| Gen. Hardee wrote the book on Civil War tactics |
By: MIKE WEST, Managing Editor
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Posted: Sunday, August 16, 2009 7:23 am
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William J. Hardee
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When it came to Civil War battlefield tactics, Confederate Gen. William J. Hardee literally wrote the book.
Literally....
Hardee's 1855 textbook, “Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics,” was required reading for officers in both the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War .
When he wrote the book, Hardee was the respected commandant of West Point, the U.S. Military Academy.
But he was a Georgia native, the youngest of seven children who was born at Rural Felicity in Camden County, Ga. to Sarah Ellis and Major John Hardee. Following his father’s military career, Hardee entered West Point, in 1834, graduated in 1838 and accepted a commission in the army.
An active U.S. Army career followed his graduation from West Point with Hardee participating in both the Second Seminole War (1835-42) and the Mexican War (1846-48). Between the two conflicts, Hardee was sent to France for a year to study military tactics.
Hardee was captured during the Mexican War and returned via prisoner exchange. After his return, he was assigned to the staff of Gen. Zachary Taylor and received two field promotions.
Following the Mexican War he led units of Texas Rangers and soldiers in Texas before being recalled to Washington, D.C., where he wrote “Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics.”
In 1853, Lt. Col. Hardee served as the commandant of cadets at West Point.
But when Georgia seceded from the Union in 1861, Hardee resigned his commission and accepted the rank of colonel in the new Confederate army.
Hardee’s first assignment was in northern Arkansas, recruiting and organizing men from the Ozarks, but by October 1861 he was promoted to major general and moved to the much more strategically important border state of Kentucky. The Confederacy lost both Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, but rallied at Shiloh. Hardee led one of the Confederate corps at Shiloh, fighting well but being slightly wounded.
Pulling back to Corinth, Miss. following Shiloh, Hardee then played a role in the evacuation of the Confederate army. After Gen. Braxton Bragg was placed in command of Confederate forces in the west, Hardee and his troops will were pulled east to support the ill-fated advance into Kentucky.
Hardee commanded the Confederate left in the confusion at Perryville and was with the army as it withdrew to Murfreesboro.
His book “Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics” had earned him a reputation as one of the leading military scholars of the time. His book was the key acknowledgement of the rifle’s replacement of the musket as the key battlefield weapon.
Hardee’s “Tactics” was based around the improved range and accuracy of rifles compared to tradition smoothbore muskets. The rifle made a dramatic change in the common soldier's marksmanship. The predecessor US musket was the .69-caliber smoothbore modeled from the French muskets provided during the American Revolutionary War. The 69 smoothbore had a maximum effective range of about 100 yards, or less. With the adoption of the rifle, the effective range increased to 300 yards, or more. Up to 600 yards to hit either the man or the horse he was riding.
Hardee also modified the rate of troop advance in “Tactics.”
“Quick time” of 110 steps per minute was replaced with “double quick time” of 165 steps per munute. The length of the stride was also increased to 33 inches. This faster pace, coupled with a longer stride, helped soldiers to deploy quicker. A unit could move five miles in an hour marching “double quick time” or move 1,100 yards in seven minutes.
He had written the book upon the request of then U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. The working relationship fostered by writing the two-volume book, carried through to the Civil War, giving Hardee a powerful friend in Davis, who became president of the Confederacy.
In addition to his reputation as a commander, Hardee was labeled a “ladies’ man” by his followers.
He availed himself of the “privilege of his rank and years, and insisted upon kissing the wives and daughters of all the Kentucky farmers,” wrote Peter Cozzens in his “The Battle of Stones River: No Better Place to Die.”
Hardee stayed with Bragg’s command at Stones River and Tullahoma before transfering to Mississippi. His command only lasted a few months before he returned to the Army of Tennessee to replace Gen. Leonidas Polk, who had been fired by Bragg.
Hardee continued through Chattanooga and the long, costly Atlanta campaign. When Gen. John Bell Hood assumed command of the army, Hardee obtained a transfer to the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Hardee, with depleted forces, faced Union Gen. William T. Sherman in his March to the Sea campaign. Ultimately, he joined Confederate Gen. Joe Johnson in time to fight at Bentonville, N.C. It was Hardee’s last battle, and the last for his only son, who died there.
On April 26, 1865 Hardee surrendered his three divisions. After the war, he entered private life, working in warehousing, insurance and railroads and died 1873 in Alabama. |
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