Besides being a Civil War historian, I am also a historian of the Napoleonic era. The French Grande Armee had a powerful affect on militaries world-wide especially the US Army. This was typically done through the writings on Antoine Jomini, an officer who served with Napoleon, and Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian officer who fought against him. By the way - Jomini missed the boat and Clausewitz got it right, but his book had not been translated into English by the time of the Civil War.

Jomini's influence was taught to US Army cadets via Dennis Hart Mahan, probably the most influential teacher at West Point in the 19th Century. His effect on such Civil War officers as McClellan and Halleck is quite evident if you study their campaigns.

The French Army had two types of basic infantry, each trained to do its special job and one cross-trained to do another. The line infantry (heavy infantry if you will), was a regular regiment taught to move and fight like typical Civil War infantry. Regiments at this time were much larger than US Civil War regiments - anywhere from 2000-3000 men each, broken down into from two to three maneuver battalions. English regiments were similar and it was rare that all maneuver battalions fought together in the field. One was typically posted at home for recruiting and replacement purposes.

The other infantry component of the Grande Armee were the legere (light) regiments. These could also fight as line infantry and often did, but their specialist training was as skirmishers. Unlike Civil War regiments that might send one or two companies to their skirmish line, entire regiments of light infantry did that job for the French. Napoleon was a big believer in masses of skirmishers and they were quite effective in softening up an enemy line (along with his fabulous artillery) before being attacked.

Since warfare in this time was more combined arms oriented than in the Civil War, as legere regiments moved to skirmish they also have some artillery and several squadrons of cavalry as support. The cavalry was to protect them against enemy cavalry attack. Loose formations of men were very tempting targets for enemy cavalry. The guns provided fire support if needed.

French cavalry, by the way, was divided into three basic components - heavy (the armored curassiers), medium (dragoons), and light (hussars and lancers). American cavalry doctrine only comes from light cavalry, which, by the way, set us back in the Civil War early on.

Other European nations had some sort of light infantry as well. The British had their rifle regiments and the Prussians and other German states had jaegers (hunters). So the concept was not French alone.

Hope this helps.

Greg Biggs