WI: Barbed wiring in the American Civil War

I was recently reading a book for class called A History of the American People(ISBN:978--0-06--093034) by Paul Johnson.

On page 516 on the second paragraph, Johnson makes a claim about the effects of barbed wiring being available early in the civil war.

...In the mid 1870’s, two Illinois farmers, Joseph F. Glidden and Jacob Haish, took out patents for barbed wire, which was both practical and cheap. In 1874, barbed wire cost $20 per 100 pounds and total production was 10,000 pounds. Six years later, production had risen to 80.5 million pounds following dramatic price falls which brought top-quality wire down to $1.90 by 1897. Glidden and Haish had no idea their invention would cost the lives of millions of lives in World War One(had it been available in 1861, casualties in the Civil War would probably have doubled and the fighting would have prolonged itself to the end of the decade). Barbed-wiring was far cheaper and quicker than wooden-fencing of rangeland and its mass production made it possible to fence in the black lands...

Now Johnson isn't a military historian, so I view this claim with caution. So just to check, what do you guys think?

Is Johnson being legitimate with the horror of barbed wiring in the civil war, or he is just exaggerating its effectiveness?
 

Pellaeon

Banned
I would think it would have made the war most static and yes would have increased casualties but I somehow doubt barbed wire alone or its secondary effects would double the casualties(the US lost something like three percent of its population six percent would be far more destabilizing).

I can see it making individual battles far more grim and commanders far less willing to send men off in charges.
 
I disagree with Johnson's claim, while casualties could increase by a few thousand it would not have made a decisive difference in the American Civil War.

Looking at how the war was fought between 1861-1865, it is clear that barbed wire would not have made a decisive impact, especially on the Western Theater.

The Western Theater saw the Confederates finding themselves in a battle of maneuver against their Federal opponents. Barbed wire could probably only be applied to fortified locations, like Vicksburg or Chattanooga for instance. However, barbed wire would not matter much, seeing that the assaults on Vicksburg failed without the barbed wire, and both Vicksburg and Chattanooga fell by siege and maneuver respectively.

Barbed wire in the Eastern Theater might see a slightly bigger impact. Barbed wire could be used to strengthen the fortifications of Richmond and Petersburg. However, there were already field fortifications that could do the same thing as barbed wire. Abatis, Chevaux and Fraises could basically do the same thing as barbed wire did.
 
Barbed wire is only useful if you can manufacture it in quantity and transport it to where it is needed both of which would be somewhat challenging for the Confederacy. The Union might be able to better hold a few forward defensive positions and thus it might if anything shorten the war in some small measure (Which considering the ratio of disease to combat casualties would drive the net toll down).

As mentioned above barbed wire is fairly useless if your foe is happy to fix you in position and go around you a la Sherman in his March to the Sea.

Further but the efficacy of barbed wire is, against people, only so great as the volume of covering fire which can be directed upon it. Planks or even something like thick blankets or bedrolls can create passages through wire for example. In later eras when barbed wire was in use the volume of fire from defending infantry and artillery was an order of magnitude if not more greater than that turned out in the Civil War with a concurrent impact on casualties which the author quoted in the OP seems to have attributed solely to wireworks.
 
Barbed wire is only useful if you can manufacture it in quantity and transport it to where it is needed both of which would be somewhat challenging for the Confederacy. The Union might be able to better hold a few forward defensive positions and thus it might if anything shorten the war in some small measure (Which considering the ratio of disease to combat casualties would drive the net toll down).

As mentioned above barbed wire is fairly useless if your foe is happy to fix you in position and go around you a la Sherman in his March to the Sea.

Further but the efficacy of barbed wire is, against people, only so great as the volume of covering fire which can be directed upon it. Planks or even something like thick blankets or bedrolls can create passages through wire for example. In later eras when barbed wire was in use the volume of fire from defending infantry and artillery was an order of magnitude if not more greater than that turned out in the Civil War with a concurrent impact on casualties which the author quoted in the OP seems to have attributed solely to wireworks.


I think also that one reason barbed wire seemed so terribly effective in WWI IOTL was that it was
partnered with the machine gun, which of course wasn't yet around in 1861-1865.
 
I was recently reading a book for class called A History of the American People(ISBN:978--0-06--093034) by Paul Johnson.

On page 516 on the second paragraph, Johnson makes a claim about the effects of barbed wiring being available early in the civil war.



Now Johnson isn't a military historian, so I view this claim with caution. So just to check, what do you guys think?

Is Johnson being legitimate with the horror of barbed wiring in the civil war, or he is just exaggerating its effectiveness?

The claim that both the casualties and length of the war would be doubled is so ridiculous that I would question any other conclusions Johnson makes in his work. Wire obstacles were used occasionally by Union troops during the war to augment fixed defensive positions. At the moment, the earliest example I can find is Burnside at Knoxville in November of 1863. In an ATL where barbed wire had been invented before the Civil War, its first uses would probably be accidental as farmers' fences got in the way of advances. Imagine Pickett's charge if they'd had to cross a barbed wire fence instead of a wooden fence. Of course, this would mainly be when Confederates tried to cross fences in Union territory. The technology would strongly favored the Union - in 1860, Union states produced 10,595 tons of wire while Confederate states produced 75 tons. I expect most of the limited amount of Confederate barbed wire would be used to augment the defenses of Richmond. The Union certainly would be use some of their barbed wire to augment the defenses of Washington DC, freeing up troops, but the Union would also have enough barbed wiree to use in field fortifications. Over the course of the war, I'd expect the Union to lose a few hundred more men in combat than in OTL, while the Confederacy would lose a few thousand more. The war might drag on longer than in OTL, but higher Confederate combat casualties could also lead to them collapsing sooner than in OTL. Either way, I'd expect the difference in the length of the war to be in months, not years.
 
I think also that one reason barbed wire seemed so terribly effective in WWI IOTL was that it was
partnered with the machine gun, which of course wasn't yet around in 1861-1865.

There was the Gatlin Gun, which could be a inferior substitute for this day and age.
 
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