Alamo wrote:
So an officer in the US Army thinks it's jolly good outfit...hmm, no bias there then.
The problem with a lot of this Union-wanking is the bland assumption that troops with a couple of years of combat experience must be of good quality. Using this kind of logic would lead you to believe that the Spanish Army was the best in Europe in 1939 - after all haven't they just fought a bloody civil war?
As a corrective to the 'Union Army is uber' school may I recommend Archaeology, History and Custer's Last Battle by Richard Fox. In this book he points out that at the so-called 'Fetterman Massacre' in 1866 the US troops (most of whom would have been Civil War veterans) simply huddled together and made no attempt to defend themselves as the Indians clubbed and shot them down. He argues that much the same thing happened at the Little Big Horn, and even at Wounded Knee, which was basically a massacre of women and children, some of the US troops panicked when their own side opened fire!
By contrast, at Isandhlwana and Maiwand, the British Army inflicted about four times as many casualties as they suffered, despite losing both battles -and contrary to popular myth there were more Zulu firearms at Isandhlwana than British, and at Maiwand there was a strong force of Afghan regulars.
General Sheridan begs to differ.
So an officer in the US Army thinks it's jolly good outfit...hmm, no bias there then.
The problem with a lot of this Union-wanking is the bland assumption that troops with a couple of years of combat experience must be of good quality. Using this kind of logic would lead you to believe that the Spanish Army was the best in Europe in 1939 - after all haven't they just fought a bloody civil war?
As a corrective to the 'Union Army is uber' school may I recommend Archaeology, History and Custer's Last Battle by Richard Fox. In this book he points out that at the so-called 'Fetterman Massacre' in 1866 the US troops (most of whom would have been Civil War veterans) simply huddled together and made no attempt to defend themselves as the Indians clubbed and shot them down. He argues that much the same thing happened at the Little Big Horn, and even at Wounded Knee, which was basically a massacre of women and children, some of the US troops panicked when their own side opened fire!
By contrast, at Isandhlwana and Maiwand, the British Army inflicted about four times as many casualties as they suffered, despite losing both battles -and contrary to popular myth there were more Zulu firearms at Isandhlwana than British, and at Maiwand there was a strong force of Afghan regulars.