In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat. By Earl J. Hess. Civil War America series. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Pp. xxiv, 404.)
After receiving a number of hammer blows from General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac between May and June 1864, General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia fell back to the Confederate capital of Richmond to block Grant’s newest maneuver during the Overland Campaign. Yet, with the disastrous assault against Confederate defenses at Cold Harbor in mind, Grant’s troops avoided attacking Confederate defenses, especially the extensive works outside Richmond. Instead, Grant decided to move his operations south of the James River in order to cut the supply lines entering Richmond through Petersburg. This move resulted in the siege of Petersburg and the final operation in the Virginia Theater during the war. This campaign—which Earl J. Hess convincingly shows was not a true siege operation, but rather a traditional military campaign with the extensive inclusion of field fortifications—is the topic of Hess’s study In the Trenches at Petersburg.
The third of a trilogy of monographs on the use of field fortifications during the Civil War, Hess focuses on the extensive fieldworks that both the Union and Confederate forces constructed outside the important rail hub of Petersburg and the reason for the armies actions. Following the operation chronologically, Hess splits the campaign into nine Union offensives, two cavalry or infantry raids, and three Confederate offensives. Though Hess includes the engineering process that went into the construction of the fieldworks, this work is primarily a campaign study, which Hess uses to show the reason for the extensive works constructed during the ten-month operation.
By focusing on the campaign and Grant’s overall operational plan, Hess shows the field fortifications came about due to the continual contact between the two forces. Although historians previously argued that the implementation of field fortifications arose from the widespread distribution of the rifled musket, Hess argues that without the constant contact between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia the soldiers would have had no reason for the fieldworks. Instead, since the two armies were within striking distance of each other since the beginning of the summer, the soldiers became more susceptible to constant sniper and skirmish fire, a continual fear of attacks at any point, and relentless artillery fire. By implementing field fortifications, the soldiers of the two forces hoped to stave off death with the protection the works provided to them.
In addition to relieving the soldiers’ fears, the field fortifications worked in conjunction with the operational objectives for Grant and Lee. Most obviously, Lee and his army constructed the fieldworks for a purely defensive purpose. Lee believed that the fortifications could help prevent defeat as they provided defenders an advantage over assaulting forces, as seen in the Overland Campaign especially during the Battle of Cold Harbor in June 1864. With the fieldworks, Lee’s depleted army could prevent much larger assaults with fewer troops.
Grant, however, employed fieldworks as a part of his offensive operation around Petersburg. Using what Hess termed a “bite-and-hold tactic,” the Union forces extended their works to the west of Petersburg in order to spread Lee’s lines thin and cut off the supply lines provided by the various railroads into Petersburg (284). In the process, they constructed fortifications that allowed them to prepare for a Confederate assault that could possibly reverse the work they had already accomplished. Although most historians emphasize the defensive implementation of fieldworks during the Civil War, Hess shows that the Union forces employed fortifications for offensive purposes. Therefore, field fortifications had a two-fold purpose during the ten-month long Petersburg campaign.
Although a part of the trilogy on field fortifications, Hess does not emphasize the engineering process in the construction of the fieldworks as he had done in his first book on the topic, Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War (2005). In this previous work, he examines the remnants of the works to determine their effectiveness in the early stages of the conflict and how they evolved between 1861 and 1864. This would have been an interesting comparison in this study of the Petersburg works, but the extensive complexes the two armies created may have prevented Hess from following through on this comparison.
Instead, Hess successfully shows the purpose behind the fortifications rather than how they evolved. By the beginning of the Petersburg campaign, fieldworks became a common part of Civil War battlefields. The extensive fortifications used outside of Petersburg, however, marked a transition in nineteenth century warfare as trenches and fieldworks emerged as a piece of operational and tactical planning. Although an excellent study, Hess’s examination would not be a good start for readers unfamiliar with the Petersburg campaign. For those acquainted with Petersburg, this study provides a greater understanding of the reason behind the extensive fortifications.
Mike Burns Texas Christian University