Hess Earl J. Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864
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208 Goldsborough, New Bern, Washington, and Suffolk
he accepted the fact that he could not starve Washington into surrender, and
he had no intention of wasting valuable manpower by attacking such a
strong position. The Confederates pulled out on the night of April 15. The
Federals sent out black laborers to level the Confederate batteries north of
the Tar and occupied Rodman’s Point.
∞Ω
Despite his greater efforts at Washington, Hill was no more successful
than he had been at New Bern. Again, the superior Union earthworks were
the key. The Confederates did not feel that recapturing either town was
worth the huge investment of time and resources needed to construct siege
approaches. They primarily wanted to collect food. Any offensive victory
over the Union garrisons would have to be bought at little cost. When Fed-
eral defensive measures raised the ante too high, the Southerners gave up
their efforts. In a situation like this, all the advantages lay with the defend-
ing Yankees.
Suffolk
While Hill fretted at New Bern and Washington, Longstreet began the
largest Confederate effort to gather food and seize an occupied town. Suffolk
became the chief focus of his effort. It had been occupied shortly after the
Rebels evacuated Norfolk and Portsmouth on May 9, 1862, and lay twenty
miles northwest of those port cities. Suffolk had barely 1,400 residents, half
of whom were black, and it lay on the Nansemond River just north of the
Dismal Swamp. The Nansemond emptied into the James twenty miles down-
river. Jericho Canal, big enough for small skiffs, ran east of town and con-
nected the Nansemond with the Dismal Swamp. The land around Suffolk
was ‘‘flat, intersected by swampy streams, and half grown up in woods,
mostly the Southern pine,’’ according to Union staff officer Hazard Stevens.
Two railroads ran through town, and Petersburg was only thirty miles to the
northwest.
Suffolk was too far from the important coastal towns the Federals needed
to occupy and too exposed to Rebel strikes in the middle ground between
Petersburg and Norfolk. The Yankees maintained a tiny garrison there until
Maj. Gen. John J. Peck took command on September 22, 1862. He increased
the troop strength to 9,000 and set the men to work fortifying the place.
The Confederates made no serious move against Suffolk, as they were pre-
occupied with more important objectives to the north of Richmond. Follow-
ing the defeat at Fredericksburg, Burnside’s Ninth Corps was detached from
the Army of the Potomac and temporarily encamped at Newport News. This
was another reason Lee sent Longstreet with Hood’s and Pickett’s divisions
to the Richmond area. Longstreet had 14,000 men, and Samuel G. French
Goldsborough, New Bern, Washington, and Suffolk 209
added his division, another 4,000 men, to that force. News of this transfer
led the Federals to detach Brig. Gen. George W. Getty’s division of the Ninth
Corps to reinforce Peck, while the other two divisions were sent to the
Mississippi Valley under Burnside. Peck now had nearly 15,000 men and the
support of three small gunboats in the Nansemond.
≤≠
Peck, a West Point graduate, had been commissioned in the artillery and
had fought in Mexico and on the frontier. He had resigned from the army in
1853 to enter business in Syracuse, New York, but participated in the Penin-
sula campaign and the Seven Days. His division of the Fourth Corps re-
mained at Yorktown following the latter campaign, and Peck wound up at
Suffolk. The exposed nature of the post and the fact that his huge garrison
had little else to do accounts for the large amount of labor he expended on its
defense. Suffolk has no naturally defensible ground; the landscape around it
is utterly flat. Peck laid out a rectangular line of works that surrounded the
town on the south side of the river and included nine forts and several
batteries. Connecting infantry works enclosed the circle, which totaled eight
miles in length and required seven months of hard labor. Peck ignored the
stretch of river from Suffolk downstream, assuming the gunboats would
protect that area. There were several older Confederate works along the
river. The most important was constructed during May and June 1861 at
Hill’s Point, where the Western Branch flowed from the west into the Nanse-
mond about eight miles downriver from Suffolk. The river narrows here
considerably as one steams upriver. The Confederate fort was a reworking of
a redoubt called Old Fort because it dated to the War of 1812. The Confeder-
ates renamed it Fort Huger.
≤∞
Longstreet originated the plan to strike at Suffolk in March 1863 and
convinced Lee of its propriety. His objectives were to protect Richmond from
a possible thrust from the southeast, to gather food, and to recapture Suffolk
and other towns if the opportunity presented itself. Longstreet reached the
Suffolk area by April 11. After reconnoitering, he felt certain he could take
the place by assault at a cost of 5,000 irreplaceable troops. Suffolk was not
important enough to justify that cost, but Longstreet explored the stretch of
river downstream from town, thinking he might be able to maneuver the
Federals out.
≤≤
The Confederates dug in two to three miles from the Federal lines, with
Pickett on the south side of town, French on the west, and Hood on the
north. Hood also was responsible for probing toward the Nansemond River
east of town, and his moves prompted Getty to scout the riverbanks and urge
Peck to dig new works to prevent the Rebels from crossing. Peck approved,
and Getty masterminded, a project of earthwork construction that effec-
210 Goldsborough, New Bern, Washington, and Suffolk
tively closed the only open door to Suffolk in the nick of time. Peck shifted
troops to these works, which were built over the course of several days. They
consisted of a line of detached works along the south bank of the river, linked
by a ten-mile military road that connected Suffolk with the area opposite
Hill’s Point. Many of the detached works seem to have been eventually con-
nected by lines of infantry trench. Hood’s division constructed less extensive,
detached works at key locations near the north bank of the Nansemond, as
the Confederates gradually realized that there were no good crossings of the
river that the Yankees had not already fortified.
≤≥
Meanwhile, Peck used the rest of his force to strengthen the already
substantial works around Suffolk. His men grew tired of the incessant dig-
ging. A veteran of the 16th Connecticut recalled after the war that Peck
‘‘kept fortifying and refortifying until his soldiers had become regular mud-
diggers, and he had spent no end of labor and money in constructing works
of immense magnitude, to defend a position not worth holding. There was
digging and basket-weaving to an extent that went far toward developing
the talents of the soldiers for farm work.’’ His men, sick of fashioning ga-
bions, called themselves ‘‘The Basket-Makers of the Nansemond.’’
≤∂
By the time both sides had finished exploring each other’s positions on
opposite sides of the river, the strategic character of the campaign for Suf-
folk had already been set. Longstreet gave up the possibility of forcing his
way through the ring of earthworks, and his only hope was to completely
encircle the town and starve the garrison out. Getty’s quick action in fortify-
ing the river line prevented him from doing that, and the Confederates
essentially ran out of options. They busied themselves digging extensive lines
of earthworks—Pickett’s division alone manned a line seven miles long—that
covered Suffolk on three sides, from the Dismal Swamp westward, north-
ward, and eastward to Hill’s Point. Only the eastern quarter, south of the
Nansemond River and east of Jericho Creek, was open to the Federals, and it
was more than enough to deny Longstreet his encirclement of the town. A
strategic stalemate ensued, with Peck relying on the strength of his earth-
works to win the campaign and Longstreet contenting himself with penning
the Yankees in town and gathering food. It fulfilled the minimum needed to
make his campaign worthwhile, but he had obviously hoped for more.
≤∑
The Confederates were hampered in their digging by the usual shortage
of tools. Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, commanding a brigade in Pickett’s
division, complained that he did not have enough spades to work on his
infantry line and his artillery emplacements at the same time. Lt. Turner
Vaughan of the 4th Alabama was ordered to dig two pits for pickets, but his
thirteen-man detachment could manage only one. A lack of spades and
Goldsborough, New Bern, Washington, and Suffolk 211
‘‘roots in the ground’’ delayed work on the other pit, even though it only had
to be big enough for two men. Vaughan’s men made their beds ‘‘inside the
entrenchment so as to sleep without being disturbed or without being in
danger.’’ He apparently meant they slept in the bottom of the trench at night.
Even when not on duty in the works, the Rebels often were called on to rush
to the line in expectation of an attack, only to find out it was a false alarm.
≤∏
The Rebels began to gather food on April 14 and continued to do so until
the campaign ended more than two weeks later. Brigade-sized forces were
sent to scour the area from the James to Albemarle Sound, and from the
Blackwater River to the Nansemond and the Dismal Swamp. Most of the
food was found in eastern North Carolina counties where the Federals had
not yet made a significant presence, in the large gray area where neither side
completely controlled the land. Transportation was a problem, for the Con-
federates often did not have enough wagons to haul the food.
≤π
The strategic stalemate altered when the Federals decided to seize Fort
Huger. The Confederates had planted some field artillery there that, along
with the other batteries along the north bank of the Nansemond, harried
Federal shipping. Five gunboats managed to run past the fort on April 16, but
they were trapped by its guns and could not return downriver. An attempt to
take the fort was launched on the night of April 17. Two hundred Yankees
landed on the north bank but withdrew after two companies of Alabama
troops advanced as skirmishers against them. The fort was manned by Com-
panies A and B of the 44th Alabama, while the 55th North Carolina, a green
regiment, was encamped one mile to the rear as a reserve. Capt. Robert M.
Stribling’s Virginia Battery had five guns in the fort. The gunboats kept up a
desultory fire at the fort on April 18, but it did little harm, as the Rebels had
constructed a bombproof.
≤∫
Three Federal officers devised a plan for the next attempt to take Fort
Huger. To avoid the confusion of a nighttime operation, they decided to land
troops in daylight as close as possible to the rear of the fort, which was
inadequately fortified. The river bluff was twelve feet high, and the fort was
fifty yards from the stream; a plowed cornfield lay between. If the boat
steamed as if it had every intention of running past the fort but then veered
sharply to the bank, the garrison could be taken by surprise. Three hundred
men from the 8th Connecticut and the 89th New York were loaded on the
Stepping Stones, and canvas was draped around its sides to hide them.
The boat sheered sharply to the bank some 300 yards from the fort on the
evening of April 19. Unfortunately, its prow grounded on a sandbank 30 feet
from the shore. About 100 of the infantrymen clambered off and waded to
the riverbank, while the captain swung the boat’s aft to unload the rest
212 Goldsborough, New Bern, Washington, and Suffolk
closer to shore. They climbed the bluff and rushed the surprised garrison,
which had time to turn only one gun around to fire a shot at the attackers.
The Federals captured 140 men, nine officers, and the five guns in an opera-
tion that lasted only ten minutes. One Federal was killed and fourteen were
wounded.
The 55th North Carolina was posted too far away to be of any use. Col.
John Kerr Connally initially wanted to counterattack but changed his mind
when he was informed that the Federals already held the fort. He moved his
men half a mile closer to the captured work; they endured a hail of gunboat
fire but then fell back for better cover. Seven hundred Union troops were
landed at Hill’s Point that night and dug a new line of works to cover the
fort’s rear. The blockade was opened, allowing the boats free transit up and
down the Nansemond. Yet the Federals did not mean to hold Fort Huger
permanently, as they were too exposed on the north bank of the river. The
Confederate earthwork was leveled and abandoned on the night of April 20,
upon Getty’s recommendation.
≤Ω
Longstreet blamed French for the loss of Fort Huger. Longstreet had ear-
lier offered command of his artillery to the general, but French saw this as a
way to deny him command of his division, so he refused to formally accept it.
Instead, French agreed to help by passing information to the artillery chiefs
of each division. It was French’s understanding that he was not responsible
for placing the guns or for defending the emplacements, but Longstreet
apparently thought that French had accepted these responsibilities. Hood
assumed he had no accountability for the river batteries, and the result was
that no higher officer paid attention to affairs at Hill’s Point. At lower levels
of command, accusations of cowardice and incompetence against Connally
were made by two officers on the staff of Brig. Gen. Evander Law’s Alabama
brigade. The hotheaded Connally challenged them to a duel, but his subordi-
nate officers stepped in to take responsibility for it. After much negotiation,
Maj. Alfred H. Belo of the 55th North Carolina fought the duel with Capt.
John Cussons of Law’s staff on April 21. Each fired two rounds with rifle
muskets, piercing the other’s hat and clothing; then their seconds negotiated
an end to the affair.
≥≠
The capture of Fort Huger was a turning point of the siege, for it demon-
strated the vulnerability of the Confederate river batteries. The failure of the
Rebel ironclad CSS Richmond to support Longstreet meant that he had little
opportunity to challenge Federal control of the Nansemond. The Confed-
erates dropped all aggressive moves along the river and concentrated on
gathering as much food as possible, especially after Peck received 9,000
reinforcements. With the additional strength, he conducted several large
Goldsborough, New Bern, Washington, and Suffolk 213
demonstrations over the next few days. Five thousand Yankees drove the
Rebels out of their advanced picket lines on April 24. Another 5,000 men
crossed the river on May 3 to advance along Providence Church Road and
drive Hood’s picket line even farther. They stopped when they realized how
strong was the main Confederate line.
≥∞
Pressure like this merely hastened Longstreet’s departure, which became
imperative when Lee ordered him to rejoin his army on April 30. Longstreet
planned the withdrawal well. Orders were issued on May 1, and the move-
ment started on the night of May 3, a few hours after the worst fighting at
Chancellorsville. The earthworks were abandoned, and the gray columns
marched toward Petersburg along roads lined with partially cut trees. Long-
street’s pioneers waited until the column passed before they applied the final
cuts to block the roads. Peck offered no pursuit, content to have won the
campaign through the use of the spade and the pick. French’s division stayed
along the Blackwater River, while Hood’s and Pickett’s divisions returned
to Lee. The Federals lost about 260 casualties, and Longstreet lost about
1,400 men.
≥≤
The Federals were eager to examine the Confederate earthworks, and
everyone was impressed by them. They included log and sod revetments,
good abatis, embrasured artillery emplacements, covered ways, and para-
pets up to 15 feet thick. There was defense in depth, with up to five lines in
some sectors. On the Union side, Getty estimated that 3,434 yards of infantry
trench and 308 yards of battery parapet were constructed, 7 feet tall and 7
feet thick on top, around Suffolk. An additional 4,398 yards of infantry line
and 1,944 feet of battery parapet, 8 feet tall and 10 feet wide at the top, were
constructed along the south bank of the river from Suffolk to Hill’s Point.
≥≥
Capt. Hazard Stevens of Getty’s staff put it well when he wrote that ‘‘the
siege was more distinguished for digging than for fighting.’’ The Federals
were fatigued by all the work, added to the emotional strain of a siege and
the constant rounds of picket duty and skirmishing. Yet Peck’s strategy ‘‘was
strictly that of the passive defensive, although he was equal in numbers to
the enemy before the siege ended.’’ A modern historian has argued that the
‘‘foundation of [Union] success was laid long before the siege began, during
the months of diligent [toil] on Peck’s well-conceived defenses.’’ Captain
Stevens related ‘‘a good joke’’ about Peck, ‘‘a regular old granny’’ who ‘‘works
his men to death on the fortifications.’’ One of Peck’s soldiers told a comrade
he ‘‘hoped he wouldn’t die until about a fortnight after Gen. Peck did. ‘Why
so?’ ‘Because by that time he will have Hell so fortified that nobody can get
into it.’’ Stevens related that Peck ‘‘takes the story as a great compliment to
his engineering powers.’’
≥∂
214 Goldsborough, New Bern, Washington, and Suffolk
It is ironic that after proving the importance of well-made earthworks,
Peck recommended that Suffolk be abandoned. He argued that it was bad
enough to cram so many thousands of troops into Suffolk to hold the huge
rectangular line of works that protected the town, but several thousand more
would be needed to garrison the line of works along the south bank of the
Nansemond to Hill’s Point. It was too much for a post of such relative insig-
nificance. He suggested the works be leveled before the Federals gave up the
town, and it was done. That did not end the fortifying in southeastern Vir-
ginia. Captain Stevens sent several letters to his family complaining of the
heavy work that was done in the Portsmouth area along the Elizabeth River
and the Dismal Swamp Canal. ‘‘Every change of command produces a change
of lines,’’ he snorted, and digging continued well into November 1863.
≥∑
Longstreet failed to employ all the techniques of siegecraft at Suffolk. He
never attempted an assault or regular approaches but relied on a futile at-
tempt to invest the town. The campaign also did not influence the develop-
ment of trench warfare. Neither Longstreet nor his men were more prone to
resort to field fortifications after Suffolk, despite their undeniable skill at
constructing them in a short time. Unfortunately, the leveling of the Federal
earthworks by Peck and the destruction of the Rebel earthworks by postwar
agriculture have not left us any remnants whereby we can see if the design
and construction of the Suffolk lines advanced the technique of fortification.
Moreover, Suffolk quickly became a forgotten campaign because it resulted
in no significant battle.
The secondary campaigns in Virginia and North Carolina from December
1862 through May 1863 demonstrated that, even in a relative backwater,
fortifications played a significant role in operations. As activity increased,
troop strength multiplied, and confrontation became more regular, digging
increased as well. The Federals intended to retain all their captured towns
and used the spade as their chief weapon. New Bern, Washington, and
Suffolk withstood attack because of superior Union engineering and the
hard labor of their garrisons.
10 : Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign
T
he ending of the Suffolk campaign allowed Lee to con-
centrate his army once again. With the addition of
Longstreet’s two divisions, he could resume offensive
movements given up in the wake of the Maryland cam-
paign. This time Pennsylvania was the goal. Lee hoped
to take the scene of operations away from the Rappahannock River, where it
had been planted for six months. Gathering food was another consideration,
and generally causing havoc on free soil was yet another. The Pennsylvania
campaign shook up the North. It was the Confederacy’s biggest incursion
into free territory during the war.
Lee planned to enter Northern soil by way of the lower Shenandoah
Valley, but a modest Union garrison at Winchester barred the way. An old
city in the middle of the expansive lower end of the Valley, Winchester was
the scene of two battles fought during the preceding year as part of Stone-
wall Jackson’s Valley campaign. Its strategic location meant that the town
would change hands more than a dozen times during the war and three
more battles would be fought in and near its rows of substantial houses.
Second Winchester
Winchester was not an easy post to fortify. The landscape is generally level
with a few prominent hills and ridges, but they are no more than about 200
feet high and are not arrayed in a manner to allow a defending force to
construct a systematic line of works. It was not possible to build a cohesive
system of defenses with no holes in its perimeter.
∞
Federal troops had first entered Winchester on March 11, 1862, but Jack-
son drove them out in late June near the end of his Valley campaign. After
Jackson evacuated the Valley to join Lee for the Seven Days, Col. Abram S.
Piatt’s Federal brigade reoccupied the town and began to fortify. Fort Gari-
baldi (later renamed Fort Milroy) was the major work constructed just west
of Winchester on a prominent hill. Wood from the nearby home of James S.
Mason, of the Mason-Slidell affair of 1861, was used in its construction. Trees
between the fort and the town were cut down for a clear field of fire. Julius
White replaced Piatt as Federal commander at Winchester on July 28, but he
216 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign
blew up the magazine in Fort Garibaldi when he evacuated the town on
September 2 to take refuge with Dixon Miles at Harpers Ferry. Lee’s Mary-
land campaign and Jackson’s capture of Harpers Ferry gave the Confeder-
ates control of the Lower Valley until October. A small Confederate cavalry
force continued to occupy Winchester until John W. Geary’s troops retook
the town without a fight on December 4.
≤
Robert H. Milroy took command of Winchester on January 1, 1863, and
began to strengthen its defenses. Capt. W. Angelo Powell, Milroy’s chief
engineer who had also worked on Fort Garibaldi under White’s direction,
now enlarged and rebuilt it. The work commanded the western and south-
ern approaches to Winchester and mounted four 20-pounder Parrotts and
two 24-pounder howitzers. Renamed the Flag Fort, it finally was designated
Fort Milroy by the time Lee’s army approached in June 1863.
Star Fort, big enough to hold eight cannon and 400 men, was built one
mile north of Winchester. Its gun platforms reportedly were constructed of
both stone and wood. West Fort, described as ‘‘an unfinished lunette,’’ stood
half a mile northwest of town. It was open to the rear, mounted six guns,
and had an infantry line and a smaller work extending northward from its
right flank.
≥
If General in Chief Henry W. Halleck had had his way, Winchester would
not have been held at all. He believed it was too exposed to maintain a
sizable garrison there. Halleck told Maj. Gen. Robert C. Schenck that it was
more effective to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad by concentrating
at Harpers Ferry and other vital points on the line, not by holding forward
posts such as Winchester. Schenck had placed 6,900 men under Milroy at
the town, mainly to act as an early warning force. This was a task better left
to cavalry. Milroy did not have enough men to halt a serious Confederate
move into the lower Valley by Lee, and he could not quickly evacuate the
artillery and the supplies needed to feed so may soldiers. Schenck had set up
an opportunity for Lee to capture a sizable force of Yankees while he cleared
an invasion route to Pennsylvania.
∂
Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell moved Lee’s Second Corps from Fredericksburg
on June 4 to take Winchester. He sent one division under Maj. Gen. Robert E.
Rodes to Berryville, east of town, where Milroy had posted a small brigade,
while approaching Winchester from the south with the other two divisions.
Jubal Early and Edward Johnson skirmished near the town on the evening of
June 13, forcing Milroy to pull back into the three main forts. The Federal
commander remained confident that his fortifications were strong enough to
allow his men to hold out for at least five days, even though they were
outnumbered.
∑
Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign 217
Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon’s brigade of Early’s division occupied Bowers
Hill, just south of Fort Milroy, on the morning of June 14 and continued
to skirmish for the rest of the day. Gordon was to occupy Milroy’s atten-
tion while Early took his other three brigades on a wide flanking march
to the west. Scouting reports and visual observations across the generally
level landscape had allowed Ewell to determine that Milroy’s forts were
isolated and could be reduced one by one. West Fort was the most vulner-
able. It was dominated by higher ground to the west called Little North
Mountain. Early would need almost all day of June 14 to march ten miles
with twenty guns. Johnson’s division remained southeast of town, and
Rodes’s division approached Winchester from the east, following the evacua-
tion of Berryville by Milroy’s outpost. Early began his flank march at 11:00
a.m. as Confederate artillery fired from Bowers Hill and Gordon and Johnson
sent out skirmishers.
∏
While Milroy prepared to retake Bowers Hill, Early’s marching column
was shielded from Federal view by Little North Mountain. At midafternoon
the Confederates began to roll their guns up the shallow slope of the ridge,
and Early deployed his infantry behind heavy timber three-quarters of a mile
from West Fort. The artillery also used a low stone fence for added protec-
tion; the gunners tore out rocks to make embrasures for some of the pieces.
When the artillery opened fire, officers saw the projectiles throw up chunks
of dirt from the fort’s parapet. Early used Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays’s Loui-
siana brigade as his strike force. The Confederate guns dominated the field
as Hays deployed his men in two lines. After a forty-five-minute bombard-
ment, he gave the order to advance at 5:00 p.m.
π
West Fort was garrisoned by only one battery, one regiment, and a com-
pany from another regiment, all under Col. J. Warren Keifer. These units had
little chance of holding off three veteran brigades of Lee’s army. Only two
Union guns managed to fire at Hays, and Keifer’s infantry opened up at a
range of 150 yards, just when the Louisianians hit a thin patch of abatis.
Resistance melted quickly as Hays’s men pushed through the abatis and
ascended the parapet. The Federals also abandoned the smaller work to the
north and its connecting infantry parapet. This smaller work held two guns
and was three-quarters of a mile north of West Fort. Timber still stood fifty
yards in front of the smaller work, and the slope to its rear was quite steep,
making it difficult to evacuate the guns. Hays lost sixty-six men in taking this
position, and Keifer lost fifty.
∫
As Keifer’s command streamed back three-quarters of a mile to Fort Mil-
roy and Star Fort, Early’s guns advanced to the low ridge on which West
Fort was located and began to bombard those two Union positions. His