Beginner's Guide to Civil War Drill

[MrAmerican]

I am reposting this thread I wrote up some months ago in companies because it seems more fitting to be here than in general.

So with the awesome George helping out the "Civil War Drill Manual" discussion that has been going on for a couple months now I decided to release all the links I've been compiling for any of you future leaders to study if you're interested in the basics, (some links go into extreme detail), or just want to refresh your mind, then these links are for you, only for the low price of $10.99 a month... I'm just playing here they are:


GeorgeCrecy's recent thread about the Parade of Battalion. Very Interesting.
http://www.warofrightsforum.com/showthread.php?418-Parade-of-the-Battalion

A library of reenacting links, provided by Thomas Aagaard: Props to this guy!
http://www.zipcon.net/~silas/links.htm

An actual drill manual... contains a lot of "fluff" and stuff that probably won't be added into the game, such as Armed and Unarmed inspections certain actions which are just for show... but goes into A LOT of detail on drill: (Note this was Gilhams drill book, used by many Virginian regiments, Hardee's Drill Book was used more commonly)
http://acws.co.uk/gilhams/

Hardee's Drill Manual:
http://www.drillnet.net/1862/1862.htm

Civil War Organization and Rank. A kind of russian doll look on things, what goes into what and what is under what, ect. EX: Company contains x amount of men and x amount of enlisted x amount of officers and ect.
http://www.townofelbridge.com/Organization%20and%20Rank.pdf

Army of the Potomac Prezi. Very helpful visual presentation that shows all the different parts and regiments of the Army of the Potomac.
https://prezi.com/ekkbj1xdoaay/army-of-the-potomac/

Army of Northern Virginia Army. same as above, just for the CSA side.
https://prezi.com/-wk1q66fd374/army-of-northern-virginia/

Like the Civil War Organization link but goes into a bit more detail on terminology and organization. Also shows you how special units are organized such as calavary, artillery, engineers, and even sharpshooters.
http://www.angelfire.com/wv/wasec5/formations.html

A simple yet informative animation that shows the basic basic commands and formations that a leader should know. Refer to the drill manuals above if you wish to go into more detail. This was posted on the forums a while ago, and who ever it was thank you because it was very helpful when I started out learning this stuff, it is a little modernized, but it gives you a basic understanding.
http://www.10thpa.com/drill1.shtml

A VERY simple diagram on the parts of a musket... does not go into to much detail but gives you a basic understanding.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Musketparts.jpg


If I find any more links myself then I will post them here.
If you have your own links or want to add to this, link or text, then feel free to do so down below.

Contribute to the education of the community in the art of Civil War Drill today! *applause* *whistle* :p

Hope you enjoyed.



Also some shameless advertising:
I had time on my hand so I made a google spreadsheet that listed all the ranks/number of people in those ranks in one Regiment/Brigade/Company... I used 1st NJ because of my NJ Pride :p
[Note the Union did not use J (Juliet) as a company name because it looked to similar to I (India), so the skip over J is intentional). Feel free to use it as you wish.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cgAhDcMfdJmBpwQ53kuYPiIGSi8-20qbAEGYZb7ki8Y/edit?usp=sharing

EDIT: Now that it is only companies, the spreadsheet above is kind of unnecessary, so here is the cut down version that I use for my company:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yTXP-yoH305mOpjlN4un2YL45weug653tjVjRjFIEHc/edit?usp=sharing


Thanks for reading.

[A. P. Hill]

Thank you Sir for you consideration.

:salute:

[Shadow765]

Pretty cool

[Isolation]

Very useful... amazing!

[Isolation]

Why cant this get stickied?

[Hatchmo]

Some very good information. This should be helpful to most people, even those with experience in War terminology and maneuvers.

[thomas aagaard]

http://acws.co.uk/ - It is a good page, just remember that is about Gilhams Drill book... mainly used by Virginia regiments.
(it have a good article about the question of when to sue Gilhams and when to use Hardee's revised)


Army Abbreviations. - got lots of ranks and abbreviations that was NOT used during the war...
So don't use it as inspiration to what you call stuff.
It can be useful is you read one that you don't know... but not the other way around.


http://www.10thpa.com/drill1.shtml - Some modern reenactorism. The Drill books tell us how to do it, and this is not the way.
(it start out by having the men fall in... using a method that do not match Hardee or Casey.)



The best option is obviously to read the drillbooks. and sources... this way you avoid random websites with mistakes and modern misconceptions.


A lot of period military manuals can be found here:
http://www.zipcon.net/~silas/links.htm

If you want to understand the "manual of arms" the booklets made by the owner of the site Silas Tackitt are a great and easy way of reading the relevant parts.

[MrAmerican]

Thanks for the information I will update the thread.

EDIT: Thread Updates, thanks to Thomas Aagaard for his helpful insight.

[elder_gutknecht]

Anyone who pay for this app, animated hardee's tacticsl vol 1?

[72ndPA]

Bumping this old thread has some very good information in it!

[attilio7]

Thank you, just what I needed,lot's to learn.

[JDwoody]

Thanks for this, should help me with the book im writing.

[tireiron]

This was very helpful. Thanks for the post!