Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortification in the Overland Campaign. By Earl J. Hess. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, c. 2007. Pp. xviii, 313, ISBN 978-0-8078-3154-0.)
Earl J. Hess’s Trench Warfare Under Grant & Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign analyzes the seemingly spontaneous adoption of large scale fixed defenses toward the close of the war. Hess follows the campaign and shows how as the Confederate and Union forces remained in close contact in the field for extended periods of time their entrenchments drastically expanded in both breadth and complexity. Hess organizes the work around a strong central thesis. He argues that Civil War soldiers entrenched far more regularly than their European counterparts, therefore the questions to Hess then becomes: Under what circumstances did soldiers generally entrench prior to the Overland Campaign, and how might this explain their behavior during the campaign? Hess claims that soldiers entrenched recently after combat due to the psychological stress of battle.
Given the massive casualties incurred over such a short period of time in the Overland Campaign Hess’s thesis holds a certain amount of sway over his readers. Yet, he also demonstrates that Grant’s refusal to quit the field after the initial engagements differentiated the Overland Campaign from previous incursions by the Army of the Potomac into Virginia. His argument is further reinforced by each side’s inadvertent use of fortifications. Grant and Lee’s efforts to strike a decisive blow in a war of maneuver to control the industrial and political heart of Virginia devolved into a stubborn stalemate. Moreover, Hess shows that Grant continuously sought to return to maneuver warfare through various attempts to outflank or overwhelm the Confederate defenses with frontal assaults. In this manner the trench warfare in Virginia developed despite the commanding generals’ best effort rather than because of them.
Beyond his thesis, Hess strives to tell the story of the Overland Campaign. In attempting both endeavors he shows how trench warfare was not the only consideration during the campaign. The campaign’s strategic objectives and the drastic disparity between the morale of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia governed Grants operational planning far more than the emergence of trench warfare. Hess claims the Army of the Potomac’s historic failure to seize the initiative and maintain it for any length of time compelled Grant to strike a series of costly blows against the Confederate forces to both inhibit any counterattack and then also to hound them so incessantly and forcefully that Union victory would appear inevitable to both sides. By combining his critical study of trench fortifications with the overarching narrative of the campaign Hess shows how historians’ emphasis on the unique qualities of the Overland Campaign has clouded their interpretation of both the overall narrative of the campaign and the role that these fortifications played within that narrative.
Hess uses a variety of typical historical sources to support his work, however one of the unique qualities of this work lies in Hess’s own experience of the present condition of many of the battlefields he analyzes within the narrative. Through actually walking the battlefields Hess claims that historians can learn a great deal about the type, disposition, and purpose of the various fortifications. The combination of traditional sources and Hess’s personal insights creates a narrative that describes how participants remembered the events as well as what effectively amounts to archeological data. Hess’s photos and diagrams of the fortifications appear throughout the book and gives readers access to valuable new compilations of data.
Hess presents a powerful argument about the significance of trench warfare at its apex during the Civil War predicated on strong historical research, a compelling narrative, and personal experience. Yet, attributing the massive efforts in both armies to fortify large swaths of Virginia to the psychological impact of prolonged combat rather than a larger strategic plan for waging the war appears tenuous. Moreover, the complexity of the campaign at that stage of the war dramatically muddles the exact reasons commanders and soldiers adopted particular strategies and tactics.
Fort Worth, Texas Andrew L. Klooster
Trench Warfare Under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign. by Earl J. Hess. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
Earl J. Hess’ 2007 work Trench Warfare Under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign is the second volume of what amounts to a three volume study of field fortifications in Civil War combat. The study is began by Hess’ 2005 work Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005) and has recently been continued in his 2010 work In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
Hess’ work is essentially a narrative of the events of the Overland Campaign with a spotlight on the field fortifications constructed and used at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Bermuda Hundred, North Anna, and Cold Harbor. He claims that Grant’s tactic of continuous contact with Lee’s army throughout the remainder of the Overland Campaign spurred the use of field fortifications through the remainder of the war in the East. Before this policy, field fortifications had been used irregularly in the East, often as psychologically-motivated aftereffects of harsh combat as reeling veterans sought protection from any continuing fighting. However, as Union commanders typically fled the field after each encounter with Lee’s army, the policy of field fortifications was never developed permanently by either army. Hess argues that this changed with Grant’s policy of continuous contact with Lee’s army, as first seen after the Wilderness in May, 1864 when Lee’s army was forced to “dig in” to strengthen their positions against constantly at-hand Federal troops. Hess’ point that common soldiers often created field fortifications after heavy contact with enemy forces in order to protect themselves from expected trauma holds true through each battle, as Grant’s new offensive policy caused Rebel troops to stay in constant readiness for impending assaults through each battle of the campaign. Field works were used against Union troops in particularly effective ways at the Mule Shoe Salient of Spotsylvania of May 12, 1864, Bermuda Hundred, and at Cold Harbor. Hess demonstrates that the Overland Campaign witnessed not only a “major shift in the use of field fortifications in the eastern theater, (p.205)” but a corresponding increase in casualty rates by extension. During the campaign Lee’s army lost 36,000 men utilizing “trench warfare” to defend themselves in response to the constant assaults of Federal armies; yet Grant’s army suffered an appalling 64,000 casualties throwing itself in frontal assaults against Confederate field fortifications that often evolved into positions as strong as those guarding Richmond. This connection in not stressed by Hess, but the use of field fortifications during the Overland Campaign seems to have been one of the marks of the modern combat styles of the next century as previewed generations early during the Civil War.
Hess displays the same impressive methodology throughout all of three volumes dealing with Civil War fortifications. He bases his analyses of fortifications during the Overland Campaign on letters, diaries both published and unpublished, memoirs, and over three hundred battlefield visits collected over a twenty year period (p.xvii). By far the most profound contributions concerning Hess’ documentation are his numerous original renderings of scrupulously detailed diagrams of field entrenchments. As Hess points out in his introductions, while some of the battlefields of the Overland Campaign have been quite well preserved, some battlefields have not been so fortunate in their fate, particularly the Bermuda Hundred battle site. Hess’ sketches and the photographs that he provides go far in illustrating battlefields which historians have largely failed to detail in minutia thus far. Hess also provides an elegantly meticulous appendix of nearly forty pages depicting the design and construction of field fortifications in the Overland Campaign, and by extension a reflection of the designs of field fortifications in the Civil War as a whole. His appendix is one of the most useful tools in print for historians seeking an understanding of the actual labor of the common soldiers and low-ranking officers usually responsible for construction of field fortifications before and after combat.
All things assessed, Hess’s volume is a remarkable study from a remarkable scholar. His other works such as The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2008) and The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005) have been similarly well received. Hess’ theme is certainly unique, and his volume should be consulted by any scholar seeking to understand the evolution of Civil War combat from the romantic tactics of the early war to the more modern tactics of the later campaigns.
-Jonathan Jones