How come soldiers in old wars like the American Civil War did “line” battles? Would it be better if that have taken cover?

Question

Title. I’m really confused about this thing. While I can see how it can improve accuracy and all that, isn’t it better to take cover?

In: Other

Answer 1

Well I think there is two parts to answer that question.

Before the 19th (around that), line battle was a better way to fight a battle. Musket were inaccurate, the battlefield was filled with smoked rather quickly, range was low, the fire rate wasn’t that high, and professional training wasn’t alway possible. All of this together meant that trying to at people was not that efficient. The goal was to maximize your firepower and for that a line was much better as more people could shoot at the same time. The Line wasn’t the only formation used, the column was used in movement or in the flank, and square were good against cavalry charge, but in general the line was the most useful formation to create the highest firepower. There was skirmisher who used cover and harass the ennemy line, but since they were spread out, they simply didn’t have the firepower to protect themselve against an infantry or cavalry charge. So they would retreat to get back with the line infantry when charged.

The second part of the answer is that all of this wasn’t true anymore by the time of the American civil war. Both firearms and artillery were faster and accurate. The lines formation were torned to pieces and bayonnet charges resulted in some of the most infamous battle of the time. Warfare had changed, but you always prepare for the last war. The officer had trained and learned about Napoleonic warfare for their entire life. Decades of tradition is hard to change. It’s easy for us to identify the problems with hindsight, but who at the time had enough confidence to go against the wisdom of the entire army and who was courageous enough to support such a change at the risk of their career. Large organization like armies often need a bloody nose before they realize how much warfare changed. And who can really blamed, line formation were part of war for centuries at that point. Maybe right now new weapons like drone is changing so much warfare that mordern armies are doing something very dumb, but nobody will know until the next large scale war and a lot of people will have to die. It’s just hard to get it right when you only theorize, the problem is that practical experimental of warfare is very costly.