8. There were several other friendly fire incidents in the American Civil War
The American Civil War featured numerous examples of friendly fire. James Longstreet, who had advised against the frontal attack at Gettysburg known as Pickett’s Charge, suffered a severe wound inflicted by his own men at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. He was absent from Lee’s army during the bloody drive down the Peninsula. When he rejoined the army in October, he found it already trapped in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg. One of over 100 documented instances of friendly fire inflicting casualties during the course of the war, Longstreet survived. Friendly fire incidents occurred aboard ships of the Union blockade. Blockade runners, using the inlets along the South’s Atlantic coast, frequently found themselves under fire from Confederate troops and artillery.
They also occurred among larger units, including whole regiments. During the Battle of Antietam the Union’s 9th New York Regiment, believing they were attacking a Confederate unit, engaged the 5th Massachusetts Regiment. The two Union regiments exchanged several volleys of fire, both suffering heavy casualties. At Antietam alone, eleven separate friendly fire incidents occurred in the Union Army, accounting for over 1,000 casualties in dead and wounded. Whenever troops engaged in wooded areas, and sometimes even in open fields, friendly fire incidents were apt to occur. During the Civil War, the high rate of fire produced clouds of thick smoke, which obscured the field of battle and led to the misidentification of opposing units through much of the war.
