Line Battles

[mineshadows]

Question, how big were the lines in the civil war. What is the general number of each line that was deployed to battle against the opposing forces.

[GeorgeCrecy]

Hey there mineshadows,

I am guessing by "line" you mean the entire army vs. army. In that case, the armies were upwards of at least 15,000 men. The largest force in the Union was during the Appomattox Campaign when the Army of the Potomac had 125,000 men. The peak of Confederate forces was around 75,000 men which was when the Army of Northern Virginia took part in the Gettysburg Campaign.

If I am wrong, and you meant on a smaller organizational level, let me quote from something I wrote for the Dev portion of the forums:

At the very bottom of the rung is the company. At full strength, each company would have 97 men and 3 officers, that being the Captain in charge, the First Lieutenant, and Second Lieutenant. Each company would take a letter from A through K, excepting the letter "J" since at the time it looked too much like "I" when written.

10 companies made up the major rung of organization: the regiment. Each regiment was, with few exceptions, named after the state they came from, and the number from when the regiment was created, so the 6th Delaware came from Delaware and was the 6th regiment created in that state of that branch. Regiments were most commonly commanded by a Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel, with the Lieutenant Col. and a Major acting as backups in case the Colonel could not lead. Around 1,000 men.
http://warofrights.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=470&d=1390013000

Next up is the brigade, made up of 2 to 6 regiments, though most commonly made up of 4. Brigades were commanded by a Colonel in extreme cases, or more commonly by Brigadier Generals. In the Union, each brigade was numbered, such as 5th Brigade. In the Confederacy, they often were named after their current or former commander, such as Hood's Brigade. On both sides, Brigades also went by their nicknames such as the Texas Brigade, or the Iron Brigade. Around 4,000 men.
http://warofrights.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=471&d=1390013016

Then there is the division. Each division was made up of three to five brigades, and were commanded by a Major General. The Confederate divisions were often larger, and made up of more brigades than their Union counterparts. Around 12,000 men.
http://warofrights.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=472&d=1390013028

Next was the corps. The corps were huge bodies of men and horses comprised of two to four divisions, usually made of three however. They were commanded by a Major General in the Union, and a Lieutenant General in the Confederacy after they had adopted the Corps system on November 6th, 1862. Prior to this, a Confederate Corps was known as a Wing, such as Longstreet's Wing, etc. Around 36,000 men.
http://warofrights.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=473&d=1390013042

Finally, you had the Army. The army was made up of two or more corps, and were commanded by a General. In the north, an army was named after bodies of water or waterways, such as the Army of the Pacific or the Army of the Potomac. In the South, it was named after the state and region the Army hailed from. The Army of the Potomac had 6 corps, technically of 216,000 men at the battle of Antietam. The Army of Virginia had two wings and a division of cavalry, technically of 108,000 men at the battle.
http://warofrights.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=474&d=1390013057

Finally, for those that might still have some trouble, here is a final, overall view:
http://warofrights.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=475&d=1390013094


*P.S. I say technically in the last amounts of men because neither army through disease, desertion, and unreplaced deaths were at full strength. Lee began the Maryland campaign with some 55,000 to 60,000 men. McClellan chased after him with 6 corps of infantry, comprising 84,000 men, not including the men he had in the cavalry and separated regiments of artillery. His fighting force, as such, would total more around 90,000 to 100,000.

[mineshadows]

Thanks GeorgeCrecy. Even with 100 or 97 men in a company, i figured the numbers would be smaller depending on the terrain and how big the battlefields were at that time.

[Soulfly]

Well, during "Pickets Charge" there were around 15.000-16.000 confederates walking across open fields in perfect line order, with a length of a mile and a half...at least for a while. Is the question pointing at those numbers or such as George already pointed out ?

[Hinkel]

Also, there was no fixed soldier number in a line. Some regiments had 200 men, others showed up with 650 men at Antietam. They all had battles before, or the strenght was reduced due to illness or other events.

Also, a line was not deployed in full strenght, there were also reserves which were used after some time.

Soo... You cant say it was 200 vs 200.. Most of the time, the lines were not equal and sometimes you have 3 lines fireing at 1 line.

[mineshadows]

Speaking of battles, will there be hundreds of cannons on the battlefield, or only just a few of them?

[Rithal]

With the level of combat that will be seen in the game, hundreds of cannons probably won't be available. It looks like the combat will be at the largest Brigade v Brigade. Possibly larger but I don't really see that happening. So, for the ratio of men to cannons to be historically accurate there will probably be somewhere in the range of 12 to 24 cannons per side, but it really depends on the engagement. I mean, you don't really want a "brigade" of men which, in game will most likely be around 100-200ish guys being bombarded by the historical amount of cannons now do you? It also depends on the devs. I don't really know what they are shooting for in terms of number of cannons, but I might have answered your question.

[mineshadows]

You have SgtRithal. Otherwise you would have to spawn too many times to the point where it kind of kills the fun in playing the game. I guess that's what the North and South mod is for if you want cannons on a massive scale.

[AlekoTheGreek]

Having thousents of soldiers/players/horses/cannons on screen is not that easy, especially for the network engine

what i hope is that all units will be balanced with eachother according to the scale of the engagement

(who knows... in some decades we may get 10k v 10k player battles in gaming :P )