Punitive War Analysis

In Punitive War: Confederate Guerrillas and Union Reprisals, Clay Mountcastle provides a detail account on how the Union’s attitude and actions changes during the Civil War due to the guerrilla actions against them. The point of Punitive War is not to illustrate the guerrilla actions, but focuses on the Union Army’s response the aggression. The purpose of this study is to educate those interested in military history, such as Officers in the United States Army or simple college students, on how guerilla warfare can and will frustrate a large, professional military force.

The message Mountcastle is trying to get across is that guerrilla warfare did had a huge effect on the Union Army’s action and that the true value of this aggressive behavior

It first intrudes the concept that guerilla warfare was not unequally new to the Americans during Civil War. Prior to the war, Americans does have experience fighting as or against guerillas. Americans first became frustrated with guerilla like tactics against the Indians, who tactics include surprise raids, ambushes, attacking American settlements and food supplies. Those are some of the many tactics that can be categorize as a guerrilla warfare. In response, the settlers resulted in a punitive policies against the Indians by attacking the people, and not the army, or the Indian Nation. This includes, but not limited to, destroying Indian villages, livestock, and

The main objective was to frustrate the British Army and to limit their supplies. One key example is Francis Marion, Green and Thomas Sumter hit ambushes and hit-and-run attacks against the British supply lines, stores and outposts. The British Army then responded in punitive activities of their own, shadowing the colonial response to the Indians.

What must be noted is that the Americans only resulted in guerilla tactics because they were not strong enough to fight against the British using conventional means. This provides a key insight on the conditions on when to conduct guerilla warfare. It might also provide a means to predict when guerilla actions may occur. Whenever this a strong army facing a smaller force, the smaller force might use the guerilla tactics against the stronger enemy.

Another example given was the Second Seminole War. The primary lesson that came out of this, is that conventional warfare does not work against guerrilla tactics. However, the Americans did not heed this lesson and the United States Army did not become more prepare to fight against