One of my favorites stories from the Civil War involves Hood’s Texas Brigade. In J B Polley’s history of the Brigade (he was a member of the 4th Texas), he talks about their crossing at “Point-Of Rocks” Maryland into northern soil. One of the Officers had procured a hogs head of Whiskey, stove in the top, and set it beside the road for the Texans for to quench their thirst(s). It seems that the day was rather warm, the boys hadn’t eaten for a few hours, and none had had a drop of liquor for several weeks.

Those that imbibed plunged their cups into the barrel and them what didn’t also filled theirs and passed it to those what did. Soon enough, the natural results kicked in, and the Texans finished their hike with a “spirited” step. Many of the men later remarked that it was the longest march the brigade ever made. Not so much because of the LENGTH of the road, but because of it’s WIDTH. :)

I have often likened road marches to herding cats. Beautiful to watch when it all comes together. A real Chinese Fire Drill when it doesn’t. And you are correct: Not near enough attention is given to those who make it all work. Seems they only get noticed when something bad happens, and that’s a damned shame.

It’s amazing how much effort it takes to arrange for the movement of even one mechanized infantry brigade, and a relatively short distance of 30 miles at that. I took part in such a logistical exercise in the early days of Desert Shield, and it was a lesson in coordination.

Gus Pagonis, btw, did a fantastic job handling the logistics throughout the deployment, he really stayed on top of things, with the help of a dedicated cadre of logistics officers and NCOs.

What is even more amazing to me, and I’ve been doing this research for more than 30 years, as that the majority of the support personnel were ad-hoc appointments.

The US Army had no concept of what would later become the staff corps, and of professional officers serving in other than the major combat arms branches. The job, for example, of Commissary officer for a battalion was usually done by a LT appointed from one of the companies as a collateral duty. He would have 1 or 2 men detailed as clerks to assist him. At the company level, rations were handled by the 3rd sergeant (there were 5 to a company, and the senior was the “1st Sgt” which is why he is still called that today.

I did a statistical review of the 3rd Army Corps during the Gettysburg Campaign many years ago. One of the interesting things was that, because so many detailed men were needed to perform the support duties, that fully 22% of the available manpower in each battalion had been lost due to collateral assignments. Tasks such as clerks, medical orderlies, commissary details, ordnance details, Quartermaster details, baggage train guards, etc, had to be filled from the ranks because there was no system in place to train and provide men for those specific tasks.

As to other eye-opening stats, think about this: The 3rd Corps on June 30, 1863, showed slightly more than 10,000 men and officers fit for duty in 2 Divisions. If you placed the corps on the road, marching in column 4 abreast, with the artillery and ambulance trains with them, you would have a column 2.75 miles long. Behind that would be the trains carrying medical, commissary, quartermaster, Ordnance, baggage, etc, for a distance of 17.5 miles. 20 miles for just ONE army corps, and the 3rd is one of 7 Corps, plus the Cavalry Corps and Artillery Reserve that made up the Army of the Potomac.

Staggering. Now think about communications done almost soley in the field with mounted couriers and written instructions.

It’s been nice to see that a number of pundits have brought this aspect up recently.

Do you know if the numbers of support personel were similiar to the ones figured today? The latest I had read was somewhere around 7:1 support:combat for modern armies.

Even in the CW there were REMF, and from their clothing it appears they lived rather well in the field.

I think that, for the time, Aquia Creek would not have been the field but a base area. But yes, they do look rather natty.

I wonder if they didn’t put on their best for the picture?