take a British battalion in open order by surprise. Perhaps the 'morning mist' shielded them from discovery: if so, how wonderfully convenient that it has 'burned off' by the time the British attack the fort.

Furthermore, as can be seen from the above diagram, there are two battalions stationed specifically to support the artillery. What are they doing when the artillery is attacked? It should be possible to pin the attacking troops with the 16th Foot and bring up the 1st Volunteer Militia Rifles and the Montreal Light Infantry (not to mention the service companies of militia) to defeat the attack. Instead, TFSmith has Browne take the 30th Foot and 4th Battalion 60th Rifles out of the assault, derailing the entire thing.

TFSmith has a nasty habit of losing British troops in this way. We are told that:

Instead of five infantry battalions, supported by three batteries, the British attack consisted of only two battalions, Lt. Col. William Gordon’s 1st Battalion, 17th Regiment (Leicestershire) and Lt. Col. Thomas C. Kelly’s 47th Regiment (Lancashire), and supported by only two artillery batteries

These original five battalions must have been 1/17th and 47th (who join the assault), 4/60th and 30th  (who are diverted to the flank attack), and the Royal Canadian Rifles, who magically disappear from the battle at the critical moment. The RCR are later 'ordered... forward to support' an attack which they should have been leading, along with the 1st Volunteer Militia Rifles.

Let the latter fact sink in for a moment. The British detached the 30th from the assault on the fort to oppose the flank attack, while the 1st VMR sat idle a few hundred yards away. Subsequently, they ordered the 1st VMR to charge forward a mile to join the assault which the 30th had been detached from. TFSmith relies on his readers not actually paying close attention to his TL, otherwise these logical inconsistencies would rapidly become apparent.

Bias lurks in every word of the battle's description. When the British attack Fort Montgomery, we are told that 'American riflemen behind the scarp of the covered face could fire from cover. They rapidly picked out British officers, sergeants, and color bearers'. However, the covered face is 200 yards from the bank.

As the range of a musket under optimal circumstances is less than 200 yards, the only troops in the fort who could possibly attack the British as they advanced are the 60 riflemen of the 21st New York. The average range at which fire was opened in Civil War battles fought by fully trained Union troops was less than 200 yards. However, we are expected to believe that Union militia were capable at firing accurately at the British at over 200, and perhaps up to 800. This is nonsense. Moreover, it is not even internally consistent: mere minutes before, a larger number of skirmishers from the 16th Foot were incapable of even delaying a similar two-battalion Union attack.

In the hands of TFSmith, the British are little more than pawns. He moves them around the battlefield in ways designed only to make the Union look good. Unfortunately, whether these moves make sense comes a distant second to the consideration of whether they help the author's preferred side win.