Customer Reviews

Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign (Civil War America)

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Earl J. Hess's new "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign" is as good a piece of Civil War scholarship as I have read in years. It is at the most fundamental level a narrative history of military operations in the Overland Campaign of May and June, 1864: the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor, but it is a narrative history that focuses particularly on how field fortifications evolved over the course of those six weeks of heavy combat and it details how the use of field fortifications influenced the course of that campaign. In his earlier volume, "Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War," Hess dispelled the old myths that such entrenchments were a direct consequence of the power of rifled-muskets or that their use suddenly sprang into being in the spring of 1864 (he documented three years of field fortifications, although not on such a scale as became standard by the end of the Overland Campaign) and that these entrenchments were somehow merely the fruit of the teaching of Dennis Hart Mahan at West Point. Or to quote the author: "The use of field fortifications evolved during the Civil War not due to some irrational fear, but due to a real and potent threat: the continued presence of an enemy army within striking distance. Their use was a rational and logical response to that threat."

Hess reserves most of the technical details of entrenchment and breastwork design for an appendix, leaving his main narrative fast-moving and compelling. "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee" is an important contribution to Civil War literature and should find a ready spot on the bookshelves of any serious student of the era. I look forward to his planned third volume, to examine field fortifications during the Petersburg campaign.

Inevitably, it must be asked how Hess views the Overland Campaign in balance. Was it a Union or a Confederate success? Although Hess does not absolve Grant of errors in too hastily ordering attacks or in failing to recognize the power of impromptu fieldworks, Hess concludes: "Grant's most significant achievement in the Overland campaign was not in capturing territory, or in positioning his army close to Richmond, or in reducing the fighting strength of the Army of Northern Virginia by 50 percent; rather it lay in robbing Lee of the opportunity to launch large-scale offensives against the Army of the Potomac. In laying claim to the strategic initiative, Grant won an important physical and emotional victory over Lee, and he did it with fewer losses than his predecessors had suffered in attempting the same goal ... Most important, he did not give up the strategic initiative and thereby brought the war to an end. The Overland campaign was as much a watershed in the strategic course of the Civil War as the Seven Days."

By the time of the Overland Campaign, the star of Earl Hess's second volume on Civil War fortifications, the idea of bravery that most soldiers had when hostilities began had just about fizzled out. In that more innocent time, soldiers and officers thought it cowardly to hide behiind entrenchments, or anything else for that matter. Battles were about sticking out your chest and, in plain view of the enemy, marching and shooting. (For a good account of this transition, see Linderman's Embattled Courage.)

Three years of the harsh reality of war changed all that, and by the time of the Overland Campaign, troops on both sides were digging in fast and furiously whenever they got the chance. Aside from the Vicksburg and Petersburg campaigns, nowhere was the entrenchment so obvious as in the Overland one. Most Civil War buffs know about the entrenchments at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. But many will probably be surprised (as was I) that entrenchments were also dug in The Wilderness and at the Bermuda Hundred.

Hess' account of the evolution of fortifications in this stage of the war is well-written and entirely accessible to the nonspecialist. He tends to protect Grant from the general's worst critics, arguing (much as does James McPherson) that the huge cost of federal lives in the Overland in fact did succeed in strategically defeating Lee.

The photographs are priceless. I've actually never seen most of them before. Moreover, the line drawings of fortifications and entrenchments are brilliant. All in all, highly recommended.

This is the second book in a series on fortifications in the eastern theater during the Civil War. The first book covers the war up to this point, while reading the first book is not required; it is worth taking the time to do so. 1864 produced a major revision in how digging in and fighting behind entrenchments is viewed by both armies. Open field battle gives way to fighting from behind entrenchments as both sides maintain close contact for months. The war is no longer open fields with a mile between the armies. Both sides dug into the earth often closer than skirmish lines were in 1862. The book details this change and the impact on the commanders and men.

The author continues working fortifications into the overall campaign giving the reader an excellent history of the Overland Campaign in the process. This presentation keeps the subject fresh while presenting the nuanced tactical differences in a logical sequential manner. This is very much a battle history but the emphasis is on how fortifications changed the campaign even as the campaign changed fortifications.

Earl Hess is one of our best authors. In this series and this book, he manages to give the reader a rich learning experience coupled with an enjoyable read. This is not a beginner's book but can be enjoyed by anyone with some knowledge of the Civil War.

TRENCH WARFARE UNDER GRANT AND LEE: FIELD FORTIFICATIONS IN THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN
EARL J. HESS
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS, 2007
HARDCOVER, $39.95, 336 PAGES


The May-June, 1864 Overland Campaign against Richmond saw the most sustained and ferocious bloodletting of the entire War Between the States. From the fighting in the Wilderness on 5-6 May through Spotsylvania, Trevilian Station, North Anna, Totopotomoy Creek, Bethesda Church, Cold Harbor, and the onset of the Siege of Petersburg in mid-June, the Army of Northern Virginia suffered approximately 33,500 casualties. Losses in the Army of the Potomac and its attached units, meanwhile, approached 55,000. While the butcher's bill was enormous, the campaign ended Lee's ability to fight a war of maneuver, and forced the Army of Northern Virginia into defensive siege lines around Richmond and Petersburg that would collapse in the spring of 1865. Field fortifications of both the major and minor type were temporary because they were fashioned to hold positions for campaigning armies that shifted according to circumstance. Major works were built both to protect defenders and impede attackers, while minor works were essentially meant to provide protection. Field fortifications usually consisted of some combination of major and minor works. Major fieldworks resembled semipermanent works in many respects. They usually featured the dry moat at the base of ramparts, for instance. Depending on the ground, major works could consist of a series of redans, ramparts shaped like Vs with their points facing the attacker and connected by walls or trenches. Lunettes also faced their salient angles toward the enemy. These configurations had the advantage of creating overlapping or crossing fields of fire. Redoubts were breastworks (low barricades to shield riflemen) that were used in both permanent and temporary fortifications as part of a parapet. Depending on how transitory the field fortifications were, redoubts could be hastily fashioned breastworks placed to protect the flanks of trenches. Siege and field guns formed an important part of major field fortifications. Artillery was usually arranged to fire above the parapet from a platform called a barbette or from an embrasure, which was an aperture in the parapet. Both types of mountings had advantages and disadvantages. The barbette gun could cover a broad area, but its exposed position was dangerous to its crew. The embrasure gun was shielded, but it covered only a limited angle of the field, and the embrasures could offer a determined enemy a means of accessing the parapet. Whether mounted as a barbette or at an embrasure, cannon always required a platform to prevent their becoming mired and consequently impossible to handle. Cleared ground in front of fortifications and the moat at the base of the rampart were usually strewn with objects to hinder attackers as they advanced on the works. A series of obstacles cleverly placed could thoroughly jumble an otherwise orderly advance and subject it to merciless fire. Abatises were such an obstruction, but a variety of others were also used. Pointed stakes bristling from the ramparts (fraises) or sunk in the ground to form a fence (palisades)were typical. Chevaux-de-frise (long timbers with spikes jutting from them) were especially effective against cavalry, and wire entanglements (first used in 1863) could stall an infantry attack for the slaughtering. Barbed wire had not yet been invented and hence was never used in the War Between the States. Minor fieldworks usually consisted of rifle pits (that era's version of the foxhole) and blockhouses or stockades. Such minor fortifications could shield a soldier from enemy fire, but they weren't intended to fortify against attack. The extent of fortifications was determined by how much manpower and artillery were available and the actual situation of the works in relation to their surroundings, especially if they were to be incorporated into a larger scheme of fortification. It was the job of military engineers to fashion works from a standard set of configurations-such as redans, lunettes, and redoubts-but talented engineers could quickly adapt standard fortifications to any peculiarities of the ground or the strengths or weaknesses of the army's men and equipment. This book is an important contribution to understanding how the war was fought and to better fix its place in the continuing development of military theory and technology.


Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
Orlando, Florida