Field fortifications are improvised structures and excavated areas that are used to enhance a military’s defensive position in the field. Such works are constructed in haste, and in this respect they differ from formal masonry fortifications, which often take years to construct. Throughout the CIVIL War armies used field fortifications either to provide troops with protection or to fend off enemy attacks from specific sectors.
The field fortifications used in the Civil War generally consisted of a steep bank of dirt called a rampart, typically 12 feet in height and depth, behind which infantry, artillery, or both would be deployed. The area immediately before the rampart would be cleared of any trees or bushes that might obstruct the field of fire. This basic form might be augmented with palisades, a series of sharp wooden stakes arranged in a loose wall pointed toward the enemy, or the more elaborate chevaux-de-frise, consisting of long timber studded with metal spikes. By 1864 Union troops employed wire entanglements, a primitive form of barbed wire, to trip up infantry attacks. Depending on the situation, the time involved, and the number of troops present, such defenses could also include semipermanent structures, such as magazines to house gunpowder or “bombproofs” (bomb shelters) to protect soldiers from enemy ordnance. Usually built from heavy wooden beams and compacted dirt, these additions were effective against everything but a direct hit from heavy artillery fire.
Fieldworks varied tremendously in design but were all employed to enhance defenses at select locations across a given line. Siege cannon or field artillery frequently figured prominently in such arrangements. These weapons were usually deployed in redans (V-shaped angles) or lunettes (half-circular formations) protruding from the main earthwork, pointed toward the enemy and presenting them with
Field fortifications, including chevaux-de-frise, in Atlanta, Georgia (1864) (Library of Congress)
Deadly, interlocking fields of fire. If infantry formed the bulk of defenses, the construction was called a redoubt, and it allowed soldiers to fire at an advancing enemy from behind earthen protection. If time was at a premium, infantry might resort to constructing simple foxholes, or rifle pits, usually in conjunction with wooden structures known as blockhouses or occasionally with long wooden fences called stockades. It fell upon the engineering component of an army to design defenses that were adapted to both the terrain and the soldiers who would employ them.
By 1864-65 both the Union army and the Confederate ARMY had grown adept in the design and construction of field fortifications, so much so that the lowly spade had acquired a tactical significance heretofore reserved for the rifled musket and cannon. In 1864 the Battles of Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the Crater, and the siege of Petersburg, all of which produced immense carnage, testified to the effectiveness of field fortifications in channeling and rebuffing infantry attacks. This approach was a far cry from the massed Napoleonic-type formations used early in the war, with banners flying and bands playing, and anticipated the extensive trench warfare characteristic of World War I, although on a lesser scale.
Further reading: Earl J. Hess, Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005); Earl J. Hess, Trench Warfare Under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007); Brent Nosworthy, The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Operations of the Civil War (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003).
—John C. Fredriksen
World History
