Coventina's History Thread: Napoleon and the American Civil War [View all]

What?

Yes, you read the title correctly! Today we're going to examine Napoleon's influence on the American Civil War.

In the mid-nineteenth century, French General Napoleon Bonaparte was regarded as one of the greatest military geniuses in history. Everyone wanted to emulate his tactics. Civil War generals on both sides had been trained at West Point, and one of their primary textbooks was a volume on Napoleonic tactics written by Antoine Henri de Jomini. Many of these officers absolutely revered the French general and emperor. Thomas J. Jackson, who was later nicknamed "Stonewall," even traveled to Europe to study Napoleonic battlefields.

Outflanking was one of the most important Napoleonic principles taught to Civil War generals. When an attacking force gets around the side of its enemy, it forces the defender to run its lines to face the attacker, rush reinforcements to that side, and disrupt the battle plan. How did Sherman conquer Atlanta? Not by facing the rebel army head on, but by executing a string of flanking maneuvers that forced the rebels to fall back slowly until Atlanta was vulnerable.

Sherman took another page from Napoleon's playbook during his March to the Sea across Georgia. The general fed his army by ransacking farms along the way; living off the land was Napoleon's strategy for maintaining an army far from home.

Not all the general's tactics worked, though. He advised keeping troops in straight formation. That's fine for enemies with bad aim, but Civil War rifles were more accurate than Napoleonic muskets, and soldiers lined up in neat formation were sitting ducks for sharpshooters. Overall, though, Napoleon's lessons made Civil War armies much more effective - and deadly - than previous American forces had been.