alternatehistory.com

13 August

A skirmish develops between the fourth company of the 64th Regiment of Foot and a similarly sized force of volunteer infantry from Tennessee. The engagement is initially small and fought between two stone walls about fifty yards apart, but as both sides call for reinforcement and the sound of firing draws more men in the situation takes on something of the character of a meeting engagement.

Relatively few British infantrymen are actually on the firing line by mid-morning - the British doctrine evolved as a consequence of experiences in the Crimea places a particular emphasis on skirmishers, and indeed each 10-company battalion is only using two companies actually on the firing line itself. (Their supports a few hundred yards further back are the same again, and the balance is in the main line which is so far back as to make difficult rifle targets. The main line also contains the Armstrong batteries.)
By contrast the Carolinan force has considerably more men in their skirmish line, which consists of most of their rifle-trained force plus several complete regiments. The balance of weight of fire is much in the southern favour, though the balance of hits is much more even.

As the battle wears on towards noon, however, a major difference between the two systems starts to become apparent. When fighting Union artillery and riflemen in the late war, most Confederate commanders found it was more than adequate for your own main line to be about 1,000 yards away from the enemy main line - this made it so that Parrott rifles were unable to effectively hit targets without multiple ranging shots, and also gave sufficient distance that Napoleon (12pdr) smoothbore fire had to be case shot to be effective at all (owing to the boost given by the burster charge) while rendering infantry rifle fire ineffective. As such the distance between the main line and the thick Carolinan skirmish line is about five hundred yards, with the main line concentrating beyond that to deliver the kind of concentrated attack that was found to harm the enemy's morale.
The British forces, however, are a completely different beast. Their support line is at extreme rifle range from the Carolinan main line (and lying down to minimize artillery effect), and their best men firing with sights set at 900 yards are scoring the occasional hit... and the British main line is about 1,400 yards from the Carolinan main line, which is too long for rifle fire but is roughly half the range at which the 12-lber Armstrong gun was tested (and found able to reliably hit a 9-foot target)
The primary difficulty quickly turns out to be spotting fall-of-shot for the British guns, rather than any real problem with Carolinan counter battery fire or actually hitting the target (this problem is due to the multiple guns firing on the same target, causing confusion, and due to the flatness of the terrain - the gun-wheels are only about five feet off the level which the skirmishers are standing) and within half an hour the majority of the Carolinan guns are either neutralized or withdrawing behind some form of hard cover.

By the time this has been achieved, however, the Carolinan main attack is ready to go in. This consists of three large brigades, all with high morale (partly as none of these men have faced a British enemy yet) and the entirety of the Carolinan cavalry, which has managed to successfully use the cover of woods to reach towards the British flank. The basic concept of this attack is essentially Napoleonic - three columns to advance under the protection of their skirmishers, with cavalry coming in on the flank - and is intended to catch the British in an envelopment where they cannot react in all directions and thus will be forced to fall back (and be pursued by the cavalry).

This works up to a point.

The first indication that things are not going according to plan comes when the columns are approaching the area of the 'empty battlefield' (the area where the skirmishers are fighting). It is at this point that they come under artillery fire - slow and deliberate, as ammunition is not unlimited, but quite accurate and causing the middle column in particular to begin to spread out and lose cohesion. Casualties occur, but as with the old Napoleonic columns they assimilate skirmishers and keep going.

Next is that the British skirmishers withdraw in good order and by fire-and-movement - in most places this is almost like completely holding fire due to the need to stay away from the columns, but the skirmishers of the 11th foot on the right flank are armed with the Snider and manage to keep up a galling fire as they fall back on their supports.

A third, and much more serious, problem comes on the left flank - the Carolinan cavalry is shot to pieces in short order by the similarly Snider-armed support echelon of the 67th Foot, taking over a hundred casualties in two minutes and essentially disintegrating under the unaccustomed weight of fire at what is still a long range.

Finally, the whole of the British front line (roughly three and a half companies per battalion with the skirmishers consolidated into the reserve line, as opposed to the six companies per battalion making up the main line) begins volleying fire.

The burst of intense fire, particularly from the battalions armed with the Snider (which fire five times as fast), drives both the right and left flank brigades to ground quickly. The central brigade (facing mainly conventional Enfields rather than the Snider) pushes a little closer, before coming apart under heavy shrapnel fire.


By the time the attackers fall back they have taken very heavy casualties, especially compared to the number they inflicted on the British. The British losses amount to about one battalion combining killed or wounded, with nearly half of these coming from a surprise action midway through the battle where four hundred Indian braves swam the Ashley river and attacked a supply dump. (The noise and clamour of the main engagement hindered the British reaction to this sneak attack, and the logistics troops were distinctly not front-line combatants - while the Indians carried Springfield rifles across the river in oilskins and made good use of them.)