| When we think about the Revolutionary War, many of us picture Redcoats marching in formation while American revolutionary soldiers use the cover of trees to pick off the British at will. The truth is far more complicated and revolves around the understanding and use of technology – specifically, the musket, the bayonet and the rifle. Our story looks at these three weapons and the process of implementing technological change, and it suggests lessons we might apply today in the realm of teaching and learning. But first, let’s look back two and a quarter centuries.
In Philadelphia on July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress endorses the Declaration of Independence, separating the United States from England. On the same day just 90 miles away in New York Harbor, British General William Howe lands on Staten Island to prepare to take New York City. By July 4, when the Declaration of Independence is adopted, General Howe has successfully brought 9,000 troops ashore, expecting to quickly end the insurrection. By the time of his first engagement with George Washington’s Continental Army on August 22, Howe had assembled a force of over 30,000 troops.
While Washington had comparable numbers, Howe believed he could force Washington to surrender. He believed that Washington’s troops would break and run. He was partly correct. The Continental troops certainly run but there is no surrender and Washington soon proves a master at retreat – something that would save the Continentals to fight again another day, by which time, as we will see, they learned to adapt technology – existing technology – to their advantage.
On August 22, Howe encounters the Continental Army’s defenses on Brooklyn Heights. His battle tactics revolve largely around the charge, which had evolved from centuries-old tactics developed for the lance and battle-ax. In fact Howe’s soldiers even outfitted their muskets with bayonets to mimic the lance, even though the bayonet considerably slowed the process of reloading.
But what about the musket itself, the primary piece of Revolutionary War technology? Its barrel was smooth and relatively short, which allowed for quick loading. A musket ball, not a bullet, was rammed down this smooth barrel from the top with relatively little resistance. The ball fit somewhat loosely inside the barrel. When the weapon was fired, the ball careened down the barrel, ricocheting from one side to another. Its last bounce determined what it hit. The musket could hit a target one foot square at 40 yards but would normally miss a person at 100 yards. It weighed 10 pounds and took at least 15 seconds to load.
How were these two technologies, the musket and bayonet, employed in a charge? During the initial portion of their advance, the British would periodically stop, and two lines, the first kneeling and the other standing right behind it, would fire simultaneously, creating a “wall of lead” to rip into enemy lines and create disarray. After several such volleys, at progressively closer range, the British would launch a bayonet charge into what they hoped would now be a confused rabble of defenders. In the hand-to-hand combat that followed, the better trained British troops would prevail.
At Brooklyn Heights the strategy worked like a charm: the Continental defenses collapsed and the Americans retreated in chaos.
This battle began 18 months of retreat by the Continental forces. Yet Washington never allowed himself to get trapped, and his retreats live today in our minds as victories because of his small and frequent rear-guard actions, memorialized by the picture of Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Day en route to victory at the Battle of Trenton, New Jersey.
As the war continues through 1777, the Continental Congress flees Philadelphia and moves 90 miles west to York, Pennsylvania, for safety. General Howe moves into the city and winters in comfort. Washington, meanwhile, hunkers down with his poorly outfitted, poorly fed, and poorly paid army in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He is down to 11,000 men. They build 900 huts for housing. Each is 15 feet square and 6_ feet high and houses 12 soldiers. It is the low point of the war. Approximately one in every five soldiers dies of starvation, dysentery or the cold. Yet paradoxically, thanks to far-away events, the seeds of victory are sown in Valley Forge during this awful winter.
Across the Atlantic, Benjamin Franklin is negotiating with France. He wants them to enter the war against the British, but the French are far from certain the poorly trained Continental Army can win. A friend of Franklin’s convinces him to accept General Baron von Steuben (who is actually neither a general nor a baron) as an advisor to Washington and as someone who can train the army.
Despite his misleading title, von Steuben is highly qualified for the job having been a military advisor to Frederick the Great of Prussia – the most successful military tactician of the mid-18th century. His changes in American battle tactics prove revolutionary.
Von Steuben understands that in any hand-to-hand combat the Continental Army is likely to lose so he needs to prevent the penetration of the Continental line. Furthermore he needs to stiffen the resolve of the troops to avoid the collapse and retreat in disarray that occurred at Brooklyn Heights. He does this by understanding the relationship of his weapons to his objectives, modifying the use of the predominant American weapons, the musket and the rifle, and training the troops for a new battle plan.
The first modification changes the firing command for the musket. The British command is “ready, fire.” As they charge, they know that the musket is not very accurate, and they want to reach the Continental lines in a hurry. Aiming seems largely irrelevant. The Americans had been doing the same and shooting above the charging English lines, but under von Steuben the new command is “ready, aim, fire.” The difference – “aim” – is small, many of the musket balls continue to fly over the charging troops but a large number now hit the opposing line and the results are impressive. The Continental troops no longer break and run but are instead now able to slow an oncoming charge, inflict heavier casualties on the British, and in some cases break the charge altogether.
Von Steuben next incorporates a strategy involving the rifle that takes advantage of its greater accuracy and range. By contrast with the musket, the rifle could hit a person at 300 yards and a bull’s-eye at 100 yards. The rifle ball was wrapped in paraffin-soaked cloth, which held it against the sides of the barrel. The barrel itself was longer than a musket’s and spiral-grooved, two features that further increased its accuracy. The drawback was that it took three to four times as long as a musket to load. Both sides had rifles as well as muskets, although the Continentals had a heavier concentration of rifles, since many of these farmer-soldiers brought their hunting rifles from home. Von Steuben’s strategy is to create units of sharpshooters operating within the overall battle tactics to pick off the officers of the opposing troops.
To codify his changes von Steuben writes his Blue Book which explains his new battle plan and now he must train the troops to his new approach.
To accomplish this von Steuben changes the very process of training. The English officer corps was quite removed from the troops and never condescended to train with them. The Americans adopted the same system. Von Steuben changed all of that by requiring that the officers train with the troops in order to more effectively implement his new strategies. If good execution is a measure of good training, then apparently his plan worked.
Perhaps the best examples of the new strategy in action are at the pivotal Battles of King’s Mountain and Cowpens in South Carolina.
Throughout the war the British believed that their primary advantage came through using a well-trained army to charge into the Continental forces and then to engage in combat based on the bayonet. This was a battle they were convinced they could win. With that in mind they liked open spaces. King’s Mountain was ideal. It had tree-covered sides but a treeless hilltop perfect for a downhill charge. Unfortunately for the British the continental militia, locally organized troops similar to those portrayed in “The Patriot” movie, advanced up the hillside but stayed in the trees. They never emerge but instead the concealed militia picked off the exposed British with rifle fire from sharpshooters until they surrendered.
A subplot in this story of technology also ends at Kings Mountain. The British commander at Kings Mountain, Major Patrick Ferguson, dies during the encounter. Earlier in the war he invented a breach-loading rifle but the British high command seemed to lose their initial enthusiasm during the time Ferguson was recuperating from an injury. The British remained wedded to the idea of charges leading to bayonet combat and did not want to engage the Continentals in a shooting war where accuracy might be a factor. With his death these rifles go into the refuse bin forever and the breach-loading rifle waits for another inventor. Had the British understood the significance of Ferguson’s invention and reorganized their strategy around a weapon that, with no sacrifice in accuracy, could be reloaded in a fraction of the time it took to ready a musket, we might all still be singing “God Save the Queen.” But fortunately the British never understood the significance of Ferguson’s invention until long after the revolutionary war.
At Cowpens, the second example, an elite force of British troops was completely decimated in the face of well-coordinated fire from a mixture of local militia and Continental troops. Here General Daniel Morgan places his rifle-equipped sharpshooters in front, with a second line of militia, also with rifles, behind them. As the British charge begins, Morgan’s sharpshooters fire, aiming at the officers and picking them off while the British are still a considerable distance away. The first line retreats into the second line and the British continue their charge as this now re-enforced second line aims at the charging troops and fires depleting their lines before the British are even within firing distance. The riflemen then fall back and disappear behind a small hill. The British assume victory is at hand. Unknown to the British, a third line awaits them at the top of the hill, and as the British approach, this group of musket-equipped Continentals aims and fires at close range. Now it is the British who finally break and run.
In the spring of 1777, Franklin finally gets his treaty with the French. In the years that follow, von Steuben’s new tactics pay off, and in the months following the British failure in the Carolinas, Washington moves against Cornwallis, trapping him in Virginia between the Continental Army and the French Navy. The war ends. The Blue Book becomes the standard text of infantry warfare and even the British eventually change their tactics.
At Valley Forge, von Steuben introduced a process for the use of technology as a change agent. First, he understood the technology relative to the needs of the Continental Army. Second, he planned the change. He then trained the troops under the new plan and finally the troops executed it. No new technology was employed. Von Steuben simply used existing technology in a new way to create a profound change in how battles were fought. The British, on the other hand, never fully realized that the technology of the musket and rifle made the bayonet charge obsolete.
* *** *
Now let’s fast forward from the 18th to the 21st century and from weaponry to educational technology. Has technology lived up to its promise in education or are we still awaiting the arrival of a von Steuben in our midst?
Views differ on the impact of technology on teaching and learning and, in research circles, technology as a tool for improving student learning is still being debated. There is no question that acquiring technological skills is valuable in the workplace and that schools are responding with appropriate technology courses. It is less clear that technology is being integrated into our classrooms and traditional subject areas effectively and in a manner that produces measurable results.
While there may be many contributing factors, I think a key factor is the lack of dialogue between the education and the technology sides of a school district. As a result, I think that the first step, understanding the value of technology relative to the issues, is frequently incomplete.
An example will illustrate my opinion. Approximately ten years ago I studied the use of technology in approximately forty model technology schools on their use of technology. In the elementary schools I found extensive use of the word processor for writing. Over half of the teachers interviewed, however, did not allow their students to compose or even edit on line. Instead, the students entered finished papers for publication. I do not think that I would find similar results today but I might find a similar disconnect if I looked at a different application.
Reading research has led the U.S. Department of Education to require all reading programs aimed at the primary grades to contain five components – phonemic awareness, phonics, oral fluency, comprehension and vocabulary. In every school district in this country a dialogue should have occurred between the technology and the reading departments about what, if anything, technology could contribute to successfully addressing each of these five components. Did that happen? What kind of applications might have been discussed if it had?
One idea is to use the computer to record progress in the development of oral fluency and perhaps even allow students guided practice with modeled readings. It is virtually impossible for a teacher to provide adequate oral practice to all students and even more difficult for teachers to frequently evaluate the results. It is relatively easy, however, to digitally store recordings. With little effort a district could offer modeled readings and opportunities for student practice. Students could store a selected oral reading for the teacher’s review. The teacher could grade it at a convenient time and review it with the student. An oral reading portfolio could be developed and even used in teacher-parent conferences. In the same way that the technology for von Steuben’s changes already existed in the army, the technology necessary for this change exists in almost all American classrooms.
Whether or not the idea has merit is not the point. The point is first, whether or not the dialog took place and second, if it is considered a good idea was there an experimental site established to test the decision. There needs to be a process in school districts that helps understand the technology not on its own terms but in terms of the educational objectives of the school district. The dialog about reading could range from the use of media to improve comprehension to the relationship between reading and writing to the use of the web to create virtual learning communities or students with common interests.
Once the decisions are made to implement ideas they must then be tested and continually re-visited because conditions and time will eventually make good solutions obsolete.
* *** *
By fast forwarding from early July, 1776, to early July, 1863, we find the times demanded different answers to the same questions of military strategy. On July 3, 1863, exactly 87 years after General Howe’s troops landed on Staten Island, one of the most famous charges in American military history took place within an hour’s drive of Valley Forge. Picket’s Charge was the end of the Battle of Gettysburg. Into a world of changed weaponry marched thousands of Confederate soldiers in an uphill charge of approximately one mile. Few made it to the top and thousands never came back. As good a general as Lee was, on that day he misjudged the changes brought about by the technological advance in weapons and the accuracy of his artillery bombardment. It was the beginning of the end of the Civil War.
|
