title: Battle of Crete

text: The invasion force was divided into "Kampfgruppen" (battlegroups), Centre, West and East, each with a code name following the classical theme established by Mercury; 750 glider-borne troops, 10,000 paratroops, 5,000 airlifted mountain soldiers and 7,000 seaborne troops were allocated to the invasion. The largest proportion of the forces were in Group West. German airborne theory was based on parachuting a small force onto enemy airfields. The force would capture the perimeter and local anti-aircraft guns, allowing a much larger force to land by glider. Freyberg knew this after studying earlier German operations and decided to make the airfields unusable for landing, but was countermanded by the Middle East Command in Alexandria. The staff felt the invasion was doomed now that it had been compromised and may have wanted the airfields intact for the RAF once the invasion was defeated. The Germans were able to land reinforcements without fully operational airfields. One transport pilot crash-landed on a beach, others landed in fields, discharged their cargo and took off again. With the Germans willing to sacrifice some transport aircraft to win the battle, it is not clear whether a decision to destroy the airfields would have made any difference, particularly given the number of troops delivered by expendable gliders.


title: Battle of Crete

text: At 08:00 on 20 May 1941, German paratroopers, jumping out of dozens of Junkers Ju 52 aircraft, landed near Maleme Airfield and the town of Chania. The 21st, 22nd and 23rd New Zealand battalions held Maleme Airfield and the vicinity. The Germans suffered many casualties in the first hours of the invasion: a company of III Battalion, 1st Assault Regiment lost 112 killed out of 126 men, and 400 of 600 men in III Battalion were killed on the first day. Most of the parachutists were engaged by New Zealanders defending the airfield and by Greek forces near Chania. Many gliders following the paratroops were hit by mortar fire seconds after landing, and the New Zealand and Greek defenders almost annihilated the glider troops who landed safely.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Some paratroopers and gliders missed their objectives near both airfields and set up defensive positions to the west of Maleme Airfield and in "Prison Valley" near Chania. Both forces were contained and failed to take the airfields, but the defenders had to deploy to face them. Towards the evening of 20 May, the Germans slowly pushed the New Zealanders back from Hill 107, which overlooked the airfield. Greek police and cadets took part, with the 1st Greek Regiment (Provisional) combining with armed civilians to rout a detachment of German paratroopers dropped at Kastelli. The 8th Greek Regiment and elements of the Cretan forces severely hampered movement by the 95th Reconnaissance Battalion on Kolimbari and Paleochora, where Allied reinforcements from North Africa could be landed.


title: Battle of Crete

text: A second wave of German transports supported by Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica attack aircraft, arrived in the afternoon, dropping more paratroopers and gliders containing assault troops. One group attacked at Rethymno at 16:15 and another attacked at Heraklion at 17:30, where the defenders were waiting for them and inflicted many casualties.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Rethymno–Heraklion sector was defended by the British 14th Brigade, as well as the 2/4th Australian Infantry Battalion and the Greek 3rd, 7th and "Garrison" (ex-5th Crete Division) battalions. The Greeks lacked equipment and supplies, particularly the Garrison Battalion. The Germans pierced the defensive cordon around Heraklion on the first day, seizing the Greek barracks on the west edge of the town and capturing the docks; the Greeks counter-attacked and recaptured both points. The Germans dropped leaflets threatening dire consequences if the Allies did not surrender immediately. The next day, Heraklion was heavily bombed and the depleted Greek units were relieved and assumed a defensive position on the road to Knossos.


title: Battle of Crete

text: As night fell, none of the German objectives had been secured. Of 493 German transport aircraft used during the airdrop, seven were lost to anti-aircraft fire. The bold plan to attack in four places to maximise surprise, rather than concentrating on one, seemed to have failed, although the reasons were unknown to the Germans at the time. (Among the paratroopers who landed on the first day was former world heavyweight champion boxer Max Schmeling, who held the rank of "Gefreiter" at the time. Schmeling survived the battle and the war.)


title: Battle of Crete

text: Overnight, the 22nd New Zealand Infantry Battalion withdrew from Hill 107, leaving Maleme Airfield undefended. During the previous day, the Germans had cut communications between the two westernmost companies of the battalion and the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Andrew VC, who was on the eastern side of the airfield. The lack of communication was assumed to mean that the battalion had been overrun in the west. With the weakened state of the eastern elements of the battalion and believing the western elements to have been overrun, Andrew requested reinforcement by the 23rd Battalion. Brigadier James Hargest denied the request on the mistaken grounds that the 23rd Battalion was busy repulsing parachutists in its sector. After a failed counter-attack late in the day on 20 May, with the eastern elements of his battalion, Andrew withdrew under cover of darkness to regroup, with the consent of Hargest. Captain Campbell, commanding the westernmost company of the 22nd Battalion, out of contact with Andrew, did not learn of the withdrawal of the 22nd Battalion until early in the morning, at which point he also withdrew from the west of the airfield. This misunderstanding, representative of the failings of communication and co-ordination in the defence of Crete, cost the Allies the airfield and allowed the Germans to reinforce their invasion force unopposed. In Athens, Student decided to concentrate on Maleme on 21 May, as this was the area where the most progress had been made and because an early morning reconnaissance flight over Maleme Airfield was unopposed. The Germans quickly exploited the withdrawal from Hill 107 to take control of Maleme Airfield, just as a sea landing took place nearby. The Allies continued to bombard the area as flew in units of the 5th Mountain Division at night.


title: Battle of Crete

text: In the afternoon of 21 May 1941, Freyberg ordered a counter-attack to retake Maleme Airfield during the night of 21/22 May. The 2/7th Battalion was to move north to relieve the 20th Battalion, which would participate in the attack. The 2/7th Battalion had no transport, and vehicles for the battalion were delayed by German aircraft. By the time the battalion moved north to relieve 20th Battalion for the counter-attack, it was 23:30, and the 20th Battalion took three hours to reach the staging area, with its first elements arriving around 02:45. The counter-attack began at 03:30 but failed because of German daylight air support. (Brigadier George Alan Vasey and Lieutenant-Colonel William Cremor have criticised Freyberg for not properly defending Maleme Airfield.) Hargest also blamed Freyberg for the loss of the airfield.


title: Battle of Crete

text: An Axis convoy of around 20 "caïques", escorted by the Italian torpedo boat "Lupo", tried to land German reinforcements near Maleme. Force D under Rear-Admiral Irvine Glennie, with three light cruisers and four destroyers, intercepted the convoy before midnight; the convoy turned back with the loss of more than half of its boats, despite "Lupo"'s defence. The attacking British force suffered only slight damage on cruiser HMS "Orion" caused by friendly fire. About of the German force of more than 2,000 men was saved by the Italian naval commander, Francesco Mimbelli, against an overwhelmingly superior Allied naval force. A total of 297 German soldiers, two Italian seamen and two British sailors on "Orion" were killed. Eight "caiques" were caught and sunk, while at least other six managed to get away, along with three Italian escorting motor-sailing boats. Only one "caïque" and one cutter from the convoy reached Crete. The "caïque" landed 3 officers and 110 German soldiers near Cape Spatha, while the cutter arrived safely in Akrotiri, where her crew was engaged by a British Army patrol and took heavy casualties. Of the German soldiers who landed at Akrotiri, only one managed to get through the British lines and join the German paratroopers already fighting for Chania. According to other authors, only one German officer and 35 men from the 100th Regiment landed from the "caïque" that arrived in Crete.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The defending force organised for a night counter-attack on Maleme by two New Zealand battalions, the 20th Battalion of the 4th Brigade and the 28th Maori Battalion of the 5th Brigade. A New Zealand officer present at the battle claimed a long delay ordering the planned counter-attack turned a night attack into a day attack, which led to its failure. Fears of a sea landing meant that a number of units that could have taken part in the attack were left in place, although this possibility was removed by the Royal Navy which arrived too late for the plans to be changed. The delayed counter-attack on the airfield came in daylight on 22 May, when the troops faced "Stuka" dive bombers, dug-in paratroops and mountain troops. The attack slowly petered out and failed to retake the airfield, which forced the defenders into withdrawals to the eastern end of the island, to avoid being out-flanked.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Admiral Andrew Cunningham sent Force C (three cruisers and four destroyers, commanded by Rear Admiral Edward Leigh Stuart King) into the Aegean Sea through the Kasos Strait, to attack a second flotilla of transports, escorted by the Italian torpedo boat . The force sank an isolated "caïque" at 08:30, saving itself from an air attack that struck the cruiser HMS "Naiad" as the German pilots tried to avoid killing their troops in the water. The British squadron was under constant air attack and, short of anti-aircraft ammunition, steamed on toward Milos, sighting "Sagittario" at 10:00. King made the "difficult" decision not to press the attack, despite his overpowering advantage, because of the shortage of ammunition and the severity of the air attacks. The transports were defended by a torpedo charge by "Sagittario", which also laid a smoke screen and traded fire with the British force, trying to lure them to a different direction. Indeed, King was unaware that a major enemy convoy was ahead of his force until 11:00. Eventually, the convoy and its escort managed to slip away undamaged. King's ships, despite their failure to destroy the German troop transports, had succeeded in forcing the Axis to abort the landing by their mere presence at sea. During the search and withdrawal from the area, Force C suffered many losses to German bombers. "Naiad" was damaged by near misses and the cruiser was hit. Cunningham later criticised King, saying that the safest place during the air attack was amongst the flotilla of "caïque"s.


title: Battle of Crete

text: While Force C made its attack on the convoy, Force A1 (Rear Admiral H B Rawlings), Force B (Captain Henry A Rowley) and Glennie's Force D converged west of Antikythera. Concerned about the level of anti-aircraft ammunition available following repeated air attacks, the combined force was ordered to report on their stock of high-angle ammunition at 09:31. Of the cruisers, had 40%, 38%, 30%, 25% and only 18%. "Ajax", "Orion" and "Dido" were ordered to return to Alexandria with Glennie's Force D to rearm but "Gloucester" and "Fiji" remained with Rawlings' Force A1.


title: Battle of Crete

text: At 12:25 Force A1, stationed 20 to 30 miles west of Antikythera, received a request from King to support the damaged "Naiad." Force A1 headed east into the Kythera Channel, rendezvousing with Force C between 13:30 and 14:00. As the more senior admiral, King took command, with air attacks now inflicting damage on both forces. A bomb struck HMS "Warspite" and the destroyer HMS "Greyhound" was sunk. King sent HMS "Kandahar" and HMS "Kingston to pick up survivors, while the cruisers "Fiji" and "Gloucester" were ordered respectively at 14:02 and 14:07 to provide anti-aircraft support. Writing in despatches after the battle, Cunningham stated that King was unaware of the shortage of anti-aircraft ammunition in "Gloucester" and "Fiji". At 14:13 King and Rawlings exchanged messages about the shortage of ammunition within both Force C and Force A1, with Rawlings expressing concern about the orders given to "Gloucester" and "Fiji". Following this communication, King issued an order to recall both "Gloucester" and "Fiji" at 14:57.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Between 15:30 and 15:50, while attempting to rejoin Force A1, "Gloucester" was hit by several bombs and had to be left behind due to the air attacks; the ship was sunk and 22 officers and 700 ratings were killed. The air attacks on Force A1 and Force C continued; two bombs hit the battleship HMS "Valiant" and another hit "Fiji" disabling her at 18:45. A Junkers Ju 88 flown by Lieutenant Gerhard Brenner dropped three bombs on "Fiji", sinking her at 20:15. Five hundred survivors were rescued by "Kandahar" and "Kingston" that night. The Royal Navy had lost two cruisers and a destroyer but had managed to force the invasion fleet to turn round. Royal Navy AA gunners shot down five Junkers Ju 87s and five Ju 88s and damaged sixteen more, some of which crash-landed upon their return to base on the night of 21/22 May.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Fighting against fresh German troops, the Allies retreated southward; the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, consisting of HMS "Kelly", "HMS "Kipling", "HMS "Kelvin", "HMS "Jackal" and "HMS "Kashmir", (Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten), was ordered to leave Malta on 21 May, to join the fleet off Crete and arrived after "Gloucester" and "Fiji" were sunk. They were sent to pick up survivors and then diverted to attack a German convoy of about fifty ships and "caïque"s off Cape Spatha on Rodopou peninsula, western Crete on the night of 22/23 May and then shell the Germans at Maleme. "Kelvin" and "Jackal" were diverted to another search while Mountbatten, with "Kelly", "Kashmir" and "Kipling" were to go to Alexandria.


title: Battle of Crete

text: While the three ships were rounding the western side of Crete, they were attacked by 24 Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers. "Kashmir" was hit and sank in two minutes, "Kelly" was hit and turned turtle soon after and later sank. "Kelly" shot down a "Stuka" immediately and another was badly damaged and crashed upon returning to base. "Kipling" survived 83 bombs, while 279 survivors were rescued from the ships. (The Noël Coward film "In Which We Serve" was based on this action.) The Royal Navy had suffered so many losses from air attacks that on 23 May, Admiral Cunningham signalled his superiors that daylight operations could no longer continue but the Chiefs of Staff demurred. German search-and-rescue aircraft and Italian motor torpedo boats, spotted and rescued the 262 survivors from the German light convoy sunk off Cape Spatha.


title: Battle of Crete

text: After air attacks on Allied positions in Kastelli on 24 May, the 95th "Gebirgs" Pioneer Battalion advanced on the town. These air attacks enabled the escape of German paratroopers captured on 20 May; the escapees killed or captured several New Zealand officers assigned to lead the 1st Greek Regiment. The Greeks put up determined resistance, but with only 600 rifles and a few thousand rounds of ammunition available for 1,000 ill-trained men, they were unable to repel the German advance. Fighting with the remnants of the 1st Greek Regiment continued in the Kastelli area until 26 May, hampering German efforts to land reinforcements.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Despite the dangers posed by British naval forces, the "Kriegsmarine" made another attempt to supply the invasion by sea. On 24 May, "Oberleutnant-zur-See" Österlin, who had led the Maleme Flotilla, was given the task of transporting two "Panzer II" light tanks to Kastelli Kisamou. Österlin commandeered a small wooden lighter at Piraeus and arranged for the tanks to be lowered onto it. At dusk the next day, the lighter, towed by the small harbour tug "Kentauros", left Piraeus and headed south towards Crete. Reports of British naval units operating nearby convinced Admiral Schuster to delay the operation and he ordered Österlin to make for a small harbour on the German-occupied island of Kithira. At a meeting in Athens on 27 May, "Luftwaffe" Generals Richthofen, Jeschonnek, and Löhr pressed Schuster to get the tanks delivered somehow before "... the Englander claws himself erect again". One of Richthofen's liaison officers had returned from the island on 26 May; the paratroopers were in poor condition, lacking in discipline, and "at loose ends". He stressed the "absolute and immediate need" for "reinforcement by sea shipment of heavy weaponry if the operation is to get ahead at all."


title: Battle of Crete

text: Schuster issued Österlin new orders to sail for the Gulf of Kissamos, where a landing beach had already been selected and marked out. Upon nearing the shore on 28 May, the lighter was positioned ahead of the tug and firmly beached. A party of engineers then blew the lighter's bow off using demolition charges and the two tanks rolled ashore. They were soon assigned to "Advance Detachment Wittman", which had assembled near Prison Valley reservoir the day before. This ad hoc group was composed of a motorcycle battalion, the Reconnaissance Battalion, an anti-tank unit, a motorised artillery troop, and some engineers. General Ringel gave orders for Wittmann to "strike out from Platanos at 03:00 on 28 May in pursuit of the British 'main' via the coastal highway to Rethymno" and thence towards Heraklion. Although they did not play a decisive role, the panzers were useful in helping round up British troops in the Kissamos area, before speeding eastward in support of the German pursuit column.


title: Battle of Crete

text: On the night of 26/27 May, a detachment of some 800 men from No. 7 and No. 50/52 Commandos, as part of Layforce, landed at Souda Bay (Colonel Robert Laycock). Laycock had tried to land the force on 25 May, but had turned back due to bad weather. Although armed mainly with only rifles and a small number of machine guns, they were to carry out rearguard actions in order to buy the garrison enough time to carry out an evacuation.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Troops of the German 141st Mountain Regiment blocked a section of the road between Souda and Chania. On the morning of 27 May, the New Zealand 28th (Māori) Battalion, the Australian 2/7th Battalion and the Australian 2/8th Battalion cleared the road by a bayonet charge (the "Battle of 42nd Street"). Command in London decided the cause was hopeless after General Wavell informed the Prime Minister at 0842, 27 May, that the battle was lost, and ordered an evacuation. Freyberg concurrently ordered his troops to withdraw to the south coast to be evacuated.


title: Battle of Crete

text: On 26 May, in the face of the stalled German advance, senior Wehrmacht officers requested Mussolini to send Italian Army units to Crete in order to help the German forces fighting there. On the afternoon of 27 May, an Italian convoy departed from Rhodes with the intention of landing a brigade from the 50th Infantry Division Regina, supported by 13 L3/35 light tanks. Italian participation in the battle of Crete was limited and finally on 28 May when the campaign was already decided in favour to the Germans and Allied evacuation had begun, an Italian landing force approached the west coast of the island off Siteia.


title: Battle of Crete

text: At 13:30 on 28 May, the Italians believed that three cruisers and six destroyers of the Royal Navy were steaming up towards the northern coast of Crete in support of Allied troops, but the Royal Navy was fully occupied evacuating the Crete garrison. The Italians assumed that the Royal Navy force would be off Sitia, the planned landing site, by 17:00 and the commander decided that the slowest ship of the convoy would be taken in tow by "Lince" to increase speed and "Crispi" was detached to shell the lighthouse at Cape Sideros. The 3,000 men of the division and their equipment were on shore by 17:20 and advanced west mostly unopposed, rendezvousing with the Germans at Ierapetra. The Italian troops later moved their headquarters from Sitia to Agios Nikolaos.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Germans pushed the British, Commonwealth and Greek forces steadily southward, using aerial and artillery bombardment, followed by waves of motorcycle and mountain troops (the rocky terrain making it difficult to employ tanks). The garrisons at Souda and Beritania gradually fell back along the road to Vitsilokoumos, north of Sfakia. About halfway there, near the village of Askyfou lay a large crater nicknamed "The Saucer", the only place wide and flat enough for a large parachute drop. Troops were stationed about its perimeter, to prevent a landing that might block the retreat.


title: Battle of Crete

text: On the evening of the 27th, a small detachment of German troops penetrated Allied lines near Imbros Gorge threatening a column of retreating unarmed Allied forces. The attack was held off by four men, the only ones with weapons. Led by Cpl Douglas Bignal, the men sacrificed themselves, securing the withdrawal of the remainder. Amongst this group was New Zealander Pte Willy Falconer of the Maori battalion, a hero of 42nd Street and Galatas. Also killed were LCpl Philip Stamp and Pte Andrew Payton.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Near Souda, the 5th New Zealand Brigade and the 2/7th Australian Battalion, held off the 141st Mountain Regiment, which had begun a flanking manoeuvre, and on 28 May, at the village of Stylos, the 5th New Zealand Brigade fought a rearguard action. The "Luftwaffe" was over Rethymno and Heraklion and they were able to retreat down the road.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The retreat of the brigade was covered by two companies of the Māori Battalion under Captain Rangi Royal, who overran the I Battalion, 141st "Gebirgsjäger" Regiment and halted the German advance. When the main unit was safely to the rear, the Māori retreated , losing only two killed and eight wounded, all of whom were recovered. Layforce was the only big unit in this area to be cut off. Layforce had been sent to Crete by way of Sfakia when it was still hoped that reinforcements could be brought from Egypt to turn the tide of the battle. The battalion-sized force was split up, with a 200-man detachment under Laycock at Souda to cover the retreat of the heavier units. Layforce and three British tanks were joined by the men of the 20th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, who had been assigned to guard Souda docks and refused to believe that an evacuation had been ordered. After a day of battle, Laycock ordered a night retreat to Beritiana, where he was joined by Royal and the Māori, who managed to fight their way out, but Layforce was cut off near the village of Babali Khani (Agioi Pandes). Laycock and his Intelligence Officer, Evelyn Waugh, were able to escape in a tank. Most of the other men of the detachment and the 20th HAA Battery were killed or captured. (By the end of the operation about 600 of the 800 commandos sent to Crete were listed as killed, wounded or missing; only 179 men got off the island.)


title: Battle of Crete

text: From 28 May – 1 June, troops were embarked for Egypt, most being lifted from Sfakia on the south coast, where about 6,000 troops were rescued on the night of 29/30 May but the force was attacked by "Luftwaffe" dive bombers on the voyage back and suffered many losses. About 4,000 men were withdrawn from Heraklion on the night of 28/29 May, on the next night 1,500 soldiers were taken away by four destroyers and during the night of 31 May /1 June another 4,000 men were lifted. About 18,600 men of the 32,000 British troops on the island were evacuated; 12,000 British and Dominion troops and thousands of Greeks were still on Crete when the island came under German control on 1 June.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Colonel Campbell, the commander at Rethymno, was forced to surrender his contingent. Rethymno fell and on the night of 30 May, German motorcycle troops linked up with the Italian troops who had landed on Sitia. On 1 June, the remaining 5,000 defenders at Sfakia surrendered. By the end of December, about 500 Commonwealth troops remained at large on the island. While scattered and disorganised, these men and the partisans harassed German troops for long after the withdrawal.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Cretan civilians joined the battle with whatever weapons were at hand. Most civilians went into action armed only with what they could gather from their kitchens or barns and several German parachutists were knifed or clubbed to death in olive groves. In one recorded incident, an elderly Cretan man clubbed a parachutist to death with his walking cane, before the German could disentangle himself from his parachute. In another recorded incident, a local priest and his teenage son broke into a small village museum and took two rifles from the era of the Balkan Wars and sniped at German paratroops at landing zones. The Cretans also used captured German small arms. The Crete civilian actions against the Germans were not limited to harassment; mobs of armed civilians joined in the Greek counter-attacks at Kastelli Hill and Paleochora; the British and New Zealand advisers at these locations were hard pressed to prevent massacres. Civilians also checked the Germans to the north and west of Heraklion and in the town centre.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Battle of Crete was not the first occasion during the Second World War where the German troops encountered widespread resistance from a civilian population, as similar events took place during the invasion of Poland (Kłecko), nevertheless it initially surprised and later outraged them. As most Cretan partisans wore no uniforms or insignia such as armbands or headbands, the Germans felt free of all of the constraints of the Hague Conventions and killed armed and unarmed civilians indiscriminately. Immediately after Crete fell, a series of collective punishments against civilians began. Between 2 June and 1 August, 195 persons from the village of Alikianos and its vicinity were killed in mass shootings known as the Alikianos executions. On 2 June, several male citizens from Kondomari were executed by a firing squad, with the shootings being captured on film by a German army war correspondent. On 3 June, the village of Kandanos was razed to the ground and about 180 of its inhabitants killed. After the war, Student, who ordered the shootings, avoided prosecution for war crimes, despite Greek efforts to have him extradited.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The first resistance movement in Crete was established just two weeks after its capture. Throughout the German occupation in the years that followed, reprisals in retaliation for the involvement of the local population in the Cretan resistance continued. On several occasions, villagers were rounded up and summarily executed. In one of the worst incidents, around 20 villages east of Viannos and west of the Ierapetra provinces were looted and burnt in September 1943, with more than 500 of their inhabitants being massacred. These massacres were among the deadliest during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. In August 1944, more than 940 houses in Anogeia were looted and then dynamited. During the same month, nine villages in the Amari Valley were destroyed and 165 people killed in what is now known as the Holocaust of Kedros. All these reprisals were ordered by "Generalleutnant" Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, who was nicknamed "The Butcher of Crete". After the war, Müller was tried by a Greek military court and executed.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Assaults on civilians with lower death tolls occurred in places like Vorizia, Kali Sykia, Kallikratis, Skourvoula, and Malathyros.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The German Air Ministry was shocked by the number of transport aircraft lost in the battle, and Student, reflecting on the casualties suffered by the paratroopers, concluded after the war that Crete was the death of the airborne force. Hitler, believing airborne forces to be a weapon of surprise which had now lost that advantage, concluded that the days of the airborne corps were over and directed that paratroopers should be employed as ground-based troops in subsequent operations in the Soviet Union.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The battle for Crete delayed Operation Barbarossa but not directly. The start date for "Barbarossa" (22 June 1941) had been set several weeks before the Crete operation was considered and the directive by Hitler for Operation Mercury made it plain that preparations for "Merkur" must not interfere with "Barbarossa". However, units assigned to "Merkur" were intended for "Barbarossa" and were forced to redeploy to Poland and Romania by the end of May. Movement of surviving units from Greece was not delayed. The transfer of "Fliegerkorps" VIII north, ready for "Barbarossa", eased the Royal Navy evacuation of the defenders. The delay of Operation Barbarossa was exacerbated also by the late spring and floods in Poland.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Air operation impact of the Battle of Crete to Operation Barbarossa was direct. The considerable losses of the Luftwaffe during the operation Mercury, specifically regarding troop carrier planes, affected the capacity of air power operations at the start of the Russian campaign. Additionally, with German parachute troops being decimated in Crete, there was an insufficient number of men that were qualified to carry out the huge-scale airborne operations that were necessary at the beginning of the invasion. Furthermore, the delay of the whole Balkan campaign, including the Battle of Crete, did not allow for exploiting the strategic advantages that German forces had gained in the Eastern Mediterranean. With the VIII Air Corps ordered to Germany for refitting before Crete was secured, significant command and communication issues hampered redeployment of the whole formation as the ground personnel was directly redeployed to their new bases in Poland.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The sinking of the German battleship "Bismarck" on 27 May distracted British public opinion but the loss of Crete, particularly as a result of the failure of the Allied land forces to recognise the strategic importance of the airfields, led the British government to make changes. Only six days before the initial assault, the Vice Chief of Air Staff presciently wrote: "If the Army attach any importance to air superiority at the time of an invasion then they must take steps to protect our aerodromes with something more than men in their first or second childhood". Shocked and disappointed with the Army's inexplicable failure to recognise the importance of airfields in modern warfare, Churchill made the RAF responsible for the defence of its bases and the RAF Regiment was formed on 1 February 1942. Allied commanders at first worried the Germans might use Crete as a springboard for further operations in the Mediterranean East Basin, possibly for an airborne attack on Cyprus or a seaborne invasion of Egypt, in support of Axis forces operating from Libya. Operation Barbarossa made it apparent that the occupation of Crete was a defensive measure to secure the Axis southern flank.


title: Battle of Crete

text: For a fortnight, Enigma intercepts described the arrival of "Fliegerkorps XI" around Athens, the collection of 27,000 registered tons of shipping and the effect of air attacks on Crete, which began on 14 May 1941. A postponement of the invasion was revealed on 15 May, and on 19 May, the probable date was given as the next day. The German objectives in Crete were similar to the areas already being prepared by the British, but foreknowledge increased the confidence of the local commanders in their dispositions. On 14 May, London warned that the attack could come any time after 17 May, which information Freyberg passed on to the garrison. On 16 May the British authorities expected an attack by 25,000 to 30,000 airborne troops in and by 10,000 troops transported by sea. (The real figures were 15,750 airborne troops in and sea; late decrypts reduced uncertainty over the seaborne invasion.) The British mistakes were smaller than those of the Germans, who estimated the garrison to be only a third of the true figure. (The after-action report of "Fliegerkorps XI" contained a passage recounting that the operational area had been so well prepared that it gave the impression that the garrison had known the time of the invasion.)


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Germans captured a message from London marked "Personal for General Freyberg" which was translated into German and sent to Berlin. Dated 24 May and headed "According to most reliable source" it said where German troops were on the previous day (which could have been from reconnaissance) but also specified that the Germans were next going to "attack Suda Bay". This could have indicated that Enigma messages were compromised.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Antony Beevor in 1991 and P. D. Antill in 2005 wrote that Allied commanders knew of the invasion through Ultra intercepts. Freyberg, informed of the air component of the German battle plan, had started to prepare a defence near the airfields and along the north coast. He had been hampered by a lack of modern equipment, and the lightly armed paratroopers had about the same firepower as the defenders, if not more. Ultra intelligence was detailed but was taken out of context and misinterpreted.


title: Battle of Crete

text: While emphasis was placed on the airborne assault, the German messages also mentioned seaborne operations; Freyberg, expecting an amphibious landing, garrisoned the coast – which reduced the number of men available to defend the airfield at Maleme, the principal German objective. In 1993, F. H. Hinsley, the official historian of British intelligence during the war, wrote that the Germans had more casualties in the conquest of Crete than in the rest of the Greek campaign and that the losses inflicted on the 7th "Fliegerdivision" were huge. It was the only unit of its kind and was not rebuilt.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Hinsley wrote that it was difficult to measure the influence of intelligence gained during the battle, because although Ultra revealed German situation reports, reinforcement details and unit identifications and although more intelligence was gleaned from prisoners and captured documents, it was not known how swiftly the information reached Freyberg or how he used it. The German parachute warfare manual had been captured in 1940, and after the war, Student said that he would have changed tactics had he known this. Field-signals intelligence was obtained, including bombing instructions and information from the "Fliegerkorps" XI tactical code. Lack of air cover prevented much British air reconnaissance north of Crete, but on 21 May signals intelligence enabled an aircraft to spot a convoy. After midnight the navy sank twelve ships and the rest scattered, which led to a second invasion convoy being called back. The second convoy was intercepted during the morning of 22 May, despite the cost to the navy of a daylight operation, and no more seaborne attempts were made.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Official German casualty figures are contradictory due to minor variations in documents produced by German commands on various dates. Davin estimated 6,698 losses, based upon an examination of various sources. Davin wrote that his estimate might exclude lightly wounded soldiers.


title: Battle of Crete

text: In 1956, Playfair and the other British official historians, gave figures of 1,990 Germans killed, 2,131 wounded, 1,995 missing, a total of 6,116 men "compiled from what appear to be the most reliable German records".


title: Battle of Crete

text: Exaggerated reports of German casualties began to appear after the battle had ended. In New Zealand, "The Press" on 12 June 1941 reported that


title: Battle of Crete

text: Churchill claimed that the Germans must have suffered well over 15,000 casualties. Buckley, based on British intelligence assumptions of two enemies wounded for every one killed, gave an estimate of 16,800 casualties. The United States Army Center of Military History, citing a report of the Historical Branch of the British Cabinet Office, concluded that military historians accept estimates from 6,000 to 7,000 German casualties. The Australian Graves Commission counted about 4,000 German graves in the Maleme–Souda Bay area, and about 1,000 more at Rethymno and Heraklion, that would have included deaths during the German occupation due to sickness, accidents, or fighting with partisan forces.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The official historians recorded 147 "Luftwaffe" aircraft destroyed and 64 damaged beyond repair by enemy action, with 73 destroyed due to extensive non-combat damage, for a total of 284 aircraft. Another 84 planes had repairable non-combat damage. In 1987, Shores, Cull, and Malizia recorded losses of 220 aircraft destroyed and 64 written off due to damage, a total of 284 aircraft between 13 May and 1 June: 147 in combat, 73 non-combat, 64 written-off, and 125 damaged but repairable. A total of 311 Luftwaffe aircrew were listed as killed or missing and 127 were wounded. In a 1948 RAF staff publication, "Luftwaffe" losses were given as about 4,500 parachute and glider troop casualties and about 170 Ju 52s lost or severely damaged; losses in fighter and bomber units were small due to the lack of air opposition.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The British lost 1,742 killed, 1,737 wounded, and 11,835 taken prisoner from a garrison of slightly more than 32,000 men; and there were 1,828 dead and 183 wounded Royal Navy personnel. Of a force of more than 10,000 men, 5,255 Greek troops were captured. After the war, the Allied graves from the four burial grounds that had been established by the Germans were moved to Souda Bay War Cemetery. A large number of civilians were killed in the crossfire or died fighting as partisans. Many Cretan civilians were shot by the Germans in reprisal during the battle and in the occupation. One Cretan source puts the number of Cretans killed by Germans at 6,593 men, 1,113 women, and 869 children. German records put the number of Cretans executed by firing squad as 3,474 and at least 1,000 civilians were killed in massacres late in 1944.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The "Luftwaffe" sank the cruisers , , and and the destroyers "Kelly", "Greyhound" and "Kashmir" from 22 May – 1 June. Italian bombers from 41° Gruppo sank the destroyer on 21 May and on 28 May damaged another destroyer, (), beyond repair. The British also lost the destroyer on 29 May, when she was attacked by German Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive-bombers.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Damage to the aircraft carrier , the battleships and , the cruisers , , , and , the submarine , the destroyers and , kept them out of action for months. At anchor in Souda Bay, northern Crete, the heavy cruiser was disabled by Italian explosive motor boats and beached on 26 March; and was later wrecked by demolition charges when Crete was evacuated in May. By 1 June, the eastern Mediterranean strength of the Royal Navy had been reduced to two battleships and three cruisers, against four battleships and eleven cruisers of the Italian Navy. For the British, the Battle of Crete was the costliest naval engagement of the entire war.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Royal Navy shipborne anti-aircraft gun claims for the period of 15–27 May amounted to: ""Twenty enemy aircraft ... shot down for certain, with 11 probables. At least 15 aircraft appeared to have been damaged ...""; from 28 May – 1 June, another two aircraft were claimed shot down and six more damaged, for a total of 22 claimed destroyed, 11 probably destroyed and 21 damaged.


title: Wellington Paranormal

text: Wellington Paranormal is a New Zealand mockumentary comedy horror television series which first aired on 11 July 2018 on TVNZ 2. The series is a spin-off of the 2014 film "What We Do in the Shadows" and first television series in the franchise, and its lead characters—Officers Minogue and O'Leary—first appeared in the film as a pair of incurious police officers.


title: Wellington Paranormal

text: The series was created by Jemaine Clement and Paul Yates based on characters from "What We Do in the Shadows" by Clement and Taika Waititi. Waititi and Clement serve as the series' executive producers, while Clement directs four of the six episodes in Season 1. The series was confirmed for a second season of 13 episodes, which aired 6 episodes beginning on 16 October 2019.


title: Wellington Paranormal

text: A Christmas special aired on 19 December 2019, with the remaining six episodes airing as a new season. Between the special and third series, a sixteen-episode digital web series and public service campaign by New Zealand Police to inform the public on health, safety, and best practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, titled "Important COVID-19 Messages from Wellington Paranormal", began airing from 26 March 2020, featuring Andrew Coster and Clarke Gayford as themselves. The lead characters also appeared as part of a 2018 New Zealand Police Recruitment video, and four 2018 Police Safety campaign videos. The third season premiered on 24 February 2021.


title: Wellington Paranormal

text: Jemaine Clement stated in June 2021 that the fourth season was in post-production. He added: "We're pausing on [Wellington Paranormal], we're not sure we'll be back for a fifth season", while discussing a new series that he and Waititi are currently developing. It was later confirmed that the fourth season would be its last, which premiered on 16 February 2022.


title: Wellington Paranormal

text: The series is broadcast on TVNZ 2 with catch-up availability on TVNZ's streaming service TVNZ+. In neighboring Australia, the series is available on SBS on Demand.


title: Wellington Paranormal

text: In 2021, Sky licensed three seasons of the show for streaming on Now (formerly Now TV) and Sky Q via Sky Comedy in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the series debuted on The CW on 11 July 2021, with episodes available to stream on HBO Max the day after they air.


title: Wellington Paranormal

text: Clarke Gayford's appearance on a short "Wellington Paranormal" video in April 2020 encouraging people who were looking after young children during the COVID-19 pandemic drew some criticism due to his relationship with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. National Party Member of Parliament Brett Hudson alleged during an Epidemic Response Committee meeting in early May 2020 that the video risked "politicising" the New Zealand Police. In response, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster defended Gayford's participation on the grounds that he was a well-known television personality who had participated in the television series.


title: Union Army

text: During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to the preservation of the United States as a working, viable republic.


title: Union Army

text: The Union Army was made up of the permanent regular army of the United States, but further fortified, augmented, and strengthened by the many temporary units of dedicated volunteers, as well as including those who were drafted in to service as conscripts. To this end, the Union Army fought and ultimately triumphed over the efforts of the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War.


title: Union Army

text: Over the course of the war, 2,128,948 men enlisted in the Union Army, including 178,895 colored troops; 25% of the white men who served were immigrants, and further 25% were first generation Americans. Of these soldiers, 596,670 were killed, wounded or went missing. The initial call-up was for just three months, after which many of these men chose to reenlist for an additional three years.


title: Union Army

text: When the American Civil War began in April 1861, the U.S. Army consisted of ten regiments of infantry, four of artillery, two of cavalry, two of dragoons, and three of mounted infantry. The regiments were scattered widely. Of the 197 companies in the army, 179 occupied 79 isolated posts in the West, and the remaining 18 manned garrisons east of the Mississippi River, mostly along the Canada–United States border and on the Atlantic coast. There were only 16,367 servicemen in the U.S. Army, including 1,108 commissioned officers. Approximately 20% of these officers — most of them Southerners — resigned, choosing to tie their lives and fortunes to the Army of the Confederacy.


title: Union Army

text: In addition, almost 200 West Point graduates who had previously left the Army, including Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Braxton Bragg, returned to service at the outbreak of the war. This group's loyalties were far more evenly divided. Clayton R. Newell (2014) states, 92 wore Confederate gray and 102 put on the blue of the United States Army. Hattaway and Jones (1983), John and David Eicher (2001), and Jennifer M. Murray (2012), state that 99 joined the Confederate Army and 114 returned to the Union forces.


title: Union Army

text: With the Southern slave states declaring secession from the United States, and with this drastic shortage of soldiers in the army, President Abraham Lincoln called on the states to raise a force of 75,000 troops for three months to put down this subversive insurrection. Lincoln's call forced the border states to choose sides, and four seceded, making the Confederacy eleven states strong. It turned out that the war itself proved to be much longer and far more extensive in scope and scale than anyone on either side, Union North or Confederate South, expected or even imagined at the outset on the date of July 22, 1861. That was the day that Congress initially approved and authorized subsidy to allow and support a volunteer army of up to 500,000 troops to the cause.


title: Union Army

text: The call for volunteers initially was easily met by patriotic Northerners, abolitionists, and even immigrants who enlisted for a steady income and meals. Over 10,000 German Americans in New York and Pennsylvania immediately responded to Lincoln's call, along with Northern French Americans, who were also quick to volunteer. As more men were needed, however, the number of volunteers fell and both money bounties and forced conscription had to be turned to. Many Southern Unionists would also fight for the Union Army. An estimated 100,000 white soldiers from states within the Confederacy served in Union Army units. Between April 1861 and April 1865, at least 2,128,948 men served in the United States Army, of whom the majority were volunteers.


title: Union Army

text: It is a misconception that the South held an advantage because of the large percentage of professional officers who resigned to join the Confederate army. At the start of the war, there were 824 graduates of the U.S. Military Academy on the active list; of these, 296 resigned or were dismissed, and 184 of those became Confederate officers. Of the approximately 900 West Point graduates who were then civilians, 400 returned to the United States Army and 99 to the Confederate. Therefore, the ratio of U.S. Army to Confederate professional officers was 642 to 283. (One of the resigning officers was Robert E. Lee, who had initially been offered the assignment as commander of a field army to suppress the rebellion. Lee disapproved of secession, but refused to bear arms against his native state, Virginia, and resigned to accept the position as commander of the Virginian Confederate forces. He eventually became the overall commander of the Confederate army.) The South did have the advantage of having other military colleges, such as The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute, but they produced fewer officers. Though officers were able to resign, enlisted soldiers did not have this right. As they usually had to either desert or wait until their enlistment term was over in order to join the Confederate States Army; their total number is unknown.


title: Union Army

text: President Abraham Lincoln exercised supreme command and control over the Army in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. Below him was the Secretary of War, who oversaw the administration of the Army, and the General-in-Chief, who directed the field operations of the Army. At the start of the war, Simon Cameron served as Secretary of War before being replaced in January 1862 by Edwin Stanton. The role of General-in-Chief was filled by several men during the course of the war:


title: Union Army

text: The gap from March 11 to July 23, 1862, was filled with direct control of the army by President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, with the help of an unofficial "War Board" that was established on March 17, 1862. The board consisted of Ethan A. Hitchcock, the chairman, with Department of War bureau chiefs Lorenzo Thomas (Adjutant General), Montgomery C. Meigs (Quartermaster General), Joseph G. Totten (Chief of Engineers), James W. Ripley (Chief of Ordnance), and Joseph P. Taylor (Commissary General).


title: Union Army

text: Reporting directly to the Secretary of War were the bureau chiefs or heads of staff departments which made up the Department of War. These included, at the onset of the war, the Adjutant General, Inspector General, Paymaster-General, Judge Advocate General, Chief of Engineers, Chief of Topographical Engineers, Quartermaster General, Commissary General of Subsistence, Chief of Ordnance, and Surgeon General.


title: Union Army

text: After the war started, the position of Provost Marshal General was also created. Originally established on September 24, 1862, as an office in the Adjutant General's department under Simeon Draper, it was made an independent department in its own right on May 1, 1863, under James B. Fry. The Signal Corps was created and deployed for the first time, through the leadership of Albert J. Myer.


title: Union Army

text: One drawback to this system was that the authority and responsibilities of the Secretary of War, his Assistant Secretaries, and the General-in-Chief were not clearly delineated. Additionally, the efforts of the four "supply" departments (Quartermaster, Subsistence, Ordnance & Medical) were not coordinated with each other, a condition that would last throughout the war. Although the "War Board" could provide military advice and help coordinate military policy, it was not until the appointment of Ulysses Grant as General-in-Chief was there more than the vaguest coordination of military strategy and logistics.


title: Union Army

text: The Union Army was composed of numerous organizations, which were generally organized geographically.


title: Union Army

text: Each of these armies was usually commanded by a major general. Typically, the Department or District commander also had field command of the army of the same name, but some conflicts within the ranks occurred when this was not true, particularly when an army crossed a geographic boundary.


title: Union Army

text: The commanding officer of an army was authorized a number of aide-de-camps as their personal staff and a general staff. The general staff included representatives of the other combat arms, such as a chief of artillery and chief of cavalry (the infantry being typically represented by the commanding officer) and representatives of the staff bureaus and offices. The staff department officers typically assigned to an army or military department included an Assistant Adjutant General, a Chief Quartermaster, a Chief Commissary of Subsistence, an Assistant Inspector General, an Ordnance Officer (all with the rank of Colonel) and a Medical Director. The actual number of personnel assigned to an army's headquarters could be quite large: at Gettysburg the headquarters of General Meade (excluding engineers, the artillery reserve and the headquarters of each corps) was no less than 3,486 strong.


title: Union Army

text: The military organization of the United States Army was based on the traditions developed in Europe, with the regiment being the basis of recruitment, training and maneuvering. However, for a variety of reasons there could be vast differences in the number of actual soldiers organized even into units of the same type. Changes in how units were structured during the course of the war, contrasts in organizational principals between Regular and Volunteer units, and even simple misnaming all played a role. Thus for example, comparing two infantry regiments at their full authorized strength one might have twice as many soldiers as the other. Furthermore, even when units were of equivalent size, their actual effectiveness depended greatly on training, leadership, equipment and other factors.


title: Union Army

text: During the course of the Civil War, the vast majority of soldiers fighting to preserve the Union were in the Volunteer units. The pre-war Regular Army numbered approximately 16,400 soldiers, but by the end while the Union Army had grown to over a million soldiers, the number of Regular personnel was still approximately 21,699, of whom several were serving with Volunteer forces. Only 62,000 commissions and enlistments in total were issued for the Regular Army during the war as most new personnel preferred Volunteer service.


title: Union Army

text: Since before the Civil War the American public had a generally negative view of the nation's armed forces, attributable to a Jeffersonian ideal which saw standing armies as a threat to democracy and instead valorized the "citizen soldier" as being more in keeping with American ideals of equality and rugged individualism. This attitude remained unchanged during the Civil War, and afterwards many would attribute the Union's victory to the Volunteers rather than the leadership and staff work provided by the Regular Army. In return, officers of the Regular Army despised the militia and saw them as having dubious value. Commentators such as Emory Upton would later argue that the reliance on militia for the nation's defense was responsible for prolonging conflicts and making them more expensive in both money and lives spent.


title: Union Army

text: Despite these attitudes towards the Regulars, they would serve as an important foundation around which the Union Army was built. In the disastrous First Battle of Bull Run, it was the Regulars who acted as rearguard during the retreat while the Volunteers fled, and when George McClellan was put in charge of what became the Army of the Potomac he used Regular officers and non-commissioned officers to train the Volunteers. Training the Volunteers, especially in regards to critical administrative and logistical matters, remained an important function of the Regulars during the war. This was particularly the case with Regular Army artillery, as they were more widely dispersed than the infantry and cavalry (making them more visible to the Volunteers) and were assigned to specific units to train their Volunteer counterparts.


title: Union Army

text: In battle, the Regulars' performance could impress even the most battle-hardened Volunteers. At The Wheatfield during the Battle of Gettysburg, the Regulars' fighting skill and orderly retirement under fire drew the admiration of many observers, including Prince Philippe, Count of Paris. As one Volunteer put it, "For two years the U.S. Regulars taught us how to be soldiers [;] in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, they taught us how to die like soldiers." The Regulars became the standard by which the Volunteers were measured, and to be described as being as good or better than them was considered the highest compliment.


title: Union Army

text: Commissioned officers in the Union Army could be divided in several categories: general officers including Lieutenant General (added on March 2, 1864), Major Generals and Brigadier Generals; field officers including Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels and Majors; and company officers including Captains, First Lieutenants and Second Lieutenants. There was a further distinction between "line" officers - members of the artillery, cavalry or infantry branches - and staff officers, which were part of the various departments and bureaus of the War Department. All line officers outranked staff officers except in cases pertaining to their staff assignment, in which they received their orders from their respective department chiefs. Additionally, Regular general officers outranked Volunteer general officers of the same grade regardless of their date of commission, a feature which could become a subject of contention. The use of brevet ranks was also a common feature of the Union Army.


title: Union Army

text: Officer appointments depended on the commission grade and whether it was in the Regular or Volunteer forces. The President reserved the right to issue commission for all Regular officers and for general officers in the Volunteer forces. Volunteer field and company-grade officers could be commissioned by either the President or their respective Governor. Company officers were also unique in that they were usually elected by members of their company. The political appointment and/or election of Volunteer officers was part of a long-standing militia tradition and of a political patronage system common in the United States. While many of these officers were West Point graduates or had prior military experience, others had none, nor was military leadership a primary consideration in such appointments. Such a policy inevitably resulted in the promotion of inept officers over more able commanders. As the war dragged on and casualties mounted, governors reacted to their constituents' complaints and instead began to issue commissions on the basis of battlefield rather than political competence.


title: Union Army

text: Officers tended to suffer a higher percentage of battle wounds on account of either the necessity of leading their units into combat and their conspicuousness when accompanied by staff and escorts.


title: Union Army

text: Among memorable field leaders of the army were Nathaniel Lyon (first Union general to be killed in battle during the war), William Rosecrans, George Henry Thomas, and William Tecumseh Sherman. Others, of lesser competence, included Benjamin F. Butler.


title: Union Army

text: Non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were important in the Union Army in maintaining the order and alignment of formations during marches, battles, and transitioning between the two. Sergeants in particular were vital in this role as general guides and their selection ideally reserved for the most distinguished soldiers. NCOs were also charged with training individuals in how to be soldiers. While the captain or other company-level officers were responsible for training the soldiers when assembled into squads, platoons or as a company, experienced NCOs could take over this training as well. NCOs were also responsible for the regimental colors, which helped the unit maintain formation and serve as a rally point for the regiment. Typically a sergeant was designated the standard-bearer and protected by a color guard of corporals who only opened fire in defense of the colors. There were a number of staff NCO positions including quartermaster sergeant, ordnance sergeant, and commissary sergeant.


title: Union Army

text: NCOs in the Volunteer forces were quite different from their Regular counterparts as the war began. Appointed to their role as each regiment was created, they were often on a first-name basis with both their superior officers and the enlisted men they were tasked to lead. Discipline among friends and neighbors was not enforced as strictly as in the regular Army, and while some NCOs brought with them prior battlefield experience (whether from the Mexican-American War or foreign military service) many at the start of the war were as equally ignorant as their officers in military matters. Training for these NCOs took place during off-duty hours and often involved lessons based on manuals such as "Hardee's Tactics". One notable exception was Michigan, which designated Fort Wayne as a training center for both officers and NCOs. As the war progressed NCOs gained valuable experience and even drastic disciplinary measures such as execution by firing squad were carried out when deemed necessary. The promotion of soldiers to NCOs (and NCOs to officers) was also increasingly based on battlefield performance, although each state maintained their own standards for when and where promotions could be granted.


title: Union Army

text: Southerners who were against the Confederate cause during the Civil War were known as Southern Unionists. They were also known as Union Loyalists or Lincoln's Loyalists. Within the eleven Confederate states, states such as Tennessee (especially East Tennessee), Virginia (which included West Virginia at the time), and North Carolina were home to the largest populations of Unionists. Many areas of Southern Appalachia harbored pro-Union sentiment as well. As many as 100,000 men living in states under Confederate control would serve in the Union Army or pro-Union guerilla groups. Although Southern Unionists came from all classes, most differed socially, culturally, and economically from the region's dominant pre-war planter class.


title: Union Army

text: The Union Army was composed of many different ethnic groups, including large numbers of immigrants. About 25% of the white men who served in the Union Army were foreign-born. The United States saw its heaviest rate of immigration during the 1850s and the vast majority of these people moved to the Northern states. Of these immigrants, Germans constituted the largest group with a million arrivals between 1850 and 1860, many of them Forty-Eighters. Nearly as many Irish immigrants arrived during the same period. Overall, immigrant soldiers were the most enthusiastic in the Union Army, not only from a desire to help save their adoptive home but to prove their patriotism towards it. However, in order to help cement immigrant enthusiasm and loyalty to the Union, several generals were appointed from these communities for political purposes. Examples include Franz Sigel and Michael Corcoran.


title: Union Army

text: Many immigrant soldiers formed their own regiments, such as the Irish Brigade (69th New York, 63rd New York, 88th New York, 28th Massachusetts, 116th Pennsylvania); the Swiss Rifles (15th Missouri); the Gardes de Lafayette (55th New York); the Garibaldi Guard (39th New York); the Martinez Militia (1st New Mexico); the Polish Legion (58th New York); the German Rangers; Sigel Rifles (52nd New York, inheriting the 7th); the Cameron Highlanders (79th New York Volunteer Infantry); and the Scandinavian Regiment (15th Wisconsin). But for the most part, the foreign-born soldiers were scattered as individuals throughout units.


title: Union Army

text: For comparison, the Confederate Army was not very diverse: 91% of Confederate soldiers were native-born white men and only 9% were foreign-born white men, with Irish being the largest group, other groups included Germans, French, Mexicans (though most of them simply happened to have been born when the Southwest was still part of Mexico), and British. Some Confederate propaganda condemned foreign-born soldiers in the Union Army, likening them to the hated Hessians of the American Revolutionary War. Also, a relatively small number of Native Americans (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek) fought for the Confederacy.


title: Union Army

text: By 1860, the African American or Black population of the United States consisted of four million enslaved and half a million free Blacks. When the Civil War started, many freedmen in the North attempted to enlist in Federal service but were barred from doing so. Popularly-held prejudices doubted whether Black people could be effective soldiers, and President Lincoln believed allowing their enlistment would anger Northern whites and alienate not just the South but the Border States too. However he eventually changed his mind and pressed Congress to authorize the first official Black enlistment system in late 1862, which eventually evolved into the United States Colored Troops.


title: Union Army

text: Before they were allowed to enlist, many Black people volunteered their services to the Union Army as cooks, nurses, and in other informal roles, and several Volunteer regiments of Black troops were raised by the states. These include the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment, the first Black regiment to be raised and the first to engage in combat; the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, raised from both freedmen and escaped slaves after the Capture of New Orleans; and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, which became the most famous Black unit after their valiant participation in the Battle of Fort Wagner. Their efforts helped to dispel the notion that Black soldiers were a liability, allowing approximately 200,000 Black soldiers to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War.


title: Union Army

text: Even as they served their country, Black soldiers were subject to a number of discriminations. They were more often assigned to menial labor as some Union officers refused to employ them in combat, but when they were they often had to use inferior weapons and equipment. Black soldiers were paid less than white soldiers ($10 vs $16 per month) until Congress yielded to public pressure and approved equal pay in June 1864. Black units were led predominantly by white officers, and while more than a hundred Black men were eventually made officers (disregarding those passing as white), none were promoted to a rank higher than major. If captured by Confederate forces, Black soldiers risked being made slaves or summarily executed.


title: Union Army

text: Women took on many significant roles in the Union Army and were important to its ultimate success on the battlefield. The most direct way they could help was to enlist and fight as soldiers, although women were officially barred from doing so. Nevertheless, it is believed hundreds of women disguised themselves as men in order to enlist. While many were discovered and forced to quit, others were only found out after they were killed in combat, and a number managed to serve throughout the entire war with their true identity successfully concealed.


title: Union Army

text: One of the more traditional roles played by women in the Union Army was that of camp followers. Thousands of white and Black women accompanied Union armies in an unofficial capacity to provide their services as cooks, laundresses, nurses and/or prostitutes. Many were the wives or other female relatives of the soldiers themselves who saw to their personal needs and (if time allowed) looked to the well-being of other soldiers. A somewhat more formal role for some camp followers was that of "vivandière". Originally a female sutler, the role of "vivandière" expanded to include other responsibilities, including on the battlefield. Armed for their own protection, they brought water to thirsty soldiers, carried the regimental colors and rallied their fellow soldiers to fight, provided first aid or helped the wounded back to a field hospital. A related (and sometimes conflated) role was that of "daughter of the regiment". Often literally a daughter of one of the regimental officers, these women looked to the soldiers' well-being but also served as their regiment's "mascot" who inspired the men by wearing stylish clothing and enduring the same hardships as them. Some of the most prominent women to accompany the Union armies in the field include Anna Etheridge, Marie Tepe, and Nadine Turchin.


title: Union Army

text: Women also sought to serve more formally as nurses in the Union Army, many having been inspired by the work of Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. However, there was strong resistance against these efforts at first. Societal prejudices saw women as too delicate and the job too unsuitable for women of social rank, particularly at the thought of unmarried women surrounded by thousands of men in close quarters. Nevertheless, Congress eventually approved for women to serve as nurses, to which Dorothea Dix - appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses - was responsible for setting hiring guidelines and starting a training program for prospective candidates. For the women who served, nursing during the Civil War was a hazardous occupation: grueling hours spent in close proximity to deadly diseases and nearby battlefields resulted in many suffering permanent disabilities or death. Added to this were the prejudices of the male medical officers in charge who did not want them there and frequently clashed with the nurses over issues of triage, patient treatments and hospice care. Tens of thousands of women served as nurses for the Union Army, among whom are included Clara Barton, Susie King Taylor, Mary Edwards Walker, and Louisa May Alcott.


title: Union Army

text: No less vital were the thousands of women who provided service to the Union Army in the field of espionage. Early in the war, women were at a distinct advantage as spies, scouts, smugglers, and saboteurs: the idea of women participating in such dangerous lines of work was simply not considered. Eventually though their opponents recognized their existence, and while female spies caught in the act were not typically executed like their male colleagues, they still faced the threat of lengthy prison sentences. For self-evident reasons many of these activities were kept secret and any documentation (if it existed) was often destroyed. As such the identity of many of these women will never be known. Of those who became famous for their espionage work during or after the end of the war, prominent examples include Harriet Tubman, Mary Louvestre, Pauline Cushman, Elizabeth Van Lew, and Mary Bowser.


title: Union Army

text: In his 1997 book examining the motivations of the American Civil War's soldiers, , historian James M. McPherson states that Union soldiers fought to preserve the United States, as well as to end slavery, stating that:


title: Union Army

text: McPherson states that witnessing the slave system of the Confederacy first-hand also strengthened the anti-slavery views of Union soldiers, who were appalled by its brutality. He stated that "Experience in the South reinforced the antislavery sentiments of many soldiers." One Pennsylvanian Union soldier spoke to a slave woman whose husband was whipped, and was appalled by what she had to tell him of slavery. He stated that "I thought I had hated slavery as much as possible before I came here, but here, where I can see some of its workings, I am more than ever convinced of the cruelty and inhumanity of the system."


title: Union Army

text: The responsibilities and functions of the Adjutant General's Department (AGD) were many and varied during the course of the Civil War, but principle among them was handling military correspondence between the President, Secretary of War and General-in-Chief, and the rest of the Army. Other functions included administering recruitment, overseeing the appointment of chaplains, maintaining personnel records, and issuing instruction books and other forms. During the war, some of the department's responsibilities and functions were spun off to new offices while new ones were added. The recruitment of new white Volunteers and draftees, and the suppression and punishment of absenteeism and desertion, was given to the newly formed Provost Marshal General's Bureau in May 1863, while the position of Commissioner for the Exchange of Prisoners was created to take over this function from the AGD. The Bureau of Colored Troops was created within the AGD specifically to oversee the creation of the United States Colored Troops, and in the final year of the war the AGD was given the responsibility for collecting and editing documents which would constitute "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies".


title: Union Army

text: At the start of the Civil War, the AGD numbered just fourteen Regular Officers: the Adjutant General (AG) with the rank of colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, four brevet majors, and eight brevet captains. In August 1861 the AG was raised to major-general and the strength of the AGD increased to twenty officers, and a year later it was reorganized to constitute the AG, two colonels, four lieutenant-colonels, and thirteen majors. The small number of civilian clerical staff supporting the officers was also increased as the war progressed, including the addition of up to ten noncommissioned officers by 1862. However to meet the need for assistant adjutant generals authorized for each corps, division and brigade, appointments were made from among the Volunteer forces, and by 1865 there were an additional 85 majors and 256 captains serving in these capacities. At the regimental level, one of the unit's lieutenants would be selected to serve as its adjutant.


title: Union Army

text: In spite of the rapid increase of the Army at the start presenting numerous challenges and being perpetually understaffed throughout the war, the AGD appears to have handled its responsibilities competently and with little disruption. The AGD also had fewer conflicts with field commanders compared to some of the other departments, partly because its authority was well-established and issued few controversial orders itself, and it was less affected by matters of procurement and emerging technologies.


title: Union Army

text: Colonel Lorenzo Thomas was named Adjutant General of the army on March 7, 1861, one day after Col. Samuel Cooper resigned the join the Confederacy. While Thomas served as the AG throughout the entirety of the war, he eventually ran afoul of Secretary Stanton, who reassigned him to the job of recruiting soldiers for black regiments in the western theater. From March 1863 on then, the assistant adjutant general Colonel Edward D. Townsend essentially was the acting AG in Washington.


title: Union Army

text: An office of the Judge Advocate had existed in the US Army since its founding, consisting at the start of the Civil War of a single officer with the rank of major and small civilian clerical staff in Washington. It was not until after the war began however that Congress formally authorized the appointment of a Judge Advocate General (JAG) and creation of the Bureau of Military Justice, a de facto department and forerunner to a true Judge Advocate General's Department. The principle functions of the JAG included conducting courts-martial and inquiries; codifying the laws of war and the military laws of the United States; reviewing the records of courts-martial, military commissions and inquiries; and asserting the jurisdiction of military commissions over civilians in times of war.


title: Union Army

text: To meet the demands of a vastly larger army, Congress authorized in July 1862 the appointment of a JAG with the rank of colonel and for President Lincoln to appoint a judge advocate of Volunteers with the rank of major for each army in the field. These judge advocates were to advise commanders on legal issues, prosecute offenses, and review and maintain the records of courts-martial and other proceedings in the field. A year later, Congress legislated the creation of the Bureau of Military Justice, gave it an appellant function, and authorized the JAG to head it as a brigadier general alongside an assistant JAG with the rank of colonel. With these authorizations came a small increase in the size of the clerical staff assisting the JAG.


title: Union Army

text: During the war the JAG and his subordinates were able to satisfactorily handle the increased volume and complexity of legal matters that came with the exponential growth of the Army. Among their most important accomplishments was the creation of the Lieber Code and, for the first time, collecting all precedents, decisions and opinions which had become US military law into a single digest and publishing it in early 1865. One of the most controversial issues associated with the bureau was the use of military commissions to try civilians, an issue which would not be settled until "Ex parte Milligan" was decided in 1866.


title: Union Army

text: The Civil War began with brevet Major John F. Lee serving as the judge advocate of the Army until September 3, 1862, when Joseph Holt was formally appointed as JAG. Holt played an important parts in helping to expanding the office of the JAG and oversaw some of the most important and sensitive trials of the war. However Holt also made many enemies while JAG and was severely criticized for his handling of the trial of President Lincoln's assassins.


title: Union Army

text: In March 1865 the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was created by Congress with a mandate to see to the needs of all Black freedmen and white refugees, and the management of all lands within the rebel states which had been abandoned or otherwise come into the possession of the United States. It consisted of a commissioner as head of the bureau, an assistant commissioner for each of the rebel states, and a small staff of one chief and nine other clerks. Additionally, any military officer could be assigned to duty on behalf of the bureau. Major General Oliver Otis Howard was appointed to head the bureau at its creation and lead it throughout its lifetime. While the Freedmen's Bureau was the center of much controversy during the Reconstruction era and some of the relief it provided was less than satisfactory, its most important contribution was in providing education to many Blacks and poor whites.


title: Union Army

text: The Corps of Engineers was a small part of the Army prior to the Civil War but played an important role not only in the conflict but for the nation as a whole. The Corps was responsible for running the United States Military Academy at West Point, which supplied officers to all branches but whose top graduates were commissioned into the Corps. They were not only involved with military engineering such as constructing fortifications and harbor defenses but also oversaw civil engineering including building canals, bridges and similar projects. This focus on civil works did prevent the Corps from devoting its entire effort to the war though. Corps personnel acted as combat engineers during battle, helping to construct pontoon bridges, repair roads and bridges, dig trenches, and conduct reconnaissance. The Corps also exerted an influence beyond its small size as many of the Union's most prominent officers, including McClellan and Meade, were themselves trained as engineers and used their knowledge to influence the outcome of battles.


title: Union Army

text: Prior to the war, the Corps of Engineers consisted of just forty-eight officers and a single company of 150 engineer troops. Engineer Company A was first created for the Mexican-American War and guarded President Lincoln at his first inauguration. It was organized with ten sergeants (master-workmen), ten corporals (overseers), two musicians, sixty-four first-class privates (artificers) and sixty-four second-class privates (laborers). In August 1861 Congress authorized the formation of three more companies to be organized the same as Engineer Company A, with all four organized into a single battalion (the US Engineer Battalion, later 1st Engineer Battalion), and the addition of two lieutenant colonels, four majors and six lieutenants to the Corps. The battalion had no formal headquarters but fell under the command of the most senior officer present. In March 1863, when the Corps of Topographical Engineers was disbanded and its function merged with the Corps of Engineers, Congress further revised the Corps to consist of a brigadier-general as Chief Engineer, four colonels, ten lieutenant-colonels, twenty majors, thirty captains, thirty first lieutenants and ten second lieutenants.


title: Union Army

text: The US Engineer Battalion served ably as part of the Army of the Potomac, but on its own was insufficient to see to the Army's need for engineers throughout the different theaters of war. A small number of Volunteer engineer regiments were formed during the war, including the 1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics Regiment, the 1st New York Engineer Regiment and the 1st United States Veteran Volunteer Engineer Regiment. However, in many cases engineering work was carried out by line soldiers under the supervision of officers with engineering backgrounds, if any were available. Most types of engineering work, such as digging simple earthworks or laying small bridges, did not require the specialized skills of engineers, which were required for complex endeavors like constructing pontoon bridges or forts. Union armies typically detailed soldiers to form company-sized detachments of pioneers to repair roads or bury the dead after a battle.


title: Union Army

text: The Corps of Topographical Engineers had been established in 1831 with the mission of exploration, surveying, and cartography, particularly in the American West. Topographical engineers (or "topogs") including John C. Frémont, Howard Stansbury, William H. Emory and Gouverneur K. Warren were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States. During the war, the civilian nature of the Corps' mission was largely suspended and it undertook the role of reconnaissance, construction of defensive works and supplying maps to the Army. In these conditions drawing a distinction between the two corps became increasingly impractical, until in March 1863 the Corps of Topographical Engineers was disbanded and its mission taken up by the Corps of Engineers.


title: Union Army

text: The Topographical Engineers numbered forty-five officers before the Civil War. In August 1861 an additional two lieutenant colonels, four majors and six lieutenants were authorized by Congress. There were no enlisted men in the Corps, although when the Corps was expanded Congress also authorized a company of engineers for the Topographical Engineers to be modeled after the Corps of Engineers. However this company was never formed, and the actual size of the Corps shrank as a number retired, died, defected to the Confederacy or became general officers of the Volunteers, until eventually the remaining officers were absorbed by the Corps of Engineers.


title: Union Army

text: The most important role played by the Topographical Engineers, even after their merger with the regular Corps, was providing desperately-needed maps to Army commanders. Each field army headquarters established their own topographical departments under the supervision of engineer officers, which would provide the army with maps necessary for a given campaign. Such departments themselves were staffed with teams of draughtsmen and assistants and stocked with printing presses, photographic and lithographic equipment.


title: Union Army

text: The Chief of Topographical Engineers at the start of the Civil War was Colonel John James Abert. Colonel Abert had been responsible for lobbying Congress to make the Corps an independent branch of War Department and was appointed to lead his creation in 1838. He retired in September 1861 and was replaced by Stephen Harriman Long, who remained in the position until the Corps was disbanded. Thereafter he continued to serve in the Corps of Engineers as the senior officer to the Chief Engineer.


title: Union Army

text: At the start of the Civil War, there was technically no Inspector General's Department, with neither a set of operating practices or centralized direction. Instead there were two Inspector Generals (IGs) with the rank of colonel whose duty was to conduct inspections and investigations to ensure the Army was organized and operating at full readiness, but these were done in an ad-hoc manner at the discretion of the Secretary of War. As the war progressed and membership in the inspectorate increased, the duties of IGs and assistant IGs were continually redefined, to the extent that any time a problem was identified the common response was simply to assign an inspector to it. Eventually in January 1863 a permanent office of the IG was established in Washington, and it was from here that the process of exerting a centralized control over IGs in the field and crafting standard policies and procedures was started.


title: Union Army

text: In August 1861, Congress authorized an increase of two additional IGs with the rank of colonel and five assistant IGs with the rank of major from among the Regular Army. This number stayed the same throughout the entire war, with the addition of a small civilian clerical staff once the Washington office was established. Congress eventually determined that each geographical department, army, corps, division and brigade would also be assigned an IG or assistant IG, however these positions were to be filled by Regular or Volunteer officers detailed from line units of the Army or from the other staff departments.


title: Union Army

text: The inspectorate faced many challenges during the Civil War, including hostility and lack of cooperation from some commanders and the mixed performance of some IGs in the field. Despite these issues it was able to successfully meet the challenges of the war overall, particularly with bringing under control the waste, fraud and abuse which had been rampant at the start of the conflict.


title: Union Army

text: At the start of the war the inspectorate consisted of Colonel Sylvester Churchill, the senior IG of the Army, and Colonel Joseph K. Mansfield, the junior IG. Churchill however took leave in April 1861 on account of his health and formally retired in September that year, while Mansfield was promoted to major-general and left to command troops in May. Colonel Henry L. Scott replaced Mansfield that same month, but when Churchill retired his position was given to Colonel Randolph Marcy, father-in-law to George McClellan, in the same month. Serving as the chief-of-staff to McClellan, Marcy did not formally take up his duties as senior IG until after the Battle of Antietam, by which point however his association with McClellan had soured Marcy's relationship with Secretary Stanton, who sent him on inspection tours of various geographical departments. Instead, the de facto leader of the inspectorate was whoever was the IG in charge of the Washington office, which was Colonel Delos Sacket between January 1863 and March 1864, and Colonel James Allen Hardie for the remainder of the war.


title: Union Army

text: The Army Medical Department (AMD) was rivaled only by the Quartermaster's Department in the scope and complexity of its responsibilities: caring for sick and wounded soldiers, operating field and general hospitals, and acquiring and distributing medicine, medical equipment, hospital food and similar supplies. Functions such as evacuating soldiers off the battlefield or constructing hospitals were handled were handled by other departments, though later in the war the AMD assumed many of these roles. In March 1864 it was placed in charge of casualty evacuation (U.S. Ambulance Corps) and the organization and operation of medical supply trains. In December it was given control over the construction and equipping of military hospitals, and of hospital trains and hospital ships in February 1865. Other responsibilities assumed during the war included care for disabled veterans and their families, prisoners of war, refugees and freed slaves; maintaining medical records of the dead and wounded; and preparing a medical and surgical history of the war. Unfortunately, the AMD started out the war staffed by a conservative and inflexible leadership which negatively impacted its functioning, but would eventually be rectified by war's end.


title: Union Army

text: In April 1861 the AMD was the largest of the staff departments in the Regular Army: a Surgeon General (with the rank of Colonel), thirty surgeons, eighty-three assistant surgeons, and fifty-nine Hospital Stewards. However this number was barely adequate to meet the needs of the army in peacetime, and in May 1861 an additional ten surgeons and twenty assistant surgeons were added to cover the new Regular Army regiments being raised. Later that year in August, Congress authorized the appointment of fifty medical cadets to be chosen from young men with a liberal education and prior medical experience. They had the rank and pay of West Point cadets and were to act as ambulance attendants in the field and assistants in general hospitals.


title: Union Army

text: In April 1862, Congress authorized a substantial reorganization of the AMD. Beyond promoting the surgeon general to brigadier general and adding additional staff, one of the most controversial was the introduction of medical inspectors, as a number of these were appointed by Secretary Stanton for "political" purposes. Charged with supervising all aspects of sanitary conditions within the Army, their purview included the inspection of quarters, camps, hospitals and transports; their duties were later expanded to include issuing certificates of discharge for reasons of disability. Congress also gave the surgeon general the authority to hire as many hospital stewards as necessary, and a month later they authorized the addition of six trained apothecaries and druggists as medical storekeepers.


title: Union Army

text: Most Regular Army medical officers served in staff positions, whether at the office in Washington or out in the field as regimental surgeons, attending physicians in general hospitals, medical purveyors who ran medical supply depots and laboratories, or as the medical director of a division, corps, field army or military department. Medical directors oversaw the operation of field hospitals and the associate medical personnel, field sanitation and medical supply within their command. However, there was no statutory basis for their assignment, and it wasn't until February 1865 when Congress bowed to pressure and provided for officers serving in these capacities to receive rank, pay and emoluments appropriate to their responsibilities.


title: Union Army

text: Added to the relatively small number of Regular Army medical personnel were a further 546 surgeons and assistant surgeons of US Volunteers, appointed by the president to supplement Regular Army personnel in staff positions; another 5,532 civilian doctors employed under contract (mainly in general hospitals) as acting assistant surgeons; a small number of medical officers of the Veteran Reserve Corps; and the thousands of regimental surgeons and assistant surgeons appointed to the Volunteer regiments by their respective state governors. Thousands more civilians were employed by the AMD as nurses, clerks, hospital attendants, laborers, etc. The AMD was further augmented by a number of private and semi-official philanthropic organizations, foremost among which was the United States Sanitary Commission (USCC).


title: Union Army

text: The chaotic aftermath of the first Battle of Bull Run - no coordination between field hospitals and casualty evacuation, regimental surgeons refusing to treat soldiers from other units, and the few ambulance drivers robbing their charges or fleeing - exemplified the inadequacies of pre-war planning and preparations. Burdened with an aged and conservative leadership, it took the injection of more enlightened leaders to make the necessary reforms for the AMD to meet these new challenges. By the war's end, the AMD had implemented a better method of evacuating battlefield casualties to field hospitals and general hospitals, established laboratories to test and certify drugs and other medicines, identified reliable sources of supply and implemented effective contracting procedures, and increased the number of medical personnel to see to the needs of over a million men under arms.


title: Union Army

text: Some challenges remained however, against which only small progress was made. Although improved field sanitation reduced disease rates and some advances like the use of chloroform proved helpful, a lack of aseptic surgery or general understanding of the germ theory led to many deaths from disease, shock or secondary infection. Psychological trauma was not well understood and the average soldier made due with an inadequate diet for maintaining their health. The AMD's reliance on the Quartermaster and Subsistence departments for transportation and rations respectively left these subject to interdepartmental rivalry until late in the war, and personal conflict between military commanders and their supporting medical personnel could lead to problematic health outcomes. Despite these faults, AMD personnel did their best to alleviate the suffering of their fellow soldiers and laid the groundwork for future improvement.


title: Union Army

text: The Surgeon General at the start of the war was Colonel Thomas Lawson, who at 97 years was on his deathbed and his duties were being carried out Major Robert C. Wood, one of his assistants. When he passed in May 1861 Lawson was succeeded by Clement Finley, another old soldier who was characterized by contemporaries as "utterly ossified and useless". Finley was slow to act, failed to reform the AMD to address the needs of the war, and particularly opposed to the use of female nurses. He was forced to retire by Secretary Stanton in April 1862 and replaced with William A. Hammond, who immediately went about reorganizing the AMD, eliminating red tape and promoting competent young men to positions of authority. His strong independent streak also earned the enmity of Secretary Stanton, who in September 1863 sent him on an extended tour of the western theater and made Colonel Joseph Barnes the acting Surgeon General. When Hammond was arrested, court-martialed and dismissed in August 1864, Barnes was promoted to fill his position. Barnes remained the Surgeon General until after the war's end and succeeded in continuing Hammond's reforms by maintaining an excellent relationship with Secretary Stanton.


title: Union Army

text: The principal mission of the Ordnance Department (ORDD) during the Civil War was the development, procurement, storage, distribution and repair of all Army ordnance and ordnance-related equipment such as limbers and caissons and accoutrements. It was also responsible for the procurement of horses to pull artillery until June 1861 when the Quartermaster Department took over that job. The department faced challenges during the war, particularly during the early months as it struggled to arm the vastly expanded Union Army whilst traitorous forces seized control of a number of arsenals and depots. Eventually it was able to resolve many of these challenges and succeeded in providing thousands of field artillery pieces and millions of small arms for the Union Army.


title: Union Army

text: When the Civil War began the Ordnance Department was commanded by a Chief of Ordnance and authorized forty officers, many in command of the Army's arsenals and depots; fifteen ORDD military storekeepers; seventy ordnance sergeants, often placed in supervisory roles including command of some depots and arsenals; and four hundred enlisted men, most of whom were employed as technicians at the armories and arsenals. Hundreds of civilians were also employed, not only as clerks and laborers but also technicians and supervisors. There were also artificiers on the rolls of the Army's artillery regiments who were responsible for the maintenance of weapons within their regiments.


title: Union Army

text: Even in peacetime the size of the ORDD was insufficient, as fifty-six officers alone would've been required to bring the arsenals to their full authorized strength, and it proved inadequate once the war began. In August 1861 Congress increased the authorized number of officers to forty-five: the Chief of Ordnance (brigadier general), two colonels, two lieutenant colonels, four majors, twelve captains, twelve first lieutenants, and twelve second lieutenants. This still was not enough, and so in March 1863 an additional lieutenant colonel, two majors, eight captains and eight first lieutenants were added, bringing the authorized strength to sixty-four officers where it would remain for the rest of the war. The number of ordnance sergeants and enlisted personnel were similarly increased on a yearly basis, until by 1865 they numbered 163 and 560 respectively, and the civilian staff was likewise increased.


title: Union Army

text: In the field, each regiment was authorized an ordnance officer (to be chosen from among the unit's lieutenants) who, assisted by an ordnance sergeant, saw to the requisition and issuing of arms to the troops and management of the regimental ammunition train. For brigades and higher echelons of command, an ordnance officer was authorized to serve on the unit's staff with similar responsibilities. However unlike with the other supply departments, the ordnance department did not commission any Volunteer officers to this role, instead relying on ORRD officers or (at division level and below) relying on Regular officers filling the role as acting ordnance officers or combining the role with the assigned quartermaster.


title: Union Army

text: The ORDD maintained a number of arsenals, armories and depots, where the majority of the Army's arms, ammunition and other ordnance-related supplies were manufactured and/or stored. A number were seized before or at the war's outbreak, but more were created after fighting began and existing ones were expanded. By the middle of the war, the largest arsenals employed between one and two thousand civilians each. A substantial number of these employees were women and children, partly because they could be paid less than adult male workers, their small hands were thought to be better suited to assembling cartridges, and women were believed to be more safety-oriented. Their line of work was dangerous for obvious reasons, and a number died in accidental explosions during the war. In the single-worst accident of the war, the explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal, 70 of the 78 victims were women and girls.