Earls. I can honestly say one of his books i read at graduate school is one of the very finest and, in fact, one of the very first books to explore soldier motivation and ideology. It is an outstanding book. He has done many others that include pickens charge, rightful musket in the civil war. His book on braxton brag as well. Im not sure youll love him after you read earls book. It is a fair and very well researched and deeply analytical look at that controversial general. Earl has won a number of awards, including the tom watson prize for his work on civil war tactics, something he will be speaking about today. And, i should note, that this book, fighting for atlanta published by the university of North Carolina press that it, in fact, will be his topic. Let me welcome earl hess. Thank you, peter, very much for that nice, generous introduction. Fighting for atlanta, tactics, terrain and trenches in the civil war. Thats the topic. The purpose is to understand one of the more important elements that influence the course of operations during the Atlanta Campaign, which is fort fortifications. Field fortifications of the Overland Campaign of grant and lee in volume three, the petersburg campaign. The Atlanta Campaign was one of four campaigns in the civil war that heavily, heavily, heavily used fortifications. Atlanta, vicksburg in the western theater. A word or two maybe in general about the Atlanta Campaign for people who may not have that much familiarity with it. Very briefly, it is a major, long campaign. 100,000 union troops under william t. Sherman divided into three armys, thomas army of the cumberland, mcphersons army, until he was killed and then replaced by otis five days later and the army of the ohio under John Schofield against the army of tennessee led by joseph e. Johnston until july 18th when he was replaced by john bill hood. Dalton, georgia, first week of may and lasted with almost continuous contact with nine or ten major battles until atlanta failed september 2nd, 1864. Sherman drove 100 miles into confederate territory. A campaign of that length and size is unusual. The history of operations was affected by many factors. However, i looked primarily at one factor, field fortifications. Let me point out that when i did my trilogy on fortifications, it became clear to me that its very dangerous to look at the history of field fortifications without understanding topography as well as tactics. The subtitle is tactics, terrain and trenches. Soldier life, to me one of the more fascinating aspects. How do soldiers live and fight in field works . Now then, very briefly, what do i mean by tactics . Well, its a complicated topic. Ive written a book about at least some of it. I wouldnt go into a lot of detail here. Divide tactics into two major components. Number one, primary tactics. Those are the tactical formations and maneuvers that were designed to organize masses of men on the battlefield and on the march. Those maneuvers and formations were used by union and confederate. They were universal. And they didnt change during the course of the civil war. I wrote a book on primary tactics, which pete mentioned a moment ago, published in 2015. I dont ca i dont cover primary tactics in this book. Theres no need to. Instead with the higher or the secondary level of tactics, which used to be called grand tactics by civil war historians. I think that term is out of favor. They call it operations, or whatever they call it today. Basically this is the level of the field Army Commander. Do i attack . Do i act on the defensive . Do i try to outflank the enemy, et cetera, et cetera. Higher level than the primary level. And this is what is covered in this atlanta book because, you know, commanders johnston, hood, sherman, they all had to deal with field fortifications. Sherman adopted what i would like to call a cautiously offensive mode of operations in the Atlanta Campaign. That doesnt sound silly. A cautiously offensive mode of operations. Sherman wanted to conserve his manpower and avoid costly frontal attacks. But at the same time put a lot of continuous pressure on johnston and hood so that he could keep the ball rolling continuously for four months. One of the interesting aspects of the Atlanta Campaign that historians dont often point t out, grant and sherman coordinated themselves. One of the things that grant told sherman, you need to keep johnston so busy in georgia that he will not send reinforcements to help lee. And ill keep lee so busy in georgia that he cannot afford to send reinforcements to johnson and both agreed to do that. Thats one of the upper most things in shermans mind. We cant let the confederates just lay around or theyll do something dangerous like that. Now one of the cautiously offensive ways that sherman conducted himself, if he comes up against a strong confederate, fortified position, he fortfies in front of it. Military and sniper fire so theyre distracted and then he moves his military group to try outflank him right or left and try to pry him out of that fortification without having to attack it. Now and then, he did attack, like at kennesaw mountain. But generally speaking he conducted his campaign with a wonderful balance of attack and caution. Cautiously offensive mode of operations. Joseph johnston very conservative defensive mode of operating. Dig in on good ground. Hope the federals will attack and do nothing. Passive defensive. Johnston rarely thought in terms of counterattacking against sherman. And didnt do much to cross the three major rivers and he was ready to evacuate strong positions at the first sign of a u. S. Flanking operation. He deserved his men and his men loved him. He frustrated jefferson davis. Thats why davis fired him july 18th and replaced him with john bill hood, one of his core commanders, who talked big about the need to counter attack. And hood did on july 22nd, failed, lost 11,000 men and then reverted to relying on massive earth works and pretty passive defense like johnston had a few days later. How many of you have visited this region . Has anybody . Wonderful. Im glad to see that. More than i anticipated. This map will show the general theater of operations. The first zone goes from dalton, georgia, a town 30 miles south of chattanooga, down to the etowah river. If this pointer works ill be utterly delighted. There we go. It kind of worked a little bit. It doesnt seem to be working when it hits that slide, though. The etowah river is right here, right in the middle of the map. Between the etowah and the dalton, charactered by high dominating ridges that are wonderful, defensive positions. You put a line on top of Rocky Face Ridge it is unassailable. All sherman has to do is find the nearest undefended gap to right or left of johnston position and he can outflank his position easily. My argument is this first topographic zone is good for the federals. It facilitates their movement. Sherman is able to move through zone number one pretty quickly, in three weeks time. Battles at dalton on may 2th, may 14, 15. Cassville, may 19th. Once the campaign crosses the etowah river and enters the second zone between the etowah and the chattanooga, piedmont, rolling terrain. And it so happens that in this part of the piedmont theres not much development. A few small farms, lot of ground covered by thick woods and brush. Very bad and few roads. This terrain favors johnston and the confederates. Once you find out what road sherman is taking, you block it with troops. You stymie him. On top of that, when sherman enters this zone on may 23rd, rains begin to descend on northwest georgia, turning roads into rivers of mud. Sherman is stuck. The second zone is the worst phase of the Atlanta Campaign for the federals. Zone three favored the confederate confederates. It took from may 23rd to july 9. Sherman is worried. Hes worried that johnston may use this delay to send troops to grant. 15,000 troops. They dont even dent the confederate line. And he loses 3,000 men in the process. Learns his lesson from it. But generally sherman has to pry the confederates out of each fortified position in zone two. Once the campaign crosses the chattahoochee river its a different story. Its shermans game. South of the chattahoochee is piedmont country but well developed, lots of farms, plantations. 10,000 people ten miles south of the chattahoochee. Federals dont have much difficulty maneuvering troops through this. Atlanta is defended by a massive ring of for theification of for. He has to figure out how ai way to deal with that, but he will do that. The three rivers are part of the terrain. I remember a long time ago the historian, richard mcmurray, giving a talk in which he said at the three big rivers of the Atlanta Campaign were major, natural impediments to shermans operations. I completely disagree with him. Those three rivers, the oostanaula, south of resaca, the second one is the etowah, south of kingston and cassville and third is the chattahoochee, just short of atlanta. They were natural barriers, yes. Sherman, however, had little difficulty crossing them primarily because the confederates did not bother to contest the crossings. They didnt position significant numbers of troops to harass the federals as they tried the difficult task of crossing those rivers. Passive defense by johnston, even by hood. There were a couple of except n exceptions to that, yes. For the most part, the crossings were largely uncontested. The rivers were no impediment. Big topic. This is a photograph taken in april of 1866 of union earth works, artillery positions near kennesaw mountain. The mountain itself, little kennesaw right there. Sorry about this pointer. Little kennesaw is the big hump. Little hump is pigeon hill, spur of the kennesaw range. Union field eroded and degraded, yes. Temporary made out of local material eroding as time goes by. Army commanders, let me give you a little precipes. Number one, the Army Commander decides where we stand. Johnston has to make a decision, this ridge at cassville, kennesaw range. Then they go out and stake out the line. The chief engliineer has to fige out how to place the trench as close to the military crest as close as possible. Military crest refers to the spot on the slope where you can see all the ground in front of you so theres no, quote, dead space that the enemy can advance on, that you cant see him. The military crest can be near or often times is different from the natural crest. You have to be smart enough to tell the difference between the two of them. And they literally stake it out. They take stakes, like a construction project. The next step is for the infantry troops to line up there. You issue them shovels and spades. By the way, quarter masses are responsible for the entrenching tools they carried in the wagon. They have to be issued every day. You dont yet have these little individual shovels that you do in the modern world, world war ii, for example. 90 of the trench digging in the Atlanta Campaign, union and confederate done by infantry troops. Theres not enough black slaves available to johnston or engineer troops to be able to do all of that. The basic trench, you dig a trench at least three feet deep into the ground. You pile the dirt in front of you to form what is called a parapit, a bank of earth that shields you. Often before you do that, if youre lucky enough, you can have the time to gather some loose trees and rocks and pile them up on the ground in front of where you want to dig so that when you pile the dirt on top of that, you can add some quick height to the parapit to get better protection. Basically waist deep or so in the ground and the rest of your body is protected by a builtup berm. If you have time, you improve this basic trench with all sorts of embellishments, i like to call them. Traverse is a wonderful invention to protect yourself from flanking fire. Flanking fire is called, in military terms enfelade. Along your trench line, against your flank, youre in trouble. Only thing to do is to dig a trench and parapit at an angle to the main line. Look at this photograph of resaca taken in april 66. [ inaudible ] if you have the time to do it, this is far and away the best way to deal with the fire. You can hold on, protect yourself from flanking fire and hopefully stay in place. Another embellishment that is widespread in the Atlanta Campaign is a head log. You want to put some sort of log on top of the parapit to protect your head while firing. You raise it above the parapit about a block so theres a couple of inches, a slit. Can you stick the musket through, see through it and fire. The best thing to do is cut down a pine tree. Theyre straight, usually. Theyre soft wood. Theyre easy to cut and theyre easy, light to lift up on top of the parapet. One day i counted the rings in a sawedoff pine tree. And i estimated that a pine tree, eight to ten inches wide, is about 30 to 40 years old. Imagine a pine tree sprouting up from a seed in the days of Andrew Jackson in northwest georgia. 40 years later, the confederates are nearby and cut it down. Thats what were talking about. I could not find a photograph of a real head log using a pine tree. This is the best i could find. Confederate earth work in atlanta occupied by the federals. Can you see it . Its not a pine log. Its a building timber from a house. That will do, too, of course. [ inaudible ] also another thing a very deep trench even as they stand upright and not be exposed. Thats safe but you cant fire from it. Microphone. I will try. You cant fire from it. If youre down deep in the deepest part of the trench. So the firing step is raised up a couple of inches from the bottom of the trench so that you can step up on to it and be able at a height to fire under the headlog. And you step back into the deeper part of the trench in order to save yourself. This is a pretty sophisticated form of trench. Its not a basic trench anymore if you have a head log in it. And also if you have even more time and you want to maximize your defensive position, my gosh, you do some clear cutting of trees in front of it so that the enemy cant sneak up on you 50 yards wide, 200 yards wide, whatever you can do. It may seem ironic but in addition to that, you man made some obstructions to replace the trees. Different kinds of obstructions that are designed to force an attacking enemy to stop at short range of your firing line. And so you could shoot them down better and their Forward Movement is stopped. Several different categories of things. Before i point them out to you, i want to tell you about the ponder house. I think this is probably the most famous photograph to come from the Atlanta Campaign. Widely reproduced because of this ponder house. Thats the white house you see there. Built by a guy named ponder in 1857 made of brick and stucco near the northwest corner of the atlanta city defenses, near confederate fourth designated as fort x. More popularly called fort hood. Standing on the parapet of the fort looking at the ponder house. Ponder left his house in 1863 because his wife, ellen, was unfaithful to him. According to the story she was blatantly having an affair with somebody and he was humiliated and basically abandoned her. Ellen stayed there until the spring of 1864 when she also fled before sherman got there. The house was empty, used by sharpshooters, perforated by u. S. Military. Ponder owned 65 slaves before the war. If youre interested in the history of west point, the first africanamerican to graduate from the u. S. Military academy was a man named henry flipper. Flipper, a son of one of the ponder slaves. This photograph so widely reproduce reproduced, you can see lots of obstructions here. You can see incline and upright palisades. The upright palisade is the upright structure in front of the trench. That is an amazing obstruction that will really obscure the fire of the guys in the trench as well as block the movement of attacking troops and inclined palisade are those sticking at a 45degree angle and sharpened at the end so an attacker will catch it at his breast. You have to be careful to put the inclined palisade close enough so guys cant slip through it or you lose the effectiveness of it. If you look closely at this photograph you can see other things. The confederates built a massive defensive system for atlanta. The atlanta city defenses were constructed by a guy named grant, ironically, confederate engineer officer, encircled the city of atlanta and was developed into probably the most heavily fortified city in america, perhaps, other than washington and richmond, by the end of the civil war. With multiple layers of obstructions, heavy earth works, they were impregnable and sherman had no intention to attack them. Fort x is in the northwest quadrant. It was one of five that grant planned but after hood took command of the army of tennessee he gave orders for those to be connected by infantry trenches. Thats why we call this hoods addition to the atlanta city line on the northwest and the northeast sector of the atlanta defensive perimeter. Another obstruction, chevauxdefrise, in my fractured french, forced french, you can see a chevauxdefrise. You constructed behind the lines. You deploy it in front of the fortification. You chain it together so that it will not be easily taken apart. It was a formidablelooking obstruction. Layered defense. As i mentioned to you, half the time you have several five or six different layers of obstructions in front of a heavy earth walk. Union workers, soldiers, engineers looking through their glasses when they got through this phase of the Atlantic Campaign shuddered. And sherman absolutely refused to launch a frontal attack against this position. This is from confederate fort v looking toward the next fort. You see the connecting line between. The confederates made 18 different fortified campaigns. Some of them heavier than others. Most of them quite heavy and effective. All the way from dalton down to places like love joy station, palmeto station, constructed after the fall of atlanta. And in addition to this, the federals constructed a line of defenses opposite each one of these lines. In addition to that after they captured atlanta, the federals dug their own city defenses for their own purposes. You dont have to remember all of these 18 lines, but i think its pretty impressive to have it on a slide to look at. Those are the dates they were held. Its hundreds of miles of earth works dug by both sides. There are estimates of it. I dont know how accurate they are. There are literally hundreds of miles if you add them together. The line surrounding atlanta itself were 15 miles of conti e continuous trenches both union and confederate. Well, not all of those 18 confederate lines were equally strong. Heres an interesting thing. The Confederate Army of tennessee had to learn how to dig in. They didnt know it from the beginning. They had to learn it. And the first confederate fortified line at dalton partly because of inexperience and because of the terrain, they relied on natural defenses. This is a rock formation on the top of Rocky Face Ridge. Look at that rock formation briefly. Im going to show you a map where its located. Just a moment. And just south of a gap called mill creek gap. Look at this map for a moment. Anybody who drives south on interstate 75 from chattanooga to atlanta will go through this map. Follow the line of the railroad, and youre roughly following the line of interstate 75. The next time you do this, please remember from dr. Hess hold you on this day, and when you drive through mill creek gap, look to your right on to the top of this high dominating rockyfaced ridge. See how tall it is and how steep it is. And remember that when doctor hess was still a young man back in the 1990s, he walked up the entire length of that steep ridge. Almost had a heart attack part of the way through maybe, but he got up there and took that photograph right there that youre enjoying right now. Thats a rocky outcropping. A pal said on top of this thin, narrow narrow appalachian ridge. This is taken from the union side. If the federals elected to attack up rocky faced ridge. This is what they would have faced with confederates we hind shooting at them. They elected not to do that, but this is the kind of appalachian terrain you deal with around dalton. And then dug a gap. Look at the map. Thats a couple mile south. The confederates had fortifications there made out of rock. Its a part thats narrow. A lot of rocks on it. Here the confederates put together rock breastwork. Well, the confederates evacuated dalton. They failed back to resacca. They failed to learn how to fortify properly. The resaca line consists of a long line of trench north and south and an east west line at a right angle. At that angle Union Artillery had a cross fire, and they devastated the confederate troops because they did not dig the trench deep enough. They were clobbered. That night when the sun went down and the battle ended, they got tools and they spent half the night deepening their trench, building traverses on the morning of may 15th they thought were in good shape. The Union Artillery resumed firing and clobbered them again. The trenches werent deep enough. They suffered horribly. Partly because of that and other reasons they evacuated resaca on the night of may 15th. Nevertheless the confederates learned their lesson through hard experience. The confederates began to learn how to dig in properly. Deep trenches. Sophisticated obstructions. Traverse every few yards if you have to. South of a river the campaign slowed. Shermans progress slowed. He had to deal with every decreasing strongly defended places, and thinking about ways to force them out. I included this photograph. Its a photograph of confederate fort v on the defensive line. Revetment is a holding wall. This revetment is made of posts driven into the ground and poles are interwoven with it. Thats another photograph of fort v with union troops with it takenen in the fall of 64. You can see another indication how much they use sandbags to hold up the parapet and they use boards to hold up things. This is a wonderful photograph thats not often shown or published. If you look to the right, i think you can probably see theres a line of shef row chevauexdefrise. Theres the Georgia Railroad going in the foreground. Its a wonderful illustration to show it looked like on the confederate defenses. In august of 64, sherman bombarded atlanta to terrorize the citizens. They dug bombproofs in their backyards. You can see closely that mound of earth in the middle. Theres a hole on the right of it. Thats the entrance to it. Thats what a bombproof looked like in atlanta. I assume its a civilian bombproof. I dont see any evidence of military bombproofs in the Atlanta Campaign. I mentioned to you the federals did construct fortifications. After atlanta failed on september second, sherman wanted to make atlanta into a thoroughly military garsen. He ordered the evacuation of 3500 southern sympathizers from the civilian population. They were forced to leave. And he also ordered his engineer to construct union earth works to defend atlanta. They were inside the confederate perimeter. You can see those numbered, the numbered line, 14, 25, 16, 17, thats the union earthworks to defend atlanta through the southern and western suburbs. They had to tear down houses and everything, but they built one of the most impressive earth work defensive systems youll ever see photographed by George Bernard in november of 62. We have several wonderful photographs. How neat they are. How well constructed according to scientific principles. And here is something youll not see any place else. This is a ditch in federal fort number 7. You see those things that look like corn stalks . Theyre not corn stalks. They are wooden stakes about six feet long with sharp ends, and theyre planted only inches apart from each other to make a forest of sharpened stakes in the ditch. If youre an attacking rebel, and you see this two feet away, while youre charging, youre just going to see a bed of sharpened stakes youre going to have to try to deal with. Not even going to try. Ive never seen anything like this in a civil war earthwork fortification. This would make this fort absolutely impregnible to an infantry attack. I promised information on soldier life. That was one of the most interesting aspects of research i did for this book. Soldiers lived and fought in trenches continuously in the Atlanta Campaign. It might be difficult to imagine. They werent stuck forever like on the western front of world war i, but the trenches were their home. They were living in holes in the ground. And its northwest georgia. The ground is red clay. No matter what the weather is, baking under the hot sun, swimming in mud, doing a heavy rain, let me give you a quote from a confederate artilleryman of the Fifth Company washington artillery. Sun and rain, he said, heat and cold, storm and mud and water come what may, we took it in the trenches. Soldiers learned to stretch tent flies or blankets over the trench as the sun shade often to be told to tear it down with response to a surprise attack. A Union Soldier named william westerfelt of the 17th new york noted that his trench after a heavy rain was half full of water. And sometimes it was a choice whether we would take a bath or a bullet. As it was almost certain death to leave the trenches. And a confederate soldier named george lee, 7th mississippi described his comrades. He said they look as bad as a dog just out of a hole after a rabbit. Instead of being white, we are all red. And heres another quote from a georgia militiamen. The governor joe brown did mobilize about 3,000 or 4,000 Georgia State troops in the Atlanta Campaign. Georgia militiamen at holiday to his wife, lizzie. I have lived in the ground until i have turned to be nothing more than a gopher or a mole. He and his comrades were, quote, a nasty, dirty set of men, he said. Now, let me add that maybe they were nasty and dirty for this reason, too. It wasnt just the dirt. If its dangerous to get out of the trench to relieve yourself, what do you do . A lot of soldiers just relieved themselves in the trench, and the feces accumulated until as an officer said enough is enough, get the shovels and get this stuff out of here. You have to deal with that. You have to deal with an lawful lot of beef eaten by civil car soldiers fresh on the hoof. You slaughtered it every day near the lines. Eventually that creates piles of cattle awful that rots and draws insects. Flies swarmed by the millions around the trenches. Especially they were occupied for weeks at a time as they were by august of 1864. In addition to that, body lice infested the men. And the trenches. Here is a quote from isaac foster of the 10th mississippi. Numbers of them, body lice, may be seen crawling on the poles that support our blankets which are spread for shade, he wrote. Never before have they been so plentiful. Although he admitted the men suffered from body lice throughout the campaign. Boarding became a problem. I found it interesting that isaac foster implied that at least the body lice gave people something to do. We have this image that trench war fair is a horrible experience and obviously it was, but theres also an awful lot of boredom going on. Few neeps and fewer books were meant to pass the time. They kept in touch with friends and other units by writing notes on pieces of paper and passing them down the trench line with instructions, send this guy down to that guy in this unit. And informal truces took place by men detailed to take a duty usually at night when firing ceased. A lot of men left. Thats why one reason rebel officers tried to stamp them out as much as possible. Sherman brought the campaign to a conclusion. And he did it by doing a tactic which he had done once or twice earlier in the campaign to temporarily cut himself off from his railroad supply line with chattanooga living off the line for several days to make a wide sleeping flanking movement around the city of atlanta and cut off its railroad supply lines in order to starve the confederate out. Thats how he captured atlanta on september 2nd, 18 of 4. The irony is, again, i draw your attention to these wonderfully constructed federal earth works of atlanta. They were basically finished by early november. You know what happened right after this. Sherman changed his plan. He doesnt intend to hold atlanta anymore. He wants to evacuate it. Cut away with 60,000 of his troops and march through georgia. So right after this wonderful set of earthworks was finished, George Bernard quickly exposed maybe a dozen photographs for posterity and then the federals evacuated atlanta and left the city behind and never used them. Sherman has other objectives. The march of the seas is it. It is not static warfare or french warfare. It is rapid mobile and the war shifts to another kind of gear then. So what is the bottom line about fortifications in the Atlanta Campaign . The campaign was heavily vested with fortifications by both sides. Did it do either of them any good . The confederates used it for defensive purposes to delay sherman. They failed to stop him. Why . Because sherman cleverly used fortifications for offensive purposes. His men dug in opposite johnston and hoods lines to hold their attention and you can hold that line with few troops, because fortification is what the modern military calls a force multiplier. Anything that will maximize the fighting power of your troops. And sherman can, therefore, detach men from his army and flank the confederates out. Thats what we call using fortification for offensive purposes in a tactical sense. Another issue that we need to bring up, theres kind of an idea among a lot of students of the civil war that field fortifications were the result of impetus by ordinary soldiers who took it upon themselves to construct them. For the most part, that is a fallacy. Look at the records. Look at the information. Nine times out of ten, middle ranked commanders are making that decision. A commander. Sometimes a core commander. Does sherman make the decision we use fortifications . Does johnston . No. Its the middle ranked commander who makes the decision and fosters the repetitive use of these things. The other notion is blacks construct of the 18 fortified lines . No, absolutely not. Blacks were used only to construct two of the 18 fortified lines. The chattahoochee river line on the north bank and the atlanta city line. All the others were done by confederate infantry men instead. On the union side, all of it was done by union infantrymen. Is trench warfare inevitable . No. It just happened in the Atlanta Campaign. It didnt continue after. Was it a foreshadowing of world war i . A lot of people say yes. I say no for various reasons. What you have in world war i is vastly different in scope and kind than what you have in atlanta or petersburg. Theres no real comparison between oranges and apples. But enough, i think at this point id like to first of all thank you for your indulgence in what can be a technical issue. And i want to hear what you have to say. Thank you very much. [ applause ] dennis middle brooks from brookl brooklyn, new york. Sherman accomplished in three months his goal of taking atlanta with about half the number of casualties, if that that grant suffered the same period of time going to richmond and petersburg. What do you think the reasons for that are . How does it reflect on shermans leadership versus grants leadership . Its a very good question. I think it reflects very highly on shermans leadership. Sherman conducted the Atlanta Campaign with more balance, more care. I dont want to be i love grant. I dont want to criticize him too much. But i think grant was operating under a vastly different environment in virginia than sherman was in georgia. Number one, he had a better commander to oppose. Number two, grant was working with an army that he didnt really know and didnt know him. And number three, grant, the biggest thing is that grant was working against the fact that the army at the potomac was with lee consistently for so long, and grant thought you know, if you look at grants comments on the campaign, you know what is the consistent theme he says . It is necessary to teach the army how to fight. Grant interpreted the Overland Campaign as a contest of morale that he had to instill in the federal troops in the east that you can whip these guys if you just try. Sherman saw that too when sherman wrote letters during the Atlanta Campaign to grant saying youre giving the rebels a good lesson. Keep it up. The morale issue was uppermost in the minds of both grant and sherman. They had the morale advantage in the west but not in the east. Im saying this because i think that is the reason why grant so often attacked so often and with sometimes poor preparation, because he was afraid that lee would take advantage of him if he didnt do something quickly. Sherman didnt have to worry about that, because johnson was so passively defensive he didnt have to worry much about johnson taking advantage of him. He had a lot more advantages to kind of play the game more cooley. Its a wonderful question that we could spend a whole hour discussing. Thank you. Yes, sir. Why did sherman feel it necessary to build his own set of fortifications around atlanta . Why didnt he just reuse his confederate ones which havent been built for two years already . Its a good question. The answer is one of scale. The confederate earthworks for planned to be far enough away from the center of atlanta so that enemy artillery would not be able to reach the center of atlanta that well. That proved to be a fallacy. But because they were set so far, they were about a one to two miles away from the center of atlanta. It would have required far too many troops to hold. Thats the basic answer. Sherman just wanted to hold atlanta with a small garsen. He needed a shrunken perimeter. You talked about the first black grad from west point. I know then well, most famously colonel Benjamin Davis ended up being a general. When he graduated from westpoint, i believe class of 62. Excuse me 22, he upon graduation gained a lot of friends, basically. His classmates did not want him there because of his color. They would not talk to him. He was ostracized. The gentlemen who was the first cadet, black cadet at westpoint, did he experience the same thing . Yeah. He was not allowed to graduate. He actually was ive forgotten his name. That was the grant administration. That was the first African American to enter westpoint. He was so harassed and so hazed, and he did something i dont remember the details. I shouldnt get into it, but he did something that led himself to be open to dismissal from the academy. Thats why flipper is the first African American to graduate. Hes not the first to attend westpoint. Matt from illinois. Speaking of the terrain advantages and disadvantages, you talked about how from the et wa to the chat hooch which i the advantage of the confederates and from the chattahoochee south, the advantage of the union. How did the fact that the south was developed more change the advantage . My own interpretation is that the thing is you have more cleared areas. So the federals have the opportunity of scouting better and seeing where the confederate positions are. One of the things they complained about north of the chattahoochee is being engulfed by the forest. I only recently found out about recently the Atlanta Campaign probably produced the biggest wave of refugees of any campaign of the civil war. Most of the southern civilians in shermans path got out of the way. Federal troops constantly complained. Theyre coming across one abandoned house after another as they march. Thats a problem. They rely heavily on local civilians and tell them whats the name of this road . Does it go to this place or that place . They couldnt do that anymore. So they had to send out cavalry patrols with scouts and they had to go through heavily forested areas where they were ambushed. It inhibits their ability to do recon. If you have a more heavily developed area, you usually have better roads. You dont have to deal with such terrible roads that are just tracks through the woods. And you can move troops a little bit better. Wonderful question. Thank you. Yes. Kirk from illinois. In one of your slides, you mentioned a shoe line but never the pegs. Im curious as to your thoughts of troops of idea of using them north of the chattahoochee. I have information on it. I decided to bypass it in the presentation. Nobody would know about the shoop line. Im glad to be proven wrong on that. This is called the chattahoochee river line. Let me see here. Go back to that list. If i can find it here. It usually is called the chattahoochee river line. I call ate shoop line it a shoop line. It is number 11. July 5th to 9. Along the north bank of the chattahoochee. Its an unusual one. Johnsons artillery chief, shoop had the idea to do it with a different twist. He thought instead of building a big redoubt on a big hill connected, lets have a series of small little fort ifications which came to be called shoop ades. They were made quickly by slave labor with logs. The therm like a stockade fort. You have a stockade to connect them to. His basic idea was to build a fortification that could be held with a minimal number of confederate troops so johnson could mask moat st of his army a mobile attack. Johnson said go ahead and build it. He gathered hundreds of slaves and constructed it quickly. Johnston held the position for four or five days. He completely forgot about why it was held. He refused to counterattack sherman. As soon as sherman got ahold of some crossings of the chattahoochee several miles away, johnston evacuated. Frustrating shoop to no end. Now, how did the confederate soldiers respond to this unusual thing . Some of them laughed when they saw it. They said this aint going to work. They tore them apart and made their own earth works. Other officers scratched their head and asked shoop about it. He explained it. They said well try it. Its a controversial line. As you said, it was never tested by the federals. But it kind of has a certain cacher today among students of the Atlanta Campaign because of the unusual design features. If you want to know my opinion about it, i think were making too much out of it. His innovation is not that different when the basic concept is just a different design to achieve the same purpose. Im not at all convinced that it would have worked if it had been tested properly by the enemy. I tend to be more negative about the brilliance of it than others. Im from new jersey. The treads verse. Traverse. Perp pin tickular to the regular line . It can be. The image of resaca shows them more at a different kind of angle. But theyre both traverses . Yeah. They both are called traverses. It just depends on the needs of the topography and position. Any kind of back ward entrenchment will help in this regard. Whether its perpendicular or a different angle. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. The three campaigns that all featured earthworks in large ways all were late in the war. Can you comment about the evolution of attitudes towards the construction of earthworks throughout the war and also the role that improved technology of weaponry played in makingetteworks more effective . In the old days you could have made fortifications but a large infin centr infantry assault could have overrun that. Youre touching on another related issue that ive talked about in a previous book called the rifle musket in the civil war. It had been the traditional interpretation that the reason you have such heavy use of fuel fortifications in 1864 is because by that stage of the war both armies were fully armed with a modern rifle musket. With a longer range of 500 yards compared to the smooth bore muskets old range of 100 yards. Because of the new weaponry, people had to dig in on the battlefield to survive. For decades that old traditional interpretation held sway. When i began doing my fortification study on the eastern campaigns, i broached an argument that counters it, and i more fully developed that argument in my book, the rifle musket in the civil war. I argued it was not the rifle musket but instead continue uou use of fuel. Before 1864 you dont have other than others, continuous contacts were weeks at a time of opposing forces. When you do, you have earthworks. My argument was because grant made continuous contact, thats why you get the sprouting off of fortifications. Battles like gettysburg see no specialmade fortifications, per se, on july 1st, second, a little bit by july third. And a lot more on july 4th. This is a pattern. In 61, 62, 63 there are many battles where fortifications are not used but if the armies remain in contact after the fighting for a couple days, they build fortifications after the fighting is over. Now, that to me disproves the idea that the rifle musket is the instigator of this. Continuous contact is, i think. Thank you, sir. A few days ago im lee from ohio. A few days ago my wife and i were in petersburg looking at the trerchgs. She said to me can i assume world war i learned something from this and thats why we have the trerchs of world war i. I said of course. You said i was wrong. Before i get home and hear about it, id like you to tell her why shes right. At least i wasnt there to be embarrassed when you were proven wrong. Im sorry. Its a good point. And im glad you brought it up. Number one, i dont know of any evidence uncovered by historians that military engineers or the german army, the british army, or any commanders of those armies in 19 14 even knew what happened in the civil war. There is no evidence that they did a study of this. Now, the u. S. Army, the west pointers and everybody else did study civil war field fortification. There was a field and staff rise for the u. S. Army in the late 1800s. I never saw any historian who can see any evidence that european theorists knew about this. The thing you have to keep in mind is the theory of field fortifications and the growth of their use is a worldwide phenomenon in the 1800s and 1900s. Not just america. Why did world war i devolve in french warfare . Let me suggest the primary reason is because by 1914 europe has experienced an explosion of population all over the continent, and the result is that National Armies in europe in 1914 can afford to raise gigantic military forces. You can have a National Army raised in a matter of weeks in 1914 that is big enough to span the borders of your country from right to left. In other words, you can have continuous fronts in world war ii that you could not have in the civil war. Theres no possibility of outflanking a trench on the western front because there is no flank. The westman front starts on the coast of the north sea and goes to neutral switzerland 500 miles. Every yard of it held by a german soldier. Shermans strategy of outflanking the enemy is impossible in world war i. Once the germans dig in with deep frenchs, you have to trenches, you have to deal with them frontally. If the germans dig three trenches, each one several hundred yards behind the others which was the basic fortification of world war i and dig another three lines of trenches half a mile behind that, there are so many layers to bust through, its almost hopeless, and if you look at the history of the western front, it is the german army that initiates the intense deinvolvement of operations in the trench warfare. On the western front, the german army was largely on the defensive. They compensated for their growing lack of man power by the engineers planning the most sophisticated field fortifications in World History that would like johnstons lines look like peanuts. Thats why i say on a scale, and on a sophistication level, the europeans did it all on their own in world war i. They didnt need the example of america. If they had looked at if a german engineer looked at the campaign, he probably would have laughed. Thats just my guess. Thats my interpretation of it. And if you can put that in a nutshell, explain it to your wife. Im from miami. My question suz is there any difference between how the confederate and federal soldiers built trenches in their skill or style, and yes, why. I think the answer is yes. It brings up another interesting point that i wanted to say and i forgot. If you want to look at trenches in the Atlanta Campaign, youre lucky. Go to kenasaw Mountain National park. You can probably walk along five or six miles of preserved confederate trench literally. Its red clay. It holds together. Theyre well preserved. Now, one of the interesting things about kenasaw is there are several sections of the preserved line where you can see Little Designs that only appear on this units sector. Quirky Little Design features ive never seen anywhere else. Those are examples of a guy in this company of the 20th tennessee having an idea in their mind about how to rearrange their trench a little bit differently than everybody else does. And thats if anybody was attending that material Culture Panel yesterday, there is a material culture of field fortifications. There is a standard way that is explained in the fortification manuals about how to do it, and then theres also the innovative made up thing that an individual soldier will think about. I find a lot of those innovative little quirks on confederate fortifications and rarely on union fortifications. Does that mean the confederates are more inventive . I dont know. I know in the Atlanta Campaign there were almost no earthworks preserved. We cant have a fair comparison. The other thing is in answer to your question, the confederates were on the defensive. They tended to build their earthworks deeper and with more obstructions. The federals had a strong tendency not to dig in as heavily because they didnt worry too much about being attacked by johnston. Even if we had preserved union earthworks, my guess is there would be lighter and less impressive. Thats another way to approach your interesting question. Thank you. Len from maryland. You mention that sherman changed his mind and never really made use of the union fortifications. When he went south to georgia, sent thomas north, what did he leave, or what how many did he leave for the defense of atlanta . He left the earthworks alone. As far as im aware, there was no destruction of either the confederate or union line, and when they were demolished, i dont know. I wish we did know. Usually what happens is that i probably should end pretty soon, but let me finish this happen. When the fighting is over, local landowners come back and reclaim their property. Let me show you something its right up here. Look at this. This is april of 1866. You can see evidence of rehabilitation and reclaiming of the plan. That has been dug into by somebody. Its half gone, and look at the fence posts. Those fence posts were part of the fortifications. One of the first thicks that landowners did when they have to deal with a post war fortification was pull the wood out and they dry the fence posts so they can reuse it. You see evidence of that in this photograph. I wish we had lots more information about when and how these earthworks were demolished after the war was over. Its a special interest of mine, and theres just very little evidence. My guess is the union earthworks were probably demolished very quickly after sherman left because they were in the way of the suburbs. So the landowners probably got their former slaves now, i guess we should say, and anybody else, and just shovelled them over and rebuilt over them. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the attention. [ applause ] this is a special edition of American History tv. A sample of the compelling history programs that air every weekend on American History tv. Like lectures in history. 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Explore our nations past on American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Next, historian edward ayers reflects on the valley of the shadow telling the story of the civil war from the perspective of two communities. One northern and one southern. The talk was part of the Gettysburg College civil war institutes annual summer conference. Its an hour. Good afternoon, everyone. Ite