Hess Earl J. Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864
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188 Chancellorsville
The stone wall at Marye’s Hill, Chancellorsville campaign. This famous Andrew J.
Russell photograph was taken on May 3 and shows the dead of the 18th Mississippi,
which unsuccessfully defended the position against the 5th Wisconsin, 31st New York,
23rd Pennsylvania, and 6th Maine. Note how the wall forms a good breastwork at this
location. (Massachusetts Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the
U.S. Army Military History Institute)
fire, particularly down a slope, than the most elaborate intrenchments.’’ The
artillery epaulements ‘‘covered the pieces well enough, but didn’t pretend to
be works. It was evident they depended on the position & not on the works. It
is certainly, both for artillery & infantry fire, the best position that can be
imagined, being just the right slope & having spines which run out from the
hills & enfilade a great part of the slope.’’ Yet the Federals captured this
position with one decisive stroke.
≤∂
The fighting became fluid after the collapse of the bluff line, and earth-
works played little role in it. Early retreated southwest along Telegraph Road
to regroup, while Sedgwick pushed westward along Orange Plank Road
toward Chancellorsville. Wilcox managed to evacuate Taylor’s Hill soon
enough to get ahead of Sedgwick’s column at Salem Church, some four miles
west of Fredericksburg, where a slight ridge offered a viable position. Wilcox
was joined by elements of McLaws’s division that had been rushed eastward
by Lee. The fighting swirled around Salem Church. No breastworks or earth-
Chancellorsville 189
works were employed, as this was a pitched battle and there was no time to
fortify, but Wilcox’s men used the brick church as a blockhouse. The Federal
drive west was stopped here.
≤∑
That night, Wilcox’s men dug in at Salem Church. There was hardly a
spade or pick in the brigade, so the Alabamans used whatever they could
find. While some loosened the earth with bayonets, others used tin plates
and even their hands to pile it into a parapet. Sedgwick did not dig in that
night. The next morning, May 4, Early adroitly moved back to the bluffs
outside Fredericksburg, which were lightly held by the Federals, and easily
recaptured most of them. This placed Sedgwick in a quandary. He could not
retreat to the town, and the way west was blocked by Wilcox and McLaws.
The alternative was to retreat northward and secure Banks’s Ford as a link
across the Rappahannock to the North, as Hooker had already done with
United States Ford farther west. Sedgwick repositioned his men to form a
bridgehead protecting access to Banks’s Ford. It was a long line that included
Taylor’s Hill, but there is no indication that it was fortified.
≤∏
Lee was desperate to strike in order to take advantage of his success. He
wanted both Federal forces pushed across the river as soon as possible and
was frustrated with the delay consequent on repositioning troops during the
course of May 4. Finally, near evening, a large Rebel force attacked Sedg-
wick’s left wing. Although his line held, the Federal commander pulled back
and shortened his defensive perimeter. He also ordered his troops to dig in.
Sedgwick received no assurance of support from Hooker and did not know if
holding his bridgehead was worth sacrificing his men. It is unclear whether
any fortifying began along the shortened perimeter, but Sedgwick aban-
doned it and retreated across the river on the night of May 4.
≤π
The other bridgehead, laboriously built by Hooker’s men, was a much
tougher objective. It had been laid out on the night of May 2 by Gouverneur
K. Warren and Capt. Cyrus B. Comstock. The line created a bulge three and a
half miles long and three miles wide; the right rested on the Rapidan, and
the left remained on the Rappahannock to cover the pontoon bridges at
United States Ford. Hooker placed six corps, some 50,000 men and 106 guns,
in this position. The line was well placed to take advantage of the terrain. On
the right it ran behind Hunting Run, which became a deep and imposing
valley the closer it flowed to the Rapidan. It turned and paralleled Ely’s Ford
Road to its junction with Bullock Road; then it veered off sharply along
Mineral Springs Road to run toward the Rappahannock.
≤∫
The Federals worked on this line for the rest of May 3 and May 4 while
Sedgwick was fighting near Salem Church. They were annoyed a great deal
by Confederate sharpshooters. Brig. Gen. Amiel W. Whipple, commander of
190 Chancellorsville
a division in the Third Corps, was killed while supervising the construction
of works on his part of the line. Pioneers of the Third Corps also cut a military
road three miles long through the woods to give easier access to United
States Ford. Work on the fortifications never really ended until the campaign
itself came to an end, which illustrates how thoroughly the Federals had
learned the value of field fortifications. Charles Mattocks of the 17th Maine
in the Third Corps reported that three Rebel shells smashed into the new
parapet in front of his regiment on May 4 but harmed no one. He compared
this to what had happened the day before, when a single shell exploded in
his company and killed two men and wounded five more. ‘‘I am strongly in
favor of fortifying now,’’ he recorded.
≤Ω
This fortified bridgehead far exceeded anything dug before in the cam-
paign. In fact, it was better than any fieldworks dug by either army in 1861–
62, with the possible exception of the Warwick Line at Yorktown. One must
look to the Confederate fortifications at Mine Run and to the 1864 campaigns
in Virginia to find comparable works, although Chancellorsville provided the
precedent.
The 29th Pennsylvania, a Twelfth Corps regiment commanded by Lt. Col.
William Rickards Jr., was responsible for a length of line 200 paces long.
Rickards’s men first made a breastwork of logs and earth four feet tall and
then placed a headlog on top, raising it four inches above the parapet. This is
the first recorded use of a headlog in the eastern campaigns and predates the
well-known headlogs on the Twelfth Corps line on Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg
by two months. Rickards’s men had only ‘‘six old worn-out axes’’ and ‘‘three
or four picks and spades,’’ so most of them used bayonets and tin plates to
build this work in twenty-four hours. They were quite pleased with the re-
sult, ‘‘making a very secure defense, and from behind which we felt confident
that we could defend ourselves from a much superior force to our own.’’
≥≠
All along the line, Hooker’s position was impressive, and much of it is well
preserved. Starting with the apex of the bridgehead at the junction of the
three roads, the Yankees dug a small but strong V-shaped earthwork so that
one wing could fire down Ely’s Ford Road and the other could aim down
Bullock Road. Three traverses, 15 feet long and spaced 15 feet apart, adorn
the right wing to protect against enfilade fire. There is an artillery emplace-
ment next to the third traverse, but the rest are designed to protect infantry.
There is a good trench and parapet here, but not a good ditch, while a short
retrenchment covers the left flank of this little work.
Along Ely’s Ford Road, the Federals placed several traverses from 6 to
20 yards apart behind the line. Most of these traverses are 20 feet long, but
some are only 6 feet long, and all were made by digging earth on both sides
Chancellorsville 191
Bullock
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One-gun emplacement
One-gun emplacement
(ten feet lower than Main Line)
(ten feet lower than Main Line)
Firing bays for infantry
Firing bays for infantry
Second Corps line,
Second Corps line,
April 30
April 30
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May 3
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One-gun emplacement
(ten feet lower than Main Line)
Firing bays for infantry
Second Corps line,
April 30–May 3
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Union Fortified Bridgehead Covering United States Ford, May 3–5, 1863 (based on field
visit, 1995)
and piling it up to make a thick, tall bank. The Federals planted a one-gun
artillery emplacement just to the rear of this section of the line, angled so it
could fire toward the apex, but it is on ground about 10 feet lower than that
of the main line.
The most impressive remaining section lies along Mineral Springs Road,
from the apex stretching northeastward. The remnants begin about 50 yards
192 Chancellorsville
from the apex, where there is a series of bays in the trench created by small
traverses made inside the trench itself. This is a feature common to fieldworks
in 1864, especially in the Atlanta campaign, but unusual for the first half of the
war. Each bay is about 10 feet wide. Then there is a section consisting of two
traverses, 10 feet long, each with the earth banked toward the apex, and a
third section follows with seven huge, long traverses dug on both sides. These
are 20 yards long and are spaced about 20 to 75 yards apart, and some connect
with the parapet of the main line while others end at the trench.
The Federals dug a two-gun artillery emplacement about 200 yards from
the apex, but they placed it 40 yards in front of the main line, not behind it.
The emplacement has a good parapet in front, long traverses for flank pro-
tection, a third traverse separating the two gun platforms, and even a short
traverse to the rear. Farther along the line the Federals constructed a bulging
salient that protrudes 30 yards forward of the main line and is 60 yards wide.
The reason for this and the forward artillery emplacement probably lies in a
desire to cover a small flat area in the landscape that lies before the main
line. A substantial ravine is located just north of this flat area, and the salient
allowed the Yankees to deliver enfilade fire into any Rebels who tried to
approach the line along its bottom. On the other side of the ravine, the line is
indented to allow oblique fire. Another 250 yards farther north, the line
approaches another ravine where a short retrenchment was dug on the
shoulder of the ravine slope.
The innovative, even quirky, configuration of this line is another charac-
teristic of field fortifications dug in 1864. Warren and Comstock were not
responsible for this; they simply identified the ground on which the line was
to take shape. The diggers—the men in the ranks and their noncommis-
sioned and commissioned officers—were responsible for these little nuances.
The line appears to have been dug quickly by men who nevertheless invested
a lot of thought into how the work could help them. It looks like something
patched together by several different people who did not always coordinate
their efforts. For example, the protruding bulge appears to have been built
separately, and the men who dug the main line simply attached the parapet
wherever they happened to approach it. Both sides of the bulge extend some
distance to the rear of the main line, the right side much farther than the left.
It is unlikely this was planned, but it is effective. The rearward extension
on the left side of the bulge offers soldiers the opportunity to fire to the
left, toward the ravine, although over the heads of friendly troops. The fact
that the traverses are dug differently—some have a trench with all the dirt
thrown on one side, while others are dug equally on both sides, and several
have different lengths—also indicates that individuals or squads or perhaps
Chancellorsville 193
even companies had different ideas about how to make a good earthwork.
All of these characteristics are typical of the extensive field fortifications dug
in the last year of the war and uncharacteristic of those dug before the end of
1863, with only a few exceptions. In short, what we can see of the fortified
bridgehead today reveals it to be an exceptionally strong field fortification,
an assessment fully supported by all surviving descriptions of it in the pri-
mary literature.
≥∞
On the Confederate side of the battlefield, Stuart’s men do not seem to
have fortified their position until the evening of May 4, in response to a
report that the Federals might be ready to attack. There was the usual short-
age of proper tools. The men used ‘‘bayonets instead of picks and mattucks
and their hands instead of shovels and spades,’’ recalled a soldier named
John Wood. The 12th Georgia of Brig. Gen. George Doles’s brigade received
orders to dig in at 5:00 p.m. that day. There were only one or two axes in the
regiment and a few bayonets, but the men built a rough work of planks and
logs. They were able to improve it later that night when a supply of spades
and picks arrived.
≥≤
The line these men built was exactly like most of the field fortifications
at Chancellorsville, quite strong and serviceable, but not as impressive as
Hooker’s fortified bridgehead. Much of the captured Union line was incorpo-
rated into Stuart’s work. The line started at the far right end of the Twelfth
Corps line that had been dug on May 1 and 2 and curved eastward across
Bullock Road. Here it connected with Berry’s Third Corps Division line at a
rather sharp angle, wrapping around the north end of Berry’s work. The Reb-
els dug three traverses at this angle. Each one is ten feet long, dug on both
sides, and attached at right angles to the parapet. These were constructed for
infantry protection, as there are no artillery emplacements nearby.
One can easily see how the Confederates merged their defenses with
Berry’s. Their line curved around the end of Berry’s line, and the extreme
right end of the Union work still exists just behind the newer Confederate
work. Then the Rebels moved their line a bit to take advantage of Berry’s
parapet. They dug a trench on the west side of it, the outside of the Union
work, and used the Federal trench as a ditch in front of their newly claimed
parapet. As a result, the parapet is much thicker than usual. Few other
fieldworks at Chancellorsville have the benefit of an exterior ditch.
≥≥
Stuart’s line was intended for defensive purposes, to enable the Confeder-
ates to hold the ground they had won on May 3, but Lee had no intention of
remaining on the defensive near Chancellorsville. As soon as it was clear that
Sedgwick had retired across the Rappahannock, Lee initiated plans to attack
Hooker’s fortified bridgehead and drive his men across the Rapidan. Edward
Chancellor House
Chancellor House
Bullock
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Stuart’s line, built
s line, built
on evening of May 4
on evening of May 4
Twelfth Corps line,
Twelfth Corps line,
built night of May 2,
built night of May 2,
captured by Stuart May 3
captured by Stuart May 3
Twelfth Corps line,
Twelfth Corps line,
May 1
May 1
–2, captured by
2, captured by
Jackson on evening
Jackson on evening
of May 2
of May 2
Berry
Berry
’s line, May 2
s line, May 2
Stuart’s line, May 4
s line, May 4
Double-thick parapet
Double-thick parapet
created by digging
created by digging
Berry
Berry
’s U.S. trench (east)
s U.S. trench (east)
and Stuart
and Stuart
’s C.S. trench (west)
s C.S. trench (west)
Second Corps line,
Second Corps line,
April 30
April 30
–May 3
May 3
Abatis
Abatis
Firing bays
Firing bays
for infantry
for infantry
Twelfth Corps line,
Twelfth Corps line,
May 1
May 1
–2, captured by
2, captured by
Jackson on evening
Jackson on evening
of May 2
of May 2
Chancellor House
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Stuart’s line, built
on evening of May 4
Twelfth Corps line,
built night of May 2,
captured by Stuart May 3
Twelfth Corps line,
May 1–2, captured by
Jackson on evening
of May 2
Berry’s line, May 2
Stuart’s line, May 4
Double-thick parapet
created by digging
Berry’s U.S. trench (east)
and Stuart’s C.S. trench (west)
Second Corps line,
April 30–May 3
Abatis
Firing bays
for infantry
Twelfth Corps line,
May 1–2, captured by
Jackson on evening
of May 2
Woods
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Chancellorsville, May 2–3, 1863 (based on field visit, 1995)
Chancellorsville 195
Porter Alexander received orders to scout the area for positions from which
he could obtain an enfilade fire on the bridgehead. He found a place for a
half-dozen guns near the extreme left of the Union line, but it was impossible
to get a good enfilade fire from there or anywhere else. Alexander was
certain any attack on this field fortress was doomed, but he used 100 men to
dig emplacements and had the six guns ready by dawn of May 6.
Fortunately for the Rebels, Hooker evacuated his bridgehead. Warren and
Comstock laid out a shorter line inside the position on May 5. It was three
miles long and ran from the Rappahannock to the mouth of Hunting Run on
the Rapidan. A continuous parapet with abatis in front was constructed by
two divisions of the Fifth Corps, and Warren used pioneers from several
different corps to put the finishing touches on the line. He placed timber
barricades across each road after the troops had passed through the line.
Hooker’s men crossed the river that night as the Fifth Corps held this shorter
line; the rear guard made it to the north bank by 8:00 a.m. of May 6.
Lee was disappointed by this move. He seems to have thought his army,
although bloodied and depleted, could take the fortified bridgehead. His
assessment was not shared by any of his subordinates who left an opinion for
posterity. Alexander was sure the army would be mauled if it attempted the
charge. He later wrote that the greatest Federal blunder of the campaign was
the retreat on the night of May 5, as Hooker’s entrenched line was ‘‘ ‘impreg-
nable.’ ’’ If Lee had attacked and lost, Hooker likely would have retreated
across the river anyway. But then the battle of Chancellorsville would have
ended with a Confederate tactical defeat similar to the repulse of Pickett’s
Charge at Gettysburg.
The Confederates had many opportunities to examine the bridgehead in
detail after the Yankees retreated. They found works of the most intricate
design, lines ‘‘crossing each other like the squares on a checkerboard,’’ re-
marked Capt. W. L. Fagan of the 8th Alabama in Wilcox’s brigade. Fagan had
never seen such formidable works. ‘‘They were carefully constructed of fresh
green logs piled upon each other, longitudinal pyramids as high as a man’s
shoulders. Above, on stakes, with a crack between for muskets, was a large
head-log.’’ Carefully constructed abatis lay for 100 yards before the works,
and the tree cover was so thick beyond the abatis that artillery could hardly
be emplaced to support the infantry attack. Foot soldiers would have found it
nearly impossible to breach the abatis anyway, thought Fagan, and the cap-
tain concluded that, if defended with spirit, the bridgehead could not have
been taken.
≥∂
The battle cost the Federals 17,304 casualties, while Lee’s army lost 13,460
men. The battlefield was strewn with debris, personal belongings of soldiers,
196 Chancellorsville
and lots of army equipment. Staff member Henry E. Young found that small
details poorly supplied with shovels and picks had managed to bury most of
the Confederate dead by the evening of May 5, but they continued to bury
the Federal dead for days afterward. Often these details used the trenches as
graves, piling the corpses in and pulling down dirt from the parapet. The
thick tree cover was shivered by artillery and intense small arms fire; trunks
were shredded, and limbs were broken and scattered in all directions. The
earthworks remained as stark reminders of the battle. William J. Reese, an
Alabama artilleryman, found Union works made of ‘‘knapsacks filled with
sand’’ and any other material that could stop a bullet. Three months later, a
clerk on Longstreet’s staff named Lancelot M. Blackford rode around the
battlefield and was impressed by the maze of earthworks. ‘‘On either side of
the road for 5 or 6 miles, the whole country is cut up with trenches and
fortifications,’’ he wrote. ‘‘The positions of the enemy’s lines and ours, during
the days of the battle, were so often exchanged, . . . that it is often impossible
now, even for one with some familiarity with the field, to distinguish the
enemy’s & our rifle-pits.’’
≥∑
The Chancellorsville campaign introduced the extensive use of rapid field
fortification to the eastern theater, but one wonders if the battle of Chancel-
lorsville was necessary. Lee could have retreated from Hooker’s grasp on
May 1 and retired to a defensible position farther south, such as Spotsyl-
vania, from which Hooker would have had difficulty maneuvering him just
as Grant would have a similar difficulty in 1864. Lee could have avoided
fighting a battle at great cost to his small army, but he would have had to give
up the line of the Rappahannock, something he was determined not to do.
The result was a spectacular victory for the Confederates, often described as
Lee’s finest moment on the battlefield and among the best fighting done by
his army. It instilled a renewed confidence among the men and a conviction
in Lee’s mind that his army could do anything. Gettysburg was one of the
direct results of this overconfidence.
≥∏
Another result of their victory at Chancellorsville was, ironically, a return
to the old mood of the last half of 1862, to discount the value of earthworks.
Even though Lee’s men were impressed with Hooker’s field fortifications and
awed by the fortified bridgehead, they realized that spirited drives and hard
fighting had overcome defensive works. The Twelfth Corps and Third Corps
line had fallen on the morning of May 3 even though they were shielded by
earthworks. The fact that Lee was more than ready to strike at the bridge-
head indicates that he had learned no lesson about the tactical strengths of
well-made fieldworks. Lee had reached the peak of his aggressiveness in the
late spring and early summer of 1863.
Chancellorsville 197
The landscape of the Wilderness played a significant role in shaping the
course of the battle. The thick vegetation limited visibility for everyone,
it hindered a commander’s ability to mount large-scale infantry assaults, and
it severely hampered the artillery’s efforts to support attacks. Confederate
sources often noted the effectiveness of the abatis constructed by the Fed-
erals and imply that it was a better barrier to their assaults than the works
themselves. Alexander recognized that it was easy to quickly construct lines
of defense in this forest, for simply by cutting the small trees and brush, ‘‘an
entanglement would result which only rabbits could get through.’’
≥π
A year later, when Lee met Grant in the Wilderness to open the spring
1864 campaign, many commentators justified that move by arguing that the
tangled vegetation offered the Rebels an advantage. They could meet the
Federals in a landscape that nullified the greater Union weight in men and
cannon. There is little basis for such an argument, for the vegetation affected
both armies. It was difficult terrain to operate in whether one wore blue or
gray, and Lee’s attacks on May 3, 1863, were greatly disrupted by the trees.
Rebel artillery officer David Gregg McIntosh perceptively noted this while
touring the battlefield decades later. ‘‘At times there was much demoraliza-
tion,’’ he wrote of the infantry attacks.
Organized bodies of troops left the Federal front, and withdrew after
firing a few rounds. Some of the Confederate commands after two or
three unsuccessful assaults upon the enemy’s lines became discouraged,
and it required the utmost efforts of their officers to keep them up to their
work. The lines of battle when organized for attack, would soon be bro-
ken in passing through the undergrowth and woods; one organization
would lose touch with those on its flanks before the force of the assault
could be delivered, and the consequence was a series of disjointed attacks
without flanking support, and without reserves sufficiently strong to ren-
der support and renew the attack at the opportune moment.
≥∫
Later commentators failed to understand that Lee won at Chancellorsville
not because of the terrain but because Hooker failed to take advantage of his
many opportunities to beat Lee. The vegetation of the Wilderness hindered
Confederate chances of tactical success as much as it limited Union chances.
The Confederates won despite the tree cover, not because of it, and they
were lucky that Hooker never engaged his large reserve. They were also
fortunate to have captured Hazel Grove, which offered them the only good
ground on which to deploy and make use of their guns against the Yankees.
If the landscape offered Lee little advantage, what role did the fieldworks
play for each side at Chancellorsville? The Army of the Potomac had dug