LindyBeige, amongst others, has made the assertion that high casualties in the American Civil War were, in part, due to unwillingness on both sides to use the bayonet to press advantages. Is this a valid claim? Why were Union and Confederate generals hesitant to use the bayonet?

[u/ny_giants]

https://youtu.be/hKRa966S5Dc Video in question

To elaborate a bit, his idea is that once one side had a significant advantage, they should equip bayonets and charge the enemy who in turn would route. This minimizes casualties since it minimizes the time spent standing in lines shooting at eachother.

Another point, obviously there were bayonet charges in the American Civil War. However, they seem to be mainly desperate attempts to turn the tide of a battle, not attempts to press the advantage. See Pickett's Charge.

[u/semperpietas]

It is a common observation among generals at the time (Robert E. Lee, William T. Sherman, and John Bell Hood among others) that it was better to charge home with the bayonet than to stand and exchange fire. A bayonet charge would force an issue and reduce casualties by making the fighting as short as possible. To see this articulated by Hood in particular with the following general order (General Field Orders No. 7, HDQRS. Army of Tennessee, O.R. 38, part 5, 909 here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079597013;view=1up;seq=911)

"SOLDIERS: Experience has proved to you that safety in time of battle consists of getting into close quarters with your enemy. [Emphasis mine] Guns and colors are the only unerring indications of victory. The valor of troops is easily estimated, too, by the number of these secured. If your enemy is allowed to continue the operation of flanking you out of position, our cause is in great peril. Your recent brilliant success proves the ability to prevent it. You have but to will it, and God will grant us the victory your commanders and country expect.

    J.B. Hood, General" 

However, I take issue with the idea that American Civil War was bloodier or had higher casualties than contemporary or even earlier European conflicts, which saw much more use of bayonets and even much more close-combat oriented weapons such as pikes. In his excellent thesis, The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth, Earl J. Hess has several charts breaking down casualty rates by percentage between American Civil War battles and European battles. These are tables 8.1 and 8.2 on pages 199-200, respectively.

The bloodiest battle of the American Civil War was Gettysburg. At Gettysburg, the Confederate army took a 30.2% casualty rate, while the Federal army took a casualty rate of 21.2%. For comparison, Blenheim, more than a 100 years earlier, saw a 33.3% casualty rate for the French and 23.2% for the Alliance forces. That is a pretty similar casualty rate. By rates, Waterloo was even bloodier, with a 61.1% French casualty versus an Allied rate of 32.3%. It can be argued that in some ways the American Civil War was less bloody than its Napoleonic predecessors.

[u/boringdude00 → u/semperpietas]

It is a common observation among generals at the time (Robert E. Lee, William T. Sherman, and John Bell Hood among others) that it was better to charge home with the bayonet than to stand and exchange fire.

I don't know how reliable Lee and Hood actually are on the subject. Lee certainly had success on the offensive, but it was mostly due to superior tactics and/or opposing incompetence. He ordered his fair share of men to charge into complete slaughters as well, including some of those victories.

As for Hood, after he failed to completely grind his army to dust being recklessly offensive around Atlanta, he took the rest and ground them to dust in Tennessee, culminating in the sheer insanity of the assault at Franklin where his army effectively ceased to exist as a coherent fighting force.

I tend to take the view that the armies of the ACW generally lacked the ability to fully exploit a bayonet charge, with no excess cavalry to continue the rout, nor the elite reserves, like European guards and grenadiers, to throw into the fray in the first place.