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

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58 Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina

would ﬁgure prominently in the history of fortiﬁcations: McClellan and Lee.

Both men were fortunate enough to leave western Virginia early, McClellan

in late July and Lee in late October, before their reputations suffered irrepa-

rable damage. But it is difﬁcult to determine if either commander or his

troops learned lasting lessons about the value of fortiﬁcations in the western

Virginia campaigns. McClellan’s and Lee’s attitudes toward earthworks will

be touched on in subsequent chapters, but both men seem to have been

guided by their natural temperament rather than by their mountain experi-

ence in deciding whether to use fortiﬁcations in the Peninsula campaign and

in the Seven Days battles. The troops were equally ignorant of how valuable

fortiﬁcations could be when they descended from the heights and went into

the Army of the Potomac or the Army of Northern Virginia. It was as if new

campaigns under new commanders and in different terrains erased any les-

sons learned in the wild and unusual environment of Appalachia.

Eastern North Carolina

Another unusual environment was the coastal plain of North Carolina,

scene of the Union’s ﬁrst major attempt to use its control of the sea to project

power onto the coastline of the Confederacy. North Carolina was an apt

target. More than half of its long seacoast was shielded by a string of low

barrier islands. Between these thin islands and the mainland were wide

sounds that offered access to the major rivers of the state. Union armies

could penetrate the coastal plain, a rich agricultural region. The vital rail line

that connected Richmond with Wilmington could be interdicted, and a sub-

stantial chunk of Confederate territory could be reclaimed for the Union.

The presence of Federal troops on the coast of North Carolina would force

the Confederates to detach large numbers of soldiers to guard against raids

farther inland. It was an effective strategy that utilized the Union’s strength

in numbers and naval power against a weaker ﬂank of Confederate defenses.

Brig. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside was put in charge of the strike force,

consisting of 15,000 men supported by ten warships and numerous trans-

ports under Admiral Louis M. Goldsborough. The combined expedition as-

sembled at Annapolis, Maryland, in the fall of 1861. Benjamin Butler’s expe-

dition had cleared the Outer Banks of Confederate troops the preceding

August, and Burnside had the luxury of steaming into the sounds without

opposition.

∞≤

His ﬁrst target was Roanoke Island, the capture of which would open the

mouths of several important rivers. Roanoke was historic ground, the site of

Sir Walter Raleigh’s ﬁrst attempt to plant a permanent colony in North Amer-

ica. In 1585 more than 100 colonists had settled there and built an earthen

Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina 59

fort for protection. Located in the northeastern corner of the island, it con-

sisted of a deep ditch, a parapet, and about ﬁfty square feet of space inside

the work. A palisades guarded its sally port. Fort Raleigh, as it is now known

in its reconstructed form, was built by Governor Ralph Lane as a defense

against Spanish raids. The colonists gave up and evacuated the island the

next year, but a second colony was established in 1587. The fort failed to

protect the colonists from whatever fate befell them. When Governor John

White returned to the island in 1590, he found that many houses had been

dismantled and the logs used to build a palisades around the settlement,

which was deserted. The only clue was the word ‘‘croatoan,’’ the name of

a nearby island. Subsequent searches failed to locate the ‘‘Lost Colony of

Roanoake.’’

∞≥

The Confederates constructed ﬁve forts on the northern half of the island;

three were large works on the northwestern shore to guard Croatan Sound.

The rest were a small battery on the eastern shore and a three-gun battery in

the middle of the island called Fort Deﬁance. Henry A. Wise commanded

1,914 men on the island. Goldsborough bombarded the three works on the

northwestern shore on February 7. The largest, Fort Huger, mounted twelve

guns, while Fort Blanchard had four guns and Fort Bartow had seven pieces.

The parapets were eight feet tall and made of sand, with layers of sod to

prevent erosion. Magazines inside the forts were constructed of logs covered

with thick layers of sod. The batteries were well made, but forts have little

hope of stopping ships unless they are situated much above water level.

Roanoke Island is very low and ﬂat, and Croatan Sound is wide and easily

navigated. Goldsborough’s ships had no difﬁculty pounding the forts.

∞∂

While the ships attacked, Burnside landed his troops at Ashby’s Harbor

halfway up the western coast of the island on the evening of February 7. The

only road on Roanoke led northward from there and gave access to the rear

of the forts. The Confederates had one work straddling the road at the

narrowest width of the island. Fort Deﬁance mounted three guns behind a

meager earthwork consisting of a simple parapet and a deep ditch in front.

Located at a place called Suple’s Hill, named for a local farmer, it was actu-

ally on ﬂat land only a few inches above the marshes that crowded both

ﬂanks. The dimensions of the work were surprising: the parapet was 4

∞

⁄

≤

feet

tall, made of sand and sod, and only 100 feet long. D. H. Hill had recom-

mended it be lengthened to stretch from one side of the island to the other,

but that was not done and possibly was not even feasible, considering the

low, marshy ground to either side of the ‘‘hill.’’ Trees were cut in front of the

work over an area 80 yards wide and 300 yards forward, all the way to a

sharp curve that took the road due north toward the guns. The heaviest

60 Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina

piece, an 18-pounder, was in the right of the battery and pointed directly

down the road, while a 12-pounder and a 6-pounder were positioned in the

middle and left. The Confederates did not site the guns to ﬁre anywhere

except down the road, since they assumed the marsh to either side was

impassable for troops. Three Virginia companies and one company of the 8th

North Carolina held the work, commanded by Col. Henry M. Shaw, but

reserves were a short distance to the rear.

Burnside approached Fort Deﬁance on February 8 with six regiments.

Artillery and skirmish ﬁre forced the Federals off the roadway and into the

marsh for cover. Burnside did not dare a frontal attack but sent troops to

envelop the work by advancing on both sides through the marsh. The Fed-

erals encountered soft mud and standing water that often went up to their

waists, and the tangle of vines repeatedly tripped them. Visibility was re-

duced to no more than twenty yards because of the marsh vegetation. As a

result, the Yankees struggled for a couple of hours to move only a short

distance. But the severe limitations of the Confederate earthwork doomed

the defense, along with the gross disparity of numbers. As soon as enough

Yankees had worked their way around the ﬂanks, the Rebels had no choice

but to evacuate Fort Deﬁance. Just as they were leaving, the 9th New York

launched a frontal attack, easily covered the open space, crossed the ditch,

and scrambled over the low parapet. Maj. Edgar A. Kimball of the 9th nearly

drowned when he impulsively jumped into the ﬂooded ditch. A short, stocky

man, he lost his sword but somehow managed to get out before swallowing

too much marsh water. All in all, it was a remarkably easy victory.

∞∑

The other forts fell after Fort Deﬁance was evacuated, and Roanoke Island

was soon in Union hands. It became the base of further operations along the

coast. Some time later, Charles Johnson of the 9th New York was wandering

a mile east of his regimental camp in the northeastern part of the island and

came across the remnants of the fort built 277 years earlier. The parapet was

overgrown with vegetation, and he found arrowheads nearby. The ‘‘breast-

works are not more than ordinary mounds now,’’ he noted, ‘‘and any one

who was not shown the place would probably pass over it a hundred times

without discovering anything so unusual as to warrant the thought of a

fortiﬁcation.’’

∞∏

New Bern was Burnside’s next target. One of the state’s oldest cities and

its second colonial capital, New Bern was located twenty-ﬁve miles up the

Neuse River. Confederate efforts to fortify the town had been started by

state authorities in late 1861, but when Col. Charles C. Lee of the 37th North

Carolina arrived on January 9 to take command of the post, he found much

of the work to be inadequate. The primary fortiﬁcations were a series of

Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina 61

forts on the west side of the river several miles below New Bern. They were

designed to interdict ship trafﬁc, but some had parapets too thin to with-

stand naval gunnery. Lee worked diligently to improve the defenses. Brig.

Gen. Lawrence O’Bryan Branch also bent every effort when he took charge of

the area later in January. He increased the number of river forts to four,

mounting a total of thirty guns. In addition, he planted two small batter-

ies to cover the wharves of the city and another battery on the north side

of the Neuse, opposite New Bern. Bundles of hoops and sandbags ﬁlled

with dirt helped to increase the size of the parapets, and railroad iron was

spiked to the timber frames of some casemated batteries. Branch hoped to

plant underwater mines and prepared a ﬂat with bales of cotton and barrels

of turpentine to serve as a ﬁre barge that could be set loose among the

Yankee ships.

∞π

The weakness of this defense was that it discounted the possibility of a

land approach to New Bern. Burnside’s combined operation threatened to

bring not only a seaborne ﬂeet but a large force of infantry against the city, so

Branch constructed two lines of works. The ﬁrst, called the Croatan Line, was

located ﬁfteen miles south of town, astride the Atlantic and North Carolina

Railroad. Branch considered it the stronger of his two lines, as it stretched for

a mile all the way from the river to a wide swamp. Fort Dixie anchored the

line on the bank of the Neuse. The Confederates never had a chance to man

this position adequately. Branch sent the 35th North Carolina on March 12

when news of Burnside’s approach reached his headquarters, and he rein-

forced that lone regiment with the 26th North Carolina and a battery early

the next day. But the Federals landed below the Croatan Line and swiftly

marched toward it before this meager force could settle down. The two

regiments and the battery barely escaped before being cut off by the Federals.

Charles M. Duren of the 24th Massachusetts crossed the Croatan Line later

that day and found it ‘‘not quite ﬁnished’’ but apparently ‘‘very strong.’’

∞∫

Branch now had to rely on the second and weaker of his two lines, an-

chored at the river’s edge by Fort Thompson, nine miles south of town. This

earthwork was the largest of the river forts, mounting thirteen guns, and its

parapets were made of sand and sod. Only three of the guns were sighted to

ﬁre inland, sweeping the front of an infantry trench that extended west from

the fort. This line was strong until it reached the railroad, a distance of one

mile, but it did not extend beyond the tracks. Branch had to hastily push new

works farther westward, but the lay of the land was difﬁcult. Immediately

west of the tracks, in line with the Fort Thompson Line, was Bullen’s Branch,

which ﬂowed westward from the railroad into Brice’s Creek, a north-to-

south stream. The new works west of the railroad had to be constructed

62 Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina

north of the branch, 150 yards farther north than the rest of the line. This

created a substantial gap, and Branch inadequately ﬁlled it by building em-

placements for two heavy guns at a brickyard just east of the railroad. But

the guns were not yet in place when Burnside attacked. Branch also placed

his least reliable men, 2,000 North Carolina militiamen, in this sector. More-

over, the new works west of the railroad consisted of a series of redans

placed at the end of ﬁngers of land that constituted the irregular northern

bank of Bullen’s Branch. To be able to build a connected line of works,

Branch would have had to move the position at least a half-mile farther

north, further enlarging the gap along the tracks. The redans were thirty

yards from the stream and ten to ﬁfteen feet above its water level, which had

been raised by recent rains and a dam. The works had no ditch, just a good

parapet and trench about forty yards long, and their faces were curved to the

rear for some ﬂank protection. The redans were dug by the 26th North

Carolina on the rainy night of March 13.

The Fort Thompson Line was an interesting combination of strong and

weak elements. The river batteries were designed by state engineers who

‘‘were excellent designers and erectors of forts,’’ according to Daniel Harvey

Hill, ‘‘but their civilian lack of military insight led to many a blunder in the

location of these forts.’’ The infantry line from the river to the railroad was

well made. Its parapet was 6 feet wide at the top, 5 feet high on the interior

slope, and 10 feet high on the exterior, from the bottom of the ditch to the top

of the parapet. The ditch was 10 feet wide. The parapet consisted of logs

covered with dirt, and the trees in front were cut down for a clear ﬁeld of ﬁre

350 yards deep. The land is ﬂat and undulating, but it ascends moderately as

one moves northward toward the Confederate position.

The gap at the railroad would prove to be fatal to Branch’s hopes. Not only

was the line west of the tracks 150 yards to the rear of the line that lay east of

the railroad, but neither line of works was close to the tracks. The ﬁrst redan

was nearly 200 yards from the railroad. The line of at least eight redans that

lay west of the railroad was surprisingly strong, considering its hasty con-

struction. Bullen’s Branch, with its three feet of water and banks cleared of

trees, was a formidable obstruction. An obscure road on the far right of this

line also was protected by a small artillery emplacement, but it was never

tested, as Burnside did not extend his battle line far enough to reach it.

∞Ω

The Federals brought 8,000 men against this hybrid line early on the

foggy morning of March 14. Branch had 6,000 men to defend the position.

The Confederates held ﬁrm for two or three hours, keeping the Federals who

approached east of the railroad at bay. The 26th North Carolina easily held

off the timid Union advance west of the railroad as well, but the center could

Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina 63

not hold. Union forces advanced along the six-foot-high railroad embank-

ment and penetrated the brickyard, scattering the frightened militiamen.

Branch was able to rush more reliable troops in to contain the breech, but a

further push cracked the line wide open. Most Confederate troops managed

to get away before being trapped, but they abandoned their camp equipment

and personal belongings. While some Rebels retreated directly to New Bern,

others escaped westward across Brice’s Creek and marched to Kinston. Burn-

side’s victorious men occupied New Bern the next day.

≤≠

The battle of New Bern was the largest and most important engagement

of Burnside’s expedition. It was followed by the peaceful occupation of sev-

eral coastal towns. The Confederates hurried reinforcements to Kinston and

sent engineer ofﬁcers to survey the countryside between it and Goldsbor-

ough to ﬁnd places where defensive works could be built. Meanwhile, New

Bern became the center of the Federal presence in North Carolina and was

heavily fortiﬁed during the next several months. A short line was constructed

straddling the railroad just south of town, and a longer, much stronger line

was built to cover the western approaches. This western line was anchored

on massive Fort Totten, built where the two major roads that entered New

Bern from the west and southwest came close together one mile from town.

It was a star fort with ﬁve bastions, enclosing seven acres of land. The

parapets were 8 feet tall and 12 feet thick. Fort Totten had a deep, wide, and

dry ditch and mounted ﬁve guns in each bastion (two of which were sighted

to sweep the ditch), and emplacements for eight more guns and mortars

were built elsewhere in the fort. A huge traverse was constructed in the

middle of the work to protect against crossﬁre. It consisted of ‘‘faced timbers’’

placed endwise in a trench to form a well-ﬁtted log wall. A second such log

wall was constructed a few feet away and parallel to the ﬁrst. The space

between was partially occupied by a magazine at each end, and the rest of

the space was ﬁlled with dirt. Emplacements for sharpshooters were con-

structed atop the traverse, giving the Yankees a high vantage point to see

across the ﬂat land. It was an engineering marvel, 400 feet long, 20 feet

thick, and 25 feet tall. ‘‘This great traverse was a landmark to the country for

miles around,’’ recalled a member of the garrison.

≤∞

Burnside still did not have a good port to supply his expedition and meant

to solve that problem by reducing Fort Macon, which protected Beaufort and

Morehead City. The latter town was thirty-three miles southeast of New Bern

and was the coastal terminus of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad.

Fort Macon, a masonry fortiﬁcation, was located on the east end of Bogue

Island, one of the sheltering outer banks. Across Beaufort Inlet, which gave

access to the two ports, Shackleford Banks lay to the east of Fort Macon. Col.

64 Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina

Moses J. White commanded the fort, which was garrisoned by 400 men with

ﬁfty-four guns and enough powder for only three days of heavy ﬁring. The

fort had ﬁve sides, with most of its artillery placed to ﬁre at the sea and the

inlet. A citadel inside the work also mounted several guns. A fortiﬁcation on

the counterscarp, the outside edge of the moat, was ﬁtted with embrasures

for muskets so the defenders could ﬁre back into the moat. Artillery was

mounted en barbette on top of the counterscarp and the walls.

The Southerners had been preparing Fort Macon ever since North Caro-

lina seized the thirty-year-old work on April 14, 1861. The city of New Bern

sent a force of slaves and ‘‘free negro volunteers’’ to strengthen the fort. Capt.

Henry T. Guion prepared gun emplacements and leveled sand dunes over an

area 1,000 yards from the fort to deny cover to an attacker. Engineer records

indicate that on April 25, 1861, there were 207 blacks at the fort; 163 of them

worked on the fortiﬁcation, 32 cooked for the garrison, and 12 were on the

sick list. The preceding night the chief engineer had placed a free black man

named William Hazell in a cell and ordered him ‘‘well worked for talking

saucily of Lincolns having set them all free.’’ It probably seemed to Hazell

that, although legally free, he was being treated as a slave, for it is doubtful

that free black men truly had the luxury of ‘‘volunteering’’ for such labor. By

August 20, 1861, when Confederate authorities took charge of the fort, it was

nearly ready for action.

Burnside and his subordinate commanders planned a quick, efﬁcient

strike at Fort Macon. Brig. Gen. John G. Parke’s brigade was assigned the

task. Parke assembled his men and Burnside’s siege train at Morehead City,

occupied Beaufort, and crossed to Bogue Island by mid-April 1862. He then

constructed three batteries along the southern edge of the island at a dis-

tance of 1,280 to 1,680 yards from the fort. Flagler’s Battery contained

four 10-inch mortars, Morris’s Battery held three 30-pounder Parrotts, and

Prouty’s Battery had four 8-inch mortars. A covering line of detached riﬂe pits

was placed 900 yards from the fort. Parke’s men put each battery on a large

sand dune, leaving the forward slope, toward the fort, intact and digging out

the rest of it to make gun and mortar emplacements. Sandbag revetments

held up the eight-foot-tall parapets, and the Parrott guns also had embra-

sures. White had no mortars to lob shells onto these batteries.

The Federals were ready to open ﬁre on the morning of April 25, the

climactic day of the siege. Joined by the ﬁre of four ships, the bombardment

did little damage at ﬁrst. The Confederates had constructed a huge sand

glacis around the fort to protect its masonry walls, and thus it had no promi-

nent proﬁle. When cannon smoke accumulated over the work, gunners had

difﬁculty sighting their targets, and most rounds overshot the fort. White’s

Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina 65

return ﬁre began to gouge out sections of the Union parapets; the gun crews

in Flagler’s Battery were almost exposed after a while and had to make

repairs with gabions. White’s success was temporary. Lt. William S. Andrews

and Lt. Marvin Wait, signal ofﬁcers, were on duty atop a hotel in Beaufort as

part of a chain of signal stations Parke had established earlier. They hap-

pened to be perfectly placed to see how the Federal rounds were missing the

target. Andrews began to signal information to Bogue Island that enabled

the gunners to improve their aim. By 11:00 a.m., a majority of rounds were

slamming into Fort Macon, and Federal accuracy improved even more as

White’s return ﬁre decreased. White accepted the inevitable when the pro-

tective structure around his magazine began to deteriorate, and he raised a

white ﬂag at 4:30 p.m. Negotiations followed, and Parke took possession of

Fort Macon on April 26. This was the second time in history that riﬂed

artillery was used against a masonry fort.

≤≤

Burnside also sent a small force northward to attack the locks of the

Dismal Swamp Canal in mid-April. It was a halfhearted effort to calm fears

that the Confederates might use the canal to deploy ironclads they were

building in coastal North Carolina. Brig. Gen. Jesse L. Reno led the strike,

landing 3,000 troops near Elizabeth City on April 19. Col. Ambrose R. Wright

defended the canal from his base at South Mills, but he had only his own 3rd

Georgia and some cavalry and artillery. Although outnumbered three to one,

Wright met Reno three miles south of town where the main road, known

locally as Sawyer’s Lane, ran through an open ﬁeld a mile wide. Wright’s

men took position in a deep drainage ditch that ran along the northern edge

of the ﬁeld. They pulled down a rail fence and constructed crude breast-

works on the edge of the ditch. Knowing that another drainage ditch 300

yards ahead might be used by the Federals, they piled rails in it and set the

wood aﬁre.

Reno’s men came upon the Confederate position on the morning of April

19. While two regiments advanced through the woods on the Rebel left,

another tried to turn the right. Before this was accomplished, the 9th New

York launched a frontal attack that failed. Once again, as at Roanoke Island,

ﬂanking Unionists forced the Confederates out of their prepared position.

Wright lost the battle of South Mills, or Sawyer’s Lane, and pulled back to a

previously prepared line of works behind Joy’s Creek, one mile south of

town. The creek itself, some ten yards wide, was a good obstruction, but the

position could be turned. Wright therefore retreated another twelve miles to

North West Locks, where he assumed a position that he was conﬁdent could

not be turned. Reno did not pursue. He received false information that

the Confederates were gathering reinforcements, and because Burnside had

66 Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina

given him strict orders not to spend too much time on this minor operation,

he retired to the boats and sailed away the next day.

≤≥

Burnside consolidated his initial gains by May 1862, but there was serious

doubt about what to do next. He wanted to strike inland to disrupt Confeder-

ate rail communications with Virginia, but Burnside realized he did not have

the strength to do that and hold the ports, cities, and countryside he had

occupied. McClellan’s Peninsula campaign was under way, and that general

was calling for more troops to swell his army as it lumbered toward Rich-

mond. Thus there was no prospect of reinforcements for Burnside. Moreover,

the North Carolina expedition was short of wagons, cavalry, and artillery,

and these resources could not be spared from McClellan’s army. McClellan

asked Burnside if he could send some troops, or at least strike for Golds-

borough to divert Confederate attention from Richmond, but Lee’s attacks

during the Seven Days campaign curtailed any plans for further offensives in

North Carolina. Burnside was ordered to bring all the troops he could spare

to Virginia as soon as possible. He left behind his artillery and cavalry but

took most of his infantry northward by late July.

≤∂

The Confederates relied heavily on fortiﬁcations in opposing the Union

incursion onto North Carolina soil, but they consistently failed to use them

properly. At both Roanoke Island and New Bern, the two most important

engagements of the campaign, the Rebel earthworks were poorly designed

and improperly constructed. Fort Deﬁance was far too short and too low, the

guns were not properly sighted, and no provision was made to guard its

ﬂanks. A portion of the works at New Bern was impressively made, but

Branch’s inability to tie the line closely to the railroad created a gaping hole

that the Federals exploited to win the battle. Fort Macon could not stand

alone without massive works on Bogue Island or Shackleford Banks to sup-

port it, and the light works at South Mills played no role in determining the

outcome of the engagement. The Federals had little difﬁculty overcoming

the defenses at every turn.

Burnside’s North Carolina campaign established a major Federal presence

on the coast that would persist until the end of the war. The full possibilities

of this achievement were never realized, however, because the Federals did

not exploit them. They maintained troop strength in this enclave of Union

control only at a level sufﬁcient to hold it and, now and then, to threaten

raids into the interior. This forced the Confederates to detach signiﬁcant

numbers of troops to contain them, but a decisive strike at vital supply lines

farther inland was not mounted until very late in the war.

4:The Peninsula

he Federals began their long-awaited second drive to-

ward Richmond nearly one year after the fall of Fort

Sumter. It would be a massive undertaking, involving

more troops than had ever been assembled in a single

ﬁeld army in the country’s history, and would bring a

comparable response from the Confederates. The campaign saw the exten-

sive use of fortiﬁcations by both sides for offensive as well as defensive

purposes, but they never became the key factor in determining the outcome

of the campaign. While the Confederates built complex works along the

Warwick River during the Yorktown phase of the campaign, all the other

earthworks on the Peninsula were much simpler and of more limited useful-

ness. No previous operation of the eastern campaigns had utilized fortiﬁca-

tions so much, yet the ability of engineers, ﬁeld commanders, and ordinary

soldiers to use them as a weapon to achieve victory was still undeveloped.

Whether or not an army used earthworks was often determined by the

attitude of its commander, and George McClellan was, by nature, inclined to

rely on them. He had graduated second in the West Point class of 1846 and

thus secured a coveted appointment in the Corps of Engineers. The young

lieutenant quickly prepared for service in the Mexican War, where he helped

plan and build the battery emplacements that softened the Mexican position

at Chapultepec. McClellan was one of three members of a commission sent

to observe operations during the Crimean War of 1854–56. He was impressed

by the Russian defense of Sebastopol and came away from the Crimea a ﬁrm

believer in the efﬁcacy of ﬁeld fortiﬁcations.

∞

McClellan’s willingness to take fortiﬁcations seriously as a major element

in operations was tied to his innate conservatism as a ﬁeld commander. Not

only did his political leanings lead him to admire elite Southerners and view

the war as a conﬂict for the restoration of the status quo, with no interference

in the institution of slavery, but he had an almost overwhelming fear of battle-

ﬁeld loss. McClellan conceived of warfare as an art, the aim of which was to

outmaneuver his opponent so as to gain tactical and strategic advantage with

minimal loss of men. He was cautious to a fault and prone to use earthworks

as a substitute for action rather than as an aid to further advances.

≤