How do you keep the caged tigerÂ’s claws sharp?

[Straight Arrow]

To massively over simplify - one can see a repeating pattern in military leadership though out history.

This is particularly apparent in both of the World Wars and in the early years of the American Civil War.

Peacetime emphases and requires a different set of leadership skills then war. During times of calm, generals are forced to spend much of their time and effort on civil-military relationships. Strategy and policy are dominated by civilians. Officers are pressured into doing things by “the book” and often find themselves preparing to re-fight the last war.

But, when bullets start to fly, this rarely works. Armies that have become too rigid in applying doctrine and have overly focused on yesterday’s tactics, find themselves wasting lives and tasting defeat.

Wartime require a different leadership style. Combat is applied violence, and aggressiveness can be very difficult to control outside of conflict. But when the dogs of war are unleashed, battle rewards thoughtful, aggressive leaders who have the ability to inspire and think outside the box.

Hence a dilemma and a major source of early failure in many military forces. How do you keep the caged tiger’s claws sharp?

[tripax]

I don't know. If you can't keep them sharp, there are still some things you can do. You can value skills like engineering and logistics that matter in peace and in war so that your force has advantages in those areas. You can also provide pathways for promotion outside of seniority so that during a conflict when individuals are identified as having particularly useful skills, those skills can be used to the maximum of their ability (keeping an eye on the Peter principle, I guess). The civil war gives good examples of success and failure on both counts.

[kc87]

The peacetime US Army before the Civil War was very competitive and it was extremely difficult to get promoted. Robert E Lee continued to wear his old US Army Colonel rank in the Confederate Army even after obtaining a much higher rank. This insignia was proof of the dedication and hard-work it took to achieve that rank in the pre-civil war Army as a lifetime soldier. Comparatively McDowell, Grant, McClellan, Hooker, Burnside and Meade never held ranks higher than Captain pre-war.

Local militias were formed in almost every county in the south during the tense period prior to hostilities. These drills and formations were widely publicized in southern newspapers and encouraged the local citizenry to take part and join. These militias would go on to fill companies and regiments of many brigades later organized into the newly formed Confederate Armies.

Making the most out of allocating resources and leadership is how you keep those claws sharp. The Confederacy reformed the rank and promotion system from the old US Army system into what is basically the modern and much more efficient chain of command system we use today. The Confederacy had some great high ranking officers and avoided much of the problems the pre-war Army structure brought upon the Federal Army. In the Federal Army it was not uncommon for a Brigade commander and a Division commander to both hold the same rank of Brigadier General which caused much drama and insubordination. General Grant was the only US officer to ever be promoted to Lieutenant General during the Civil War compared to 18 Lieutenant Generals in the Confederate Army. However by 1863 six thousand Confederate field officers in the Army of Northern Virginia had been killed or wounded, many wounded multiple times, leaving irreplaceable voids in the chain of command which demanded so much from so relatively few.

As the war dragged on it became increasingly harder to find qualified men to fill vacant officer positions. The dwindling number of professional officers needed to maintain discipline prevented Lee from being able to implement the changes he wanted to make supply consumption more organized and efficient. This led to a shortage of available horses for service due to the lack of food which ultimately resulted in the downsizing of the field artillery and many perfectly good guns had to be left behind as early as 1862 on top of the many other difficult supply and logistic problems that plagued the Confederacy. Implementing innovative ideas in a military culture that had been basically set in stone during an ongoing war proved to be mostly an impossible task for many commanders at the time and even for General Lee.

[tripax]

... Local militias were formed in almost every county in the south during the tense period prior to hostilities. These drills and formations were widely publicized in southern newspapers and encouraged the local citizenry to take part and join. These militias would go on to fill companies and regiments of many brigades later organized into the newly formed Confederate Armies. ...

Speaking of this, did semi-militant northern groups (sometimes called marching clubs) like the "wide-awakes" and "Douglas Guards" frequently turn into civil war companies? I know that various companies kept nicknames related to these, were they built out of the same people, or was it an homage of sorts?

[kc87]

Speaking of this, did semi-militant northern groups (sometimes called marching clubs) like the "wide-awakes" and "Douglas Guards" frequently turn into civil war companies? I know that various companies kept nicknames related to these, were they built out of the same people, or was it an homage of sorts?

I haven't delved into this too far but it appears the wide-awakes were mustered into Federal service after their dirty deed in St Louis, whether they were mustered exclusively or not i'm not sure, but my guess is no. The Southern response to these militant northern groups were sometimes referred to as minutemen, and at least one company of infantry serving in the Stonewall Brigade continued to use their militia title of minutemen for their company name.

The idea was to get all these militia mustered into service which went alot smoother for the South than it did for the North. This was usually done on a regimental level from town companies and county regiments so it wasn't exclusively just militiamen but included many in the first call to arms especially when it was first come first serve and many were turned away after quotas were met. After experiencing the battle of Bull Run and the dreadful living conditions surrounding Washington D.C first-hand, many militiamen in the North were reluctant to enlist outright into Federal service.