[gusty]

In regards to lessons learned from the Napoleonic Wars, especially the Peninsular War in Spain, was in regards to the US armies conduct toward non-combatants. Winfield Scott believed strongly and enforced strictly good conduct toward Mexican civilians. Scott did not want an aroused population on his supply lines as he marched on Mexico City. He saw the French defeat in Spain stemming from atrocities committed by French forces. The French atrocities unleashed a savage guerrilla war against themselves. Scott avoided this in Mexico by learning this lesson. Winfield Scott was the headmaster to most of the important leaders on both sides of the Civil War. Tactically, Scott favored maneuver over frontal assault. Lee was especially influenced by Scott. The one general who had less regard for Scott, as per his memoirs, was Grant. His Overland Campaign was the harbinger of the what was in store for the world 50 years later.

[donmeaker]

Grant thought that Scott fought too many battles. Grant’s overland campaign (Wilderness to Petersburg) was intended to fight Lee outside his fortifications. In this he succeeded, though at high cost.

Under Grant, Emory Upton executed rapid assault tactics that broke Lee’s field lines at the Mule Shoe, though the lines were eventually reformed.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

There is a very(!) contentious argument to be made that Lee imagined that he could make Gettysburg a replay of Austerlitz. I’ll just leave it at that.

However, strategically, Napoleon’s tactic to engage the enemy on a wide front, with a rapid maneuver second echelon looking to penetrate the front at a weak point, showed its fatal flaw to the Americans because of the Civil War. Basically, if both sides do it, you end up with trench warfare.

Because of the Civil War, America learned this lesson, but Europe did not, which really mattered just slightly over 100 years later, when most of Europe learned the lesson, and 21 years after that, for the Russians, since they bowed out of WWI before learning their lesson.

And through the end of the Soviet Union, the Russians still hadn’t learned their lesson, using light and heavy helicopters in tactics similar to light and heavy cavalry, and even integrating nuclear weapons into Napoleonic tactics.

By World War II, the Americans had perfected the fire and maneuver technique that just shreds the Napoleonic tactic. Had Russia invaded western Europe, they would have put their military through a meat grinder.