Hess Earl J. Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864

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328 Appendix 1

Remnants of Confederate four-gun emplacement, Dam No. 1, Yorktown. This photo

shows the well-preserved ditch of the four-gun emplacement behind the main line.

(Earl J. Hess)

The western end of the Warwick Line was anchored on the works at Lee’s Mill,

which were comparatively simple but very strong. The Confederates had the advan-

tage of a deep valley in their front and an elevated position for their works, obviat-

ing the need for extensive, in-depth defenses. A good parapet, a trench, and ditch-

ing in front of the guns, the whole conﬁgured in either straight lines or rectangular

bastions, constituted the works. One remaining artillery position, in the form of a

large bastion, contains three raised gun platforms and one short traverse.

Lee’s Mill was located six miles up the Warwick River, but a highly irregular

shoreline along the James was created by numerous small islands hugging the west

side of the Peninsula. As a result, the Confederates were compelled to build a

number of outlying works to deny Yankee boats access to streams that could out-

ﬂank the Warwick Line. Fort Crafford and several other smaller redoubts on Mul-

berry Island were among these works. Several had been built in 1861 as part of the

effort to defend the lower James, and Magruder incorporated them into his War-

wick Line. Fort Crafford was a large, ﬁve-sided work built to defend against both a

land attack and a waterborne approach.

Another outlying work was built to deny the Federals access to Skiff’s Creek,

which lay to the rear of the Warwick Line. The Skiff’s Creek Redoubt is only forty

yards long and twenty-ﬁve yards wide. It has three raised artillery platforms on its

Appendix 1 329

WARWICK RIVER

Three gun emplacements

and a traverse

Ditch

Intermittent ditch

in front of connecting

infantry line

Continuation of line is virtually gone

Thick parapet

and ditch

Confederate Works at Lee’s Mill, Warwick Line, Yorktown, April 1862 (based on ﬁeld

visit, 1995)

western side, one of the shorter faces, and an unguarded sally port in the middle

of its eastern face. The work has a good ditch and parapet but no traverses or

trenches.

≤≠

Barnard’s evaluation of the Warwick Line was mostly positive, although he did

note deﬁciencies in the system when he saw them. Lt. Cyrus B. Comstock also

evaluated the works, but he did so before the Rebels evacuated them, by detecting

what he could through ﬁeld glasses. He noted the large number of traverses and a

few bombproofs at Wynn’s Mill and observed the size and proﬁle of parapets at

various parts of the line. Comstock could also tell that the rectangular bastions at

Lee’s Mill predated the siege; they were ‘‘well and neatly built,’’ while the more hasty

330 Appendix 1

works thrown up recently had ‘‘no pretensions to ﬁnish or good construction—

revetment being absent or poor, and embrasures formed by piling a few sand-bags

near the interior crest.’’ He probably would have agreed with the assessment of

Henry L. Abbott, a volunteer ofﬁcer in the 20th Massachusetts, who reported that

the Warwick Line was ‘‘considered tolerably elaborate for temporary ﬁeldworks,

though of course nothing like the ﬁeld fortiﬁcations before Sebastopol that the allies

were so long in taking.’’

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Far less information is available on Confederate efforts to make or ship the

necessary tools and material for earthwork construction than is available for Mc-

Clellan’s army. The Confederate Engineer Bureau in Richmond was active in pro-

curing what was needed, arranging for 20,000 sandbags to be shipped to the

Peninsula in mid-April. The end result proves that the Rebels did not allow what-

ever shortages they suffered to delay the completion of their strong works.

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Appendix 2

Preserving the Field Fortifications at Gettysburg

The ﬁeldworks at Gettysburg are probably the most famous of any campaign in the

East from 1861 through early 1864. The Twelfth Corps fortiﬁcations on Culp’s Hill

garner the lion’s share of the attention. This is a curious circumstance, considering

that Chancellorsville saw much greater use of ﬁeldworks and all the fortiﬁcations at

Gettysburg are very simple, modest constructions. The earthworks used in the

Peninsula campaign also were more extensive and complex than those at Gettys-

burg. But the reason for this disparity of attention is not difﬁcult to ascertain: the

public’s view of Gettysburg as the preeminent engagement of the Civil War. If

something was done at this battle, it automatically gained more attention regard-

less of its intrinsic value, or lack of it, in the general course of the war. In addition,

Gettysburg was fought in the midst of a relatively wealthy population that could

afford to expend the resources to preserve relics of the battle.

Local residents initiated efforts to preserve the ﬁeld fortiﬁcations soon after Lee

left their town. ‘‘These works, for the most part, yet remain as they were at the close

of the battle,’’ wrote Professor Michael Jacobs of Gettysburg College in February

1864. He ‘‘hoped that they may continue untouched, as a memento of the battle,

and as objects of grateful wonder, until time itself shall cause them to decay.’’ More

than a year later, journalist John T. Trowbridge found at Culp’s Hill a ‘‘rude embank-

ment of stakes and logs and stones, covered with earth.’’ He also discovered ‘‘little

private breastworks consisting of rocks heaped by a tree or beside a larger rock, or

across a cleft in the rocks, where some sharpshooter exercised his skill at his ease.’’

The Gettysburg Battleﬁeld Memorial Association was created in 1864 to oversee

the preservation of the battleﬁeld. It existed until the federal government took over

in 1893. The association engaged in what would be questionable work by modern

standards, rebuilding artillery lunettes and rock breastworks without strict regard

to accuracy. It reconstructed the gun emplacements on Cemetery Hill, adding some

in places where veterans of the battle did not remember works at all. It built others

up so that they ‘‘seemed to me larger and more elaborate than my recollection

would make them at the time of the battle,’’ thought Capt. R. Bruce Ricketts. Local

civic leader David Wills wrote to Governor Andrew Curtin in March 1864 that the

artillery emplacements on Cemetery Hill ‘‘have already been very much defaced.

They were made, ﬁrst by piling up rails and then throwing up earth on top. The

332 Appendix 2

farmers have in most instances dug out their rails and the effects of the rains have

settled the earth very much.’’ The association worked hard to rebuild them as low,

uniform parapets that look very different from the works depicted in photographs

taken right after the battle. Today’s visitor to Gettysburg sees the remnants of these

association ﬁeldworks, not the remains of the works used by the men who fought

the battle.

The breastworks on the Round Tops received attention from the association as

well. The small earthwork that protected McGilvery’s artillery line was entirely

reconstructed, having disappeared over the years due to agricultural activity. But

the association rebuilt it straighter and aligned it to a postwar road constructed for

touring vehicles.

The War Department took charge of the battleﬁeld and created the Gettysburg

National Park Commission, which administered the battleﬁeld from 1893 to 1922. It

infused a greater degree of scholarship and accuracy into the process of preserving

the ﬁeldworks, hiring Col. Emmor B. Cope as its engineer and mapmaker. Cope

rebuilt 30,000 feet of stone fencing from 1898 through 1906. He rebuilt the artillery

lunettes on the Confederate line and placed some guns along Seminary Ridge to

mark positions. Relatively little restoration work was done after the commission

was replaced by the Gettysburg National Military Park, until the New Deal stepped

in. The Civilian Conservation Corps repaired and rebuilt stone fences at various

points on the battleﬁeld between 1936 and 1939, even though the general strategy

of the Park Service has been to stabilize, not rebuild, historic resources. The visitor

must always wonder, given the early postwar history of the battleﬁeld, how much of

the fortiﬁcation remnants are authentic artifacts of the Civil War and how much are

monuments to early, misguided preservation efforts.

∞

Glossary

Because the terminology used to describe fortiﬁcations is technical in nature, much

of it deriving from the French language, it is often necessary for historians to

include a glossary of terms for the reader’s use. I include only those terms used in

this volume; no attempt is made to provide a comprehensive dictionary of fortiﬁca-

tions. I have made every attempt to be accurate in deﬁning my terms, but I do not

claim to have produced deﬁnitions that would satisfy an engineer. My purpose is

simply to explain in common language what I think a term signiﬁed to a contempo-

rary of the Civil War and to provide a common sense explanation readily under-

stood by the reader of this book.

∞

A word about the meanings of key words and phrases is in order. Civil War

contemporaries paid relatively little attention to the proper use of terminology,

unless, of course, they were trained engineers. The average soldier used ‘‘riﬂe

pits,’’ ‘‘breastworks,’’ and ‘‘ditches’’ to signify the same thing: earthworks made

for infantry use. Specialists in military engineering recognized that each of these

terms meant something different, but most soldiers did not care about such ﬁne

distinctions.

Like the specialist, we should try to differentiate between these terms. ‘‘Riﬂe

pits’’ refers to individual holes dug for skirmishers, similar to twentieth-century

foxholes. The term originated in the Crimean War when Russian riﬂemen dug

similar holes in front of their earthworks so they could harass the Allied soldiers

who were advancing siege approaches. Chaplain A. M. Stewart of the 102nd Penn-

sylvania recognized the misuse of this term and commented on it in his book,

published in 1865. The phrase had ‘‘become a rather general one, designating al-

most any military construction, for offence or defence.’’ It referred to ‘‘not merely a

round or square hole in the ground, but a ditch, breastwork or embankment miles

in length.’’ Stewart was absolutely right. ‘‘Riﬂe pits’’ is probably the most commonly

used phrase by Civil War soldiers to refer to infantry earthworks.

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I use the term ‘‘breastworks’’ to refer only to an accumulation of material on top

of the ground—usually logs, rails, or stones—that does not involve any digging. This

term ran a close second to ‘‘riﬂe pits’’ in its common usage among Civil War soldiers.

The word ‘‘ditches’’ was much less commonly used, although it has a direct, earthy

tone that leaves no doubt about what the writer was thinking. I use the word to

refer only to the ditch dug in front of a parapet, for the purpose of both serving as an

334 Glossary

obstruction to an attacker and of acquiring dirt to thicken a parapet. The word

‘‘moat’’ more properly refers to a ditch in front of the parapet of a permanent

work. The excavation behind, or on the friendly side, of a parapet should be called

a trench.

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Abatis: An obstruction placed in front of an earthwork. Its purpose was to delay an

attacker well within range of the defender’s riﬂe and artillery ﬁre. It was made of

felled trees; the name comes from the French arbes abattus. The cut trees were

lined up, and their butts were secured ﬁrmly to the ground, usually by digging a

trench to receive the ends. Chains could also be used to secure the trunks to the

ground. The branches were pointed toward the enemy and intertwined to pre-

sent a solid front. If time and opportunity allowed, the points of the branches

would be sharpened. If still green, the supple branches could be more easily

moved aside by an attacker; when dried, they were hard and immovable. Losses

would be heavy as attackers spent time trying to cut through with axes. An

abatis was different from a slashing in that an abatis was arrayed in a line, while

a slashing was created by cutting many trees over a wide area and letting them

lie where they fell.

∂

Banquette: A raised platform at the bottom of a trench for infantrymen to stand on

and gain enough height to ﬁre over the parapet. The best trench was deep

enough to completely cover the infantryman while he was standing straight. The

banquette (also called a ﬁring step) also allowed him to use the trench as a

defensive position, not just a convenient hole to hide in.

Barbette: An artillery position ﬁxed so that the gun tube could project, or at least

ﬁre easily, over the top of the parapet. It was quick and easy to construct but

exposed the gun crew to enemy ﬁre. Understandably, it was less popular than

the embrasured artillery position, although it was often used.

Bastion Fort: An enclosed work, either square or polygonal, with protruding sec-

tions on all sides to deliver ﬁre on all angles of approach to the work. The

bastions were angular in shape and designed according to a mathematical for-

mula; they transformed a basic redoubt into a stronger fortiﬁcation with no

areas around it uncovered by ﬁre. Originally developed in the late ﬁfteenth

century, the term ‘‘bastion’’ was used loosely in the Civil War.

Berm: A separation between a ditch and a parapet. This feature takes care of a

problem associated with piling dirt next to a hole: it will slide back in. Piling the

dirt up so the bottom of its slope will be a few inches from the edge of the hole

will create an ‘‘empty’’ space called a berm. If it is too wide, it could be used by an

attacker to gain a foothold while climbing out of the ditch and up the outer slope

of the parapet.

Blockhouse: A wooden defensive structure often used on the frontier before the

Glossary 335

Civil War. Usually made of logs in a square or rectangular conﬁguration and

often with two stories, the blockhouse was quickly built and widely used to

guard railroad bridges. Sometimes blockhouses were built inside or adjacent to

earthworks. They were quite effective against small arms ﬁre, but artillery ﬁre

could demolish them. That is why they were more commonly used to guard lines

of communication from guerrilla raids rather than in the major operations of

ﬁeld armies.

Breastwork: A fortiﬁcation created by piling material, usually logs, rails, or stones,

in a line. It involved no digging into the earth and was quickly built ‘‘breast’’ high

so that men could ﬁre over the top. Most earthen parapets were made by piling

logs or rails and then digging a trench, throwing the dirt on top of the pile to gain

additional height.

Casemate: A completely enclosed artillery emplacement with walls and a roof.

Rarely constructed during the Civil War because of the labor involved and be-

cause they seldom proved their worth in a bombardment.

Chevaux-de-Frise: An obstruction consisting of a shaft through which wooden

spikes were pushed halfway. Both ends of the spikes were sharpened. With

another row of such spikes set at a different angle, you have a wooden fence. It

apparently originated as a defense against cavalry and was widely used in siege

works to temporarily defend breeches in walls. It was also used in eighteenth-

century British fortiﬁcations in North America as well as during the Civil War.

Citadel: A self-contained work inside a larger work. It was used as a defense of last

resort if the larger work was penetrated by an attacker. In principle it was similar

in purpose to the donjon, or keep, in medieval fortresses and castles.

Command: The height of the parapet above the original grade of the site.

Counterscarp: The outside wall of a ditch that lies in front of a work. The scarp is

the opposite wall, the one that lies on the inside of the ditch below the parapet.

Cremailliere: A line of parapet that was indented, with a series of projections

forward and continuations along the original line, to look like a series of steps.

David Russell Wright well describes it as ‘‘a line or curtain that contained alter-

nating long faces and short ﬂanks which allowed the defenders to ﬁre direct and

ﬂanking ﬁres.’’

∑

Curtain: An infantry parapet that connected bastions or self-contained works in a

line of fortiﬁcations. It protected the ﬂanks of the works and uniﬁed the whole

fortiﬁcation system. A curtain could be adorned by trenches, ditches, traverses,

or other embellishments, or it could be a simple parapet.

Demilune: A smaller or reduced version of a lunette.

Ditch: The linear excavation in front of a parapet. If it is ﬁlled with water, it is called

a wet ditch, but that was rare in Civil War earthworks. It was sometimes called

a moat.

336 Glossary

Embrasure: An opening cut into the parapet to allow a gun to ﬁre through. Its

purpose was to protect the gun crew as much as possible. The sides had to be

revetted, and it had to be large enough to allow the gun adequate play, but not so

large as to allow the enemy to ﬁre through it easily. The interior opening of the

embrasure was called the mouth; the sides were termed cheeks; the bottom was

called the sole; and the splay referred to how far the embrasure widened from

the mouth to the outside edge.

Fascine: A bundle of sticks tied together. It could be used to help build a parapet or

to revet the cheeks of an embrasure. It was also piled in the ditch of an enemy

work so that attackers could cross the ditch quickly.

Field Fortiﬁcation: An earthwork or breastwork usually constructed during a cam-

paign and meant to be temporary, to be used only as long as the battle or

campaign lasted. The difference between it and a semipermanent work was

based on how long the defensive feature was meant to be used. The works

defending Washington, D.C., New Bern, Suffolk, and Richmond were all tech-

nically ﬁeld fortiﬁcations, but they were semipermanent because they were

designed to last for the duration of the war. The only truly permanent for-

tiﬁcations were the masonry coastal forts constructed before the Civil War.

Good examples of ﬁeld fortiﬁcations include the Warwick Line at Yorktown,

the hasty entrenchments at Gaines’s Mill, and Hooker’s fortiﬁed bridgehead at

Chancellorsville.

Flying Sap: A sap constructed quickly by sending men out at night to dig a parallel

before dawn. This method can only be used at comparatively safe distances from

the enemy work. See also Sap and Full Sap.

Fort: An enclosed work. The technical difference between it and a redoubt, or a

lesser work, is difﬁcult to pin down. Generally, the term ‘‘fort’’ was used to

denote any sizable or important work, even if it was little different from a

redoubt.

Fraise: A line of stakes placed at or near the berm and pointed either horizontally or

at an angle. Its purpose was to obstruct an attacker trying to climb from the ditch

and up the outer slope of the parapet.

Full Sap: A sap constructed the hard way, by pushing a sap roller ahead while

sappers dig an approach trench behind it. It was time consuming, as the dirt had

to be quickly shaped into a parapet along the edge of the trench to protect the

diggers. It was a necessary method, however, when the approach neared the

enemy work and was vulnerable to small arms ﬁre. See also Sap and Flying Sap.

Gabion: A cylinder open at both ends and made of twigs interwoven around sticks,

used to revet parapets or the cheeks of embrasures. They were very commonly

used in the Civil War, but the method of making them had to be taught by

trained engineers.

Glossary 337

Glacis: Raised earth on top of the edge of the counterscarp. The object was to form

an imaginary line from the top of the parapet to the forward edge of the ditch. If

a man could see entirely along that line, there would be no cover for an attacker

to lie down just outside the ditch. The glacis also helped to prevent artillery

rounds from hitting the scarp of the ditch.

Hurdle: A revetting material made in panels by interweaving twigs around sticks. It

was less commonly used than other revetting material, such as posts, planks,

logs, and sandbags. During the Civil War, it seldom was made as panels. Sap-

lings or small branches were simply interwoven along the tops of posts support-

ing the revetment to give them more rigidity, enabling the posts to better with-

stand the pressure of a slowly collapsing parapet.

Mantlet: A covering across an embrasure to protect the gun crew. Mantlets were

only used in the eastern campaigns at Yorktown, Morris Island, Cold Harbor, and

Petersburg. Consisting of rope or iron, they were made with a small opening for

the tube to stick through or could be moved aside when necessary, and they

were effective only against small arms ﬁre. McClellan saw them at Sebastopol

and urged their use in the Civil War.

Merlon: In ancient and medieval fortiﬁcations, the raised segments atop the wall

that formed half of the outline known as a crenellation. The open segments next

to the merlons were the embrasures for archers to ﬁre through. The term con-

tinued to be used in the modern era.

Moat: The ditch in front of a permanent fortiﬁcation, usually ﬁlled with water.

Obstruction: Anything placed in front of a work to trip up or delay an attacker.

Abatis, slashings, fraises, palisades, chevaux-de-frise, and even torpedoes were

classiﬁed as obstructions.

Palisade: A stick (or pale) placed in front of the work. It could be pointed and

angled toward the attacker or placed vertically to serve only as a barrier to

movement. A line of such pales was called a palisade or palisades.

Parallel: A trenchline dug parallel to the enemy’s work. The term referred to the line

from which siege approaches were started toward the target.

Parados: The raised, linear mound of dirt to the rear wall of a trench. It protected

the occupants from a ﬁre to the rear.

Parapet: The raised, linear mound of dirt on top of the front wall of a trench. It was

the primary component of a Civil War earthwork. The dirt had to come from

either a trench behind the parapet or a ditch in front of it. Soldiers often piled

the dirt on logs, rails, or in some cases, the bodies of fallen men, to raise the

parapet even higher.

Proﬁle: The shape of the exterior of a parapet, when viewed from the side. The

better made the parapet, the sharper the proﬁle. A good proﬁle both had aes-

thetic appeal and offered better protection.