How did an army regiment operated in a 19th century battlefield?

I want to know about the operations of a 19th century army regiment in a battlefield. I wondered did the general send rows of men into a combat situation until the enemy gave in.How did an army regiment operated in a 19th century battlefield?
Napoleonic tactics were in use at least up to the American Civil War, which is basically what you have described. These tactics were to group men together, as had been done for centuries before, and send them against the enemy line to try and break through the line. We can see the same thing in the phalanx formations of the ancient world. But during the 19th century these tactics would quickly become obsolete and yet through out most of the centuries the generals wouldn't give them up.



So what made them obsolete? The evolution of the gun and the Mini茅 ball. Consider that during the 1770s the typical musket had an effective range of around twenty-five to fifty yards. That means that you really had to get up close and personal to do any real damage to your enemy. And after firing a shot, maybe two at most, you quickly followed through with a bayonet charge. Napoleonic tactics took the basic tactics of that era and focused them so that you had regiments deployed quickly onto the field, coordinated assualts with infantry and cavalry, bayonet charges, and relatively little artillery, all based around the range of the muskets. But this was the smoothbore musket fireing round balls.



A musket ball isn't a very practical projectile as it bounces around inside the barrel of a smoothbore musket when fired, which alters it's trajectory as it leaves the barrel. It also does not form any kind of seal in the barrel, allowing the gases that push it out to escape around it at the same time their forcing it out which reduces the possible speed it could have. Plus the aerodynamics of a ball impart drag which causes it to slow down faster.



By rifling the gun barrel you're able to impart spin to the projectile which helps to increase it's accuracy by keeping it stable in flight. But even if you are able to fit the ball snugly into a rifled musket you still loose the important gases so you need to get the greatest effective range. It was realized that if the projectile could catch the grooves in the rifle this would forcethe pressure to build up more behind the projectile imparting more speed on it as it could make the most of the gases expelling it out the barrel. It also insures better spin. So the move was made away from a ball shape to a conical shape which is still seen on bullets today. The Mini茅 ball, though the name is deceptive as it was not a ball, was the first practical projectile to make the most out of the effects of rifling though it was not the first conical projectile (in fact for years before Claude Etienne Mini茅 developed the Mini茅 ball in 1848 the development of the conical bullet had been in exsistence since at least 1823). The conical shape also allowed for reduced drag which when combined with it's spin and speed meant that the rifled musket had an effective range of up to five hundred yards.



Five hundred yards, that's ten to twenty times as far as the effective range of the smoothbore in the 1770s. Now I can't speak for other nations, but I do know that in the 1860s the US Army expected a man to be able to get off three well aimed shots a minute making eleven movements per shot in a twenty second period. This means that Napoleonic tactics were better for getting the attacking force slaughtered as it took more men to attempt to overcome the defenders. Especially if the defender is dug in. If the defender can get off at least three volleys before the attacker is close enough to for close quarters combat (ie bayonet and hand to hand) then they have the chance to decimate the attacking force or at least make the odds more favorable.



Imagine facing five to one odds only to be able to bring them down to two to one. That's what the rifled musket did, but the generals kept using tactics that were outdated by newer equipment.How did an army regiment operated in a 19th century battlefield?
Up until the mid 1860's yes, pretty much. The weapons of the time dictated the tactics. Whilst armies were equipped with muzzle-loading smooth-bore flintlocks, then men did stand shoulder to shoulder and rank on rank. They stood, because they could only load standing up. The stood en masse because their muskets were notoriously inaccurate, so had to be deployed in great numbers to be effective.



As technology changed the weapons - rifling, percussion caps, breech-loading - so tactics changed.