Dear Mr. Cornwell: As a Civil War buff, I started reading Sharpe to gain insights into the Napoleonic Wars. Union and Rebs trained at West Point studied those tactics and seem to have adopted the British rather than French tactics: fight in two lines rather than assault in heavy columns. Yet, by 1862 both armies were predominately rifle companies. One would have thought fighting shoulder to shoulder would have been abandoned and the skirmish line advance (as seen in WWII) been tried. It seems the Union army, with its superior man power, could have strung out the Rebs to the point where Union reserves could have penetrated any point with relative ease. I’d appreciate your thoughts on what new tactics should have been obvious to the generals on both sides by, say, Gettysburg. David Walter