Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War 1864 Atlanta Campaign 20240713

Gettysburg College Annual summer conference. It is my pleasure this afternoon to introduce earl hess. Earl is the stuart w. Mcclelland chair in history at Lincoln Memorial university in tennessee. He is the author of more than 20 books. I have a long list here. Actually, one of my favorite books of earls. One of earls books i read in graduate school and is one of the finest and one of the very first books to explore soldier motivation and ideology. It is an outstanding book. But he has done any others that include pickets charge, a book on field fortifications. A book on Braxton Bragg as well. A lot of people dont love Braxton Bragg. Im not sure you will love him after you read earls book, but it is a fair and well researched, deeply analytical look at that controversial general. Earl has won a number of awards, including the tom watson price for his book on civil war tactics, something he will be speaking about today. And i should note, this book fighting for atlanta, is published by the university of North Carolina press. That in fact will be his topic. Let me welcome earl hess. [applause] prof. Hess well thank you, pete, very much for that nice, generous introduction. Fighting for atlanta tactics, terrain in the civil war is the topic. The purpose is to understand one of the more important elements that influence the course of operations in the Atlanta Campaign. It is a followup to a trilogy that i did several years ago on field fortifications in the eastern campaigns. That was volume two of that trilogy coverage. Fortification in the Overland Campaign and in volume three, the petersburg campaign. The Atlanta Campaign was one of four campaigns in the civil war that heavily used fortifications. Overland, petersburg in the east, atlanta, vicksburg in the western theater. A word or two may be in general 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 p. Sherman divided into three armies. The thomas army of the cumberland, the mcphersons army of the tennessee until he was killed and replaced by oliver harwood. And then finally, harwood. And then finally, the Third Field Army under sherman, the the army of ohios john scofield, going against the Confederate Army of tennessee, led by Joseph Johnson until july 18 when he was replaced by john bell hood. The Campaign Began near dalton, georgia, in the first week of may. There was almost continuous contact, and about nine or 10 major battles along the way until atlanta fell on september 2, 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 look primarily at one factor, field fortifications. Let me point out that when i did my trilogy on fortifications, it became clear to me that it is very dangerous to look at the history of field fortification without understanding typography as well as tactics. That is why the subtitle is tactics, terrain, and trenches in the civil war. You have to add soldier life. To me, that is one of the more fascinating aspects in the history of field fortifications. How do soldiers live and fight in field works . Now then, very briefly, what do i mean by tactics . Well, it is a complicated topic. I have written a book about some of it so i wont 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. But those maneuvers and formations were used by union and confederate. They were universal. And they did not change during the course of the civil war. I wrote a book on primary tactics, which pete mentioned a moment ago, published in 2015 called civil war infantry tactics. I dont cover them in this book because theres no need to. Instead, i deal in the atlanta book with the secondary level of tactics which used to be called grand tactics by civil war historian spirit i think that is out of favor. They call it operations today. This is the level of the field Army Commander. Do i attack or act on the defensive, do i try to outflank the enemy . Higher level than the primary level. This is what is covered in this atlanta book because commanders, johnston, hood, sherman, they all had to deal with field fortifications in one way or the other. To put it briefly, sherman adopted what i like to call a cautiously offensive mode of operation in the Atlantic Campaign. If that doesnt sound silly. I dont think it does. A cautiously offensive mode of operations in the Atlantic Campaign. If that doesnt sound silly, i dont think it does, 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 out is that it took place simultaneously with the Overland Campaign and the petersburg campaign. 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 i will keep lee so busy in virginia that he cannot afford to send reinforcements to johnson and both agreed to do that. So that is one of the most uppermost things in shermans mind. We cannot let the confederates just lay around or they will do something dangerous like that. Now one of the cautiously offensive ways that sherman conducted himself is he comes up against a strong confederate himself, if he comes up against a strong confederate fortified position, he also fortifies in front of it. He holds confederate attention with sniping and artillery fire so they are distracted and he moves part of his army group to try to outflank johnston right or left and pry him out of the fortified position without having to attack it. This is a mode that sherman learned to do well through the Atlantic Campaign. Now and then he did attacks, but like at Kennesaw Mountain on june 22, but generally speaking he conducted his campaign with a wonderful balance of attack and caution. A cautiously offensive mode of operations. Joseph johnson, 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 he didnt even do very much to harass the federals when they tried to cross the three major rivers. To be crossed during the Atlanta Campaign. And he was ready to evacuate strong positions at the first sign of a u. S. Flanking operation. He conserved his men, and his men loved him, but he gave up tons of territory quickly. He frustrated jefferson davis, that is why davis fired him on july 18 and replaced him with john bell hood, one of his core commanders, who talked big about the need to counterattack and hood did on july 20, 22nd, and 28. He attacked, failed, lost 11,000 men and reverted to relying on massive earthworks and a passive defense like johnston had. We will talk more as we go along about that. Terrain. Well, the terrain of the Atlantic Campaign is fascinating. I dont know how many of you has visited this region. Has anybody . Wonderful, i am glad to see that. More than i anticipated. This map will show the general theater of operation. I would like to divide the geography of the Atlantic Campaign into three primary zones. The first zone goes from dalton, georgia, about 30 miles south of chattanooga, down to the etowah river. If this works, i will be utterly delighted. There we go, it worked a little bit. It doesnt seem to be working when it hits that slide, though. The etowah river. It is right here, right in the middle of the map. Between the etowah and dalton, it is a largely appalachian terrain, characterized by large dominating ridges, like rocky face outside dalton, that are wonderful defensive positions. We will see some photographs. Put a line on top of Rocky Face Ridge, it is unassailable by a frontal attack. What is the problem, however . All of these appalachian ridges have gaps in them every few miles. All sherman has to do is find the nearest undefended gap to right or left of johnstons 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 only three weeks time. He has battles at dalton on may 8, cassville may 19. Once the campaign crosses the etowah river and enters the second zone between the etowah and the chattanooga, piedmont country. You are out of appalachia. Piedmont is a word that designates a topographic terrain that is halfway between the mountains and coastal plain. Rolling terrain. It so happens that in this part of the piedmont, there is not much development. Only a few small farms. A lot of ground that is 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 coming you block it with troops, you stymie him. When sherman enters this zone on may 23, rain begins to distend, descend, turning the 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 confederates. It took from may 23 until july 9. So, sherman is worried. He is worried johnston may use this delay to send troops to grant. That is why he orders a massive assault at Kennesaw Mountain on june 27. 15,000 troops, they dont even dent the confederate line, and he loses 3000 men in the process. Learned 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, it is a different story. It is shermans advantage in the terrain game. South of the chattahoochee is still piedmont country, but it is welldeveloped. Lots of farms, plantations, the big city of atlanta with 10,000 people only 10 miles south of the chattahoochee. The federals dont have much difficulty in maneuvering trips through this. Atlanta is defended by a massive ring of earthen fortifications that we will see photographs of. Sherman has 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 that the three big rivers of the Atlanta Campaign were major impediments to shermans operations. I completely disagree with him. Those rivers, and that is the oostanaula, just south of the resaca, and then the second one is the etowah south of kingston and cassville, and the third is the chattahoochee, short of atlanta, they were natural barriers, yes. Sherman however had little difficulty crossing them, primarily because the confederacy had not bothered to contest the crossings. They did not 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 exceptions to that, yes. But for the most part, the crossings were largely uncontested. The federals had good pontoon bridges. They had people who knew how to lay them, too. The rivers were no impediment. Now then, to the main event. The main course. These were just the hors doeuvres so far. The use of field fortifications in the Atlanta Campaign, big topic. This is a photograph taken in april of 1866 of union earthworks artillery position. You can see the mountain itself. Little kennesaw. The little hump on the right is pigeon hill. Union earthworks in the foreground, it eroded and degraded, yes. Temporary field fortifications made out of local material eroding as time goes by. Army commanders let me give you a little preface about how field fortifications were constructed in the Atlanta Campaign and elsewhere. Generally speaking, a generic explanation. Number one, the first step, the Army Commander decides where we stand. Johnston has to make a decision on this ridge of cassville on the kennesaw arrange. Then he tells his chief engineer to go out and stake out the line. The chief engineer has to look at the topography, he has to figure out how to place the trench as close to the military crest of the slope as possible. The term military crest refers to the spot on the slope where you can see all of the ground in front of you, so there is no dead space that the enemy can advance on that you cant see him. The military crest can be near or oftentimes it is different from the natural crest. You have to be smart enough to tell the difference between the two of them. 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. And corder masses are responsible for the entrenching tools, they have to be issued every day. You do not yet have these little individual shovels that you do in the modern world, and world war ii for example. 90 of the trench digging in the Atlanta Campaign, union and confederate, done by infantry troops. There is 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 a parapet, a bank of earth that shields you. Often, before you do that, 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 when you pile the dirt on top, you can add quick height and get better protection. That means you are basically waist deep or so in the ground and the rest of your body is protected by a built up berm. If you have time, you improve this basic trench with all sorts of embellishments, i like to call them. A traverse. It is a wonderful invention to protect yourself from flanking fire. Flanking fire is called in military terms on filleted. If the enemy gets artillery in a position where they can shoot along your trench line, against your flank, you are in deadly trouble. The only thing to do is to dig a trench and a parapet at an angle to the mainline. Look at this photograph of resaca. Taken in april of 1866. The traverses are here. There are four of them. This is the main trench line. It is marked. If you have the time to do it, this is the best way to deal with fire. You can hold on, protect yourself from flanking fire, and hopefully, stay in place. Another embellishment that is widespread in the Atlantic Campaign is the head log. You want to put some sort of log on top of the parapet to protect your head while you are firing. And you raise it above the parapet by a block. A couple inches of a slit between the top of the parapet and the bottom of the head log, you can stick the musket through, see through it, and find fire. The best thing to do is to cut down a pine tree. They are straight usually. They are softwood, they are easy to cut, and they are light to lift up on top of the parapet. The best head log is 810 inches wide. One day, i counted the rings in a sawedoff pain tree, and i estimated that a pine tree 810 inches wide is about 3040 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. That is what we are talking about. I could not find a photograph of a real head log using a pine tree, but this is the best i could find. Confederate earthwork at atlanta occupied by the federals. There is a head log. Can you see it . It is not a pine log, it is a building timber from a house. That will do, too, of course. A couple guys sitting on it. You can see the building timber. You can see the blocks of wood there. Look at this. [indiscernible] just in case the enemy artillery knocks it. [indiscernible] microphone . Earl i will try. You cant fire from it if you are down deep in the deepest part of the trench. The firing step is raised up a couple of inches from the bottom of the trench so you can step up onto it and be able at a height to fire under the head log. And you step back and the deeper part of the trench to save yourself. This is a pretty sophisticated form of trench. It is not a basic trench anymore if you have a bank head in it, and if you have a head log in it. And also, if you have more time and you want to maximize your defensive position, my gosh, you do some clear cutting of trees in front of it so the enemy cannot sneak up on you. 50 yards wide, 200 yards wide, whatever you can do. And it may seem kind of 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. So that you can shoot them down better and their Forward Movement has stopped. There are several categories of things. Before i point them out, i want to tell you about the ponder house. I think this is the most famous photograph to come from the Atlanta Campaign. Widely reproduced because of this ponder house, that is the white house you see there. Built by a guy named ponder in 1857 made of brick and stucco. It is near the northwest quarter of the atlanta city defenses, near a confederate fort designated as fort x. More popularly called fort hood. The photographer is standing on the parapet of fort x, looking at the ponder house. 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 in 1863. Ellen stayed there until the spring of 1864 when she also fled before sherman got there so the house was empty. Used by confederate sharpshooters, perforated by u. S. Artillery. Another interesting aspect, ponder owned 65 slaves before the war. If you are interested in the history of west point, the first africanamerican to graduate from the u. S. Military academy was a man named henry flipper. He was the son of one of the ponder slaves. This photograph so widely reproduced. You can see lots of obstructions here. You can see inclines and upright palisades. The upright palisades are those straight looking fence like structures just in front of the trench. Just a few inches separating each pail in it. That is an amazing obstruction, that really will obscure the fire of the guys in the trench as well as block the movement of attacking troops. And inclined palisade, those sticking at a 45 degree angle and sharpened at the end so that 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. There are other things you can see if you look closely at this photograph. The confederates built a massive defensive system for atlanta. The Atlantic City defenses were constructed by a guy named grant, ironically, in 1864, a 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 earthworks. They were impregnable. Sherman had no intention at all of trying to attack them. Fort x is in the northwest quadrant. As you can see on this matter. It originally was one of five detached redoubts that grant planned. But after hood took command of tennessee, he took orders for those redoubts to be connected by infantry trenches. That is why we call this hoods addition to the atlanta city line on the northwest and in the northeast sector of the atlanta defensive perimeter. Another obstruction, chevauxdefrise, and my fractured french, horse fence. French. You can see the chevauxdefrise in the foreground. It is a straight hole with holes drilled through it. You can stick sharpened stakes through. You construct it 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 is a formidable looking obstruction. Layered defense. As i mentioned, if you have the time, you have several five or six different layers of obstructions in front of a heavy earthwork. Union officers, soldiers, engineers, looking through their field glasses at hoods fortifications, when they got to this phase of the Atlantic Campaign, shuttered. And sherman absolutely refused to launch a frontal attack against this impregnable position. This is from confederate fort v, looking toward the next fort. What you see between is the connecting line. The confederates made 18 different fortified positions through the Atlanta Campaign, 18 of them. Some of them heavier than others. Most of them quite heavy and effective. All the way from dalton down to places like lovejoys station, palmetto station, it was constructed after the fall of atlanta. But a part of the Atlanta Campaign. 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 do not have to remember all of these 18 lines but i think it is pretty impressive to have it on a slide to look at it. Those are the dates they were held. It is hundreds of miles of earthworks dug by both sides. There are estimates of it and i do not know how accurate they are, but they are literally hundreds of miles if you add them all together. The lines surrounding atlanta itself were 15 miles of continuous trenches, both union and confederate. 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 did not know it from the beginning. They had to learn it. In the first confederate fortified line at dalton, partly because of inexperience and partly 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 right now. I am going to show you a map where it is located in a moment. Right there. And just south of a gap called mill creek gap, look at this map for a moment. Anyone who drives south on interstate 75 from chattanooga to atlanta will go through this map. Follow the line of the railroad and you are roughly following the line of interstate 75. The next time you do this, please remember what doctor has told you on this day. And when you drive through mill creek gap, look to your right onto the top of this high dominating Rocky Face Ridge. See how tall it is and how steep it is. And remember that when dr. Hess was still a young man, 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 he took that photograph right there that you are enjoying right now. That is a rocky outcropping of a palisade on top of this thin, narrow, appalachian ridge. The confederates are on the other side of it. This is taken from the union side. If the federal side elected to attack up Rocky Face Ridge to the confederate position, this is what they would have faced on the top of it with confederate soldiers behind the rocky palisade shooting at them. They elected not to do that, im telling you. But this is the kind of appalachian terrain you deal with around dalton. And then dug gap, look at it on the map. That is a couple miles farther south. The confederates had fortifications there too made out of rocks. It also is a part of Rocky Face Ridge that is very narrow and a lot of rocks on it. Here though confederates deliberately put together a rock breastwork that held against an attack in the battle of dalton. The confederates evacuated dalton. They fell back to resaca. Even at the resaca, they failed to learn how to fortify properly. The resaca line consists of a long line of trench north and south, and then an eastwest line at a right angle. At that angle, Union Artillery had a crossfire. And they devastated the confederate troops because the confederate troops did not dig the trench deep enough. They did not dig traverses. On may 15, 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 15, they thought we are in good shape, the Union Artillery resumed firing and clobbered them again. The trenches were not deep enough. There were not enough traverses. They suffered horribly. Partly because of that and other reasons they evacuated on the night of may 15. Nevertheless, the confederates learned their lesson through hard experience. After they got south of the at river, they began to learn how to dig and properly. Deep, deep trenches. Sophisticated obstructions. Traverses every few yards if you have to do it. South of the etowah river, the campaign slowed. Shermans progress slowed. He had to deal with ever increasing, strongly defended positions all the time, figure out a way to get rid of them and force them out. South of the etowah river, the campaign slowed. Shermans progress slowed. He had to deal with ever increasing, strongly defended positions all the time, figure out a way to get rid of them and force them out. I included this photograph, it is a photograph of confederate fort v on the defensive line, just to show you what it looks like. It is a holding wall to hold up the inside of the parapet. This is made up of post driven into the ground and small poles that are interwoven with it. That is another photograph of fort v with union troops in it. Taken in the fall of 1864. Heres another indication of how much they used sandbags to hold up a parapet. How they used boards and posts in this case to hold up a traverse to the left of the artillery positions to protect the gunners. This is a wonderful photograph that is not often shown or published. If you look to the right, i think you can probably see there is a line of chevauxdefrise that stretches through the horizon. You can even see the sun glinting on the middle post of them. The cheavauxdefrise. The trench itself is just to the left of that. There is the confederate fort on top of the hill, the Georgia Railroad is going in the foreground. It is a wonderful illustration to demonstrate what fortifications look like on the atlanta defenses. In august of 1864, sherman open fired on the city of atlanta, bombarding it to terrorize the citizens. They dug bomb proves in their backyards. You can see closely that mound of earth in the middle. There is a hole on the right. That is the entrance. That is what a bombproof looked like in atlanta. I assume it is a civilian bombproof because i do not see evidence of a military bomb proofs in the Atlanta Campaign. I mentioned to you that the federals did constructed fortifications. After atlanta fell on september 2, sherman wanted to make atlanta into a thoroughly military garrison. He ordered the evacuation of 3500 southern sympathizing visitors. They were forced to leave. He also ordered his engineer to construct a union earthworks to defend atlanta. They were inside the confederate perimeter. You can see those numbered lines, 14, 25, 16, 17, that is the union earthworks to defend atlanta. Through the southern and western suburbs, they had to tear down lots of houses and everything like that. But they built one of the most impressive earthwork defensive systems you will ever see, photographed by George Barnard in november of 1862. We have several wonderful photographs, how neat they are, how well constructed according to scientific principles. And here is something you will not see any place else. This is a ditch in federal fort number seven. You see those things that look like corn stalks . They are not corn stalks. They are wooden stakes, six feet long with sharp ends, and they are planted to make a forest of sharpened stakes in the ditch. If you are an attacking rebel and you see this two feet away while you are charging, you are just going to see a bed of sharpened stakes that you will have to try and deal with, obviously not even going to try. I have never seen anything like this in a civil war earthwork fortification. This would make this fort absolutely impregnable to an infantry attack. Well, let me jump to another issue here. I promise you some information about soldier life. I want to do that because that is the most interesting aspect of the research i have done for this book. Soldiers lived and fought in trenches continuously in the Atlanta Campaign. It might be difficult to imagine. They were not stuck forever like on the western front of world war i. Nevertheless, the trenches were their home. They were living in holes in the ground. And it is northwest georgia, so the ground is red clay. No matter what the weather is, baking under the hot sun, swimming and mud, during the heavy rain, let me give you a quote from a confederate soldier of the Fifth Company washington artillery. Sun and rain, 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 trenches as sun shake come often to be told by officers to tear them down as they interfered with a surprise attack. A Union Soldier named William Westervelt of the 70th new york noted that his trench after a heavy rain was half full of water. And sometimes, it was a choice whether he would take a bath or a bullet. As it was almost certain death to leave the trenches. And a confederate soldier named george lee, seventh 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 militia men. Governor joe brown did mobilize 3000 or 4000 state troops in the Atlanta Campaign. Man 80 holiday and th to his wife. To his wife, lizzie. I have lived in the ground until i have turned to be nothing more than a gofer or a mole. He and his comrades were a nasty, dirty set of men, he said. Let me add that maybe they were nasty and dirty for this reason too. It was not just the dirt. If it is 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 an officer said enough is enough, get some shovels and get this stuff out of here. You have to deal with that, you have to deal with an awful lot of the beef was eaten by soldiers. Fresh off the hook, you slaughtered it every day. Near the lines, that creates piles of cattle awful that rots and draws insects, flies swarmed by the million around the trenches. Especially they were occupied for weeks. In addition to that, body lice infested the men in the trenches. Here is a quote from isaac foster, of 10th mississippi, numbers of them, body lice, may be seen crawling on the coals poles that support our like its which are spread for shade. Never before have they been so . Plentiful. 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 implies that the body lice gave people something to do. We have this image that trench warfare is a horrible experience and obviously it was but there is also an awful lot of boredom going on. Few newspapers and even fewer books were there 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 down to that guy. A lot of confederates deserted during these informal truces to get out of Confederate Service which is one reason rebel officers usually tried to stamp them out as much as possible. Sherman brought the campaign to a conclusion. 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 lane with chattanooga, living off the land for several days to make a wide sweeping flanking movement around the city of atlanta and cut off its railroad supply lines in order to starve the confederates out. That is how he captured atlanta on september 2, 1864. The irony is again, i draw your attention to these wonderfully constructed federal earthworks of atlanta. They were basically finished by early november. You know what happened right after that. Sherman changed his plan. He does not intend to hold atlanta anymore, he wants to evacuate it, cut away with 60,000 of his troops and march through georgia. After this wonderful set of earthworks was finished, George Barnard quickly exposed maybe about a dozen photographs of it 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 sea is it. No earthworks in the marsh of the sea. It is not static warfare, it is not trench warfare, it is rapid mobile strategic rating. In the warships into another gear. What is the bottom line about fortifications in the Atlantic Campaign . The campaign was heavily vested with fortification by both sides. Did it do either of them any good . The confederates used fortifications for defensive purposes to delay sherman, they failed to stop him. Why . Because sherman cleverly used fortifications for offensive purposes. His men dug lines to hold their attention and you can hold that line with few troops because a 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. That is what we call fortification uses for offensive purposes. Another issue we need to bring up, there is 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 10, middle ranked commanders are making that decision. Sometimes a core commander. Doesnt sherman make the decision . No. Does johnson do that . No, not really either. It is the middle ranked commander who makes a decision and fosters the repetitive use of these things. The other notion is blacks constructed the 18 fortified lines . No. Absolutely not. Blacks were used to construct two of the 18 fortified lines. The chattahoochee river line on the north bank of the chattahoochee and the Atlantic City line. Atlanta city line. All of the others were done by infantrymen instead. On the union side, all of it was done by union infantryman. Is trench warfare inevitable . No. It just happened in the Atlanta Campaign. It didnt continue afterward. Was it a forshadowing 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, so there is no real comparison between oranges and apples. But enough, i think at this point i would like to first of all thank you for your indulgence in what can be a technical issue. I want to hear what you have to say. Thank you very much. [applause] dennis from brooklyn, new york. Sherman accomplished in three months his goal of taking atlanta with about half the number of casualties, if that, that grand suffered in 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 . Very good question. I think it reflects 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. He had a better commander to oppose. Number two, grant was working with an army he didnt know and didnt know him. Number three, the biggest thing is that grant was working against the fact that the army of the potomac had been led by lee for so long. Grant thought if you look at the comments on the oberlin campaign. The consistent thing he says, it is necessary to teach the army how to fight. Grant interpreted the oberlin campaign as a contest of morale. You can whip these guys if you just try, sherman saw that too. Sherman wrote letters to the Atlanta Campaign saying you are giving the rebels a good lesson, keep it up. The morale issues were the uppermost. Im saying this because i think that is the reason why grant so often attacked and with sometimes poor preparation, because he was afraid that lee would take advantage of him if he didnt do something quickly. Sharman didnt have to worry about that, because johnston was so passively defensive he didnt have to worry about johnson taking advantage of him. Its a wonderful question that we could spend a whole hour discussing. Thank you. Why did sherman feel it necessary to build his own set of fortifications around atlanta . Why didnt he reuse the confederate once which had been built . The answer is one of scale. The confederate earthworks were 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. Because they were set so far, one to two miles away from the center of atlanta, it is a big circuit that would have required far too many troops to hold. That is the basic answer. Sherman wanted to hold atlanta with a small garrison. He needed a shrunken perimeter. You talked about the first black graduate from west point. I know most famously, colonel Benjamin O Davis ended up being a general. When he graduated from west point, i believe 22, he, upon graduation gained a lot of friends. His classmates did not want him there because of his color. They would not talk to him. He was ostracized. The gentleman who was the first black cadet at west point, did he experienced the same thing . He was not allowed to graduate. I have forgotten his name, the first africanamerican to enter west point. He was so harassed and so hazed and he did something, it left himself to be open to courtmartial and dismissal from the academy. That is why he becomes the first africanamerican to graduate. He is not the first to attend west point. Speaking of the terrain advantages and disadvantages, you talked about how from the editor was to the chattahoochee, the piedmont and the different advantages. How did the fact that the land was more developed swing the terrain advantage from the confederates to the federal . Good question. My own interpretation is that you have more cleared areas, so the federals have the opportunity of scouting header and seeing whether the and seeing whether the confederate positions one of the things they complained was they were engulfed by the force per we can see more than 10 yards away. Another thing is, i only recently found out about this, the Atlanta Campaign produced the biggest wave of refugees of any campaign of the civil war. Most of the southern civilians got out of the way. Federal troops constantly complained they were coming across one abandoned house after another. They rely heavily on local civilians to tell them what is the name of this road . Does it go to this place or that place . They couldnt do that anymore so they had to send up calvary patrols and scouts. They had to go through heavily forested area where they could forested area where they could be ambushed. It inhibited their ability to do recon. Another thing is as you have more heavily developed area there are roads so you dont have to deal with terrible roads that are just mere tracks to the woods. You could move through a little bit better. Wonderful question. From wheaton, illinois. In one of your slides you mentioned a shoup line but you never mentioned the shoup aids. I am interested in your idea. Interesting the question came appeared i have information on it but i decided to bypass it because nobody would know about the shoup line. [laughter] i am glad to be proven wrong on that. It is called the chattahoochee river line. Lets go back to that list. It usually is called the chattahoochee river line i call it the shoup line, it is number 11 up there. July 5 through nine 1864. It is an unusual one because johnston artillery lead had the idea to do it. He had a slightly different twist on fortification. He thought instead of building a big readout on a hill, lets just have a series of small fortifications which came to be called shoupes, which were made quickly with slave labor by logs. They were like a stock aided fort. Then you have a stockade to connect them. His basic idea was to build a fortification that could be held with the minimal number of confederate troops so that johnston could mass most of his army on shermans flank johnston said though ahead and build it. He gathered hundreds of slaves from the region and constructed quickly. Johnston held the position for four or five days. He completely forgot about why it was held here he refused to counter attack against sherman and as soon as sherman got a hold of some crossings of the chattahoochee, johnston evacuated on the night of july 9, frustrating shoup to no end. How the confederate soldiers respond to this unusual thing . Some laughed at it when they saw it. They tore them apart. They made their own earthworks. Other confederate officers scratched their head and asked shoup about it and he explained his concept. They said they would try it. It is a controversial line, as you said it was never tested by the federals. It kind of has a certain cache today because of its unusual design features. If you want to know my opinion, i think we are making too much out of it. His innovation is not that different from the basic concept, just a different design to achieve the same purpose. I am not at all convinced it would have worked if it had been tested properly by the enemy. I tend to be more negative about the brilliancy of the shoup line than others tend to be. But it is perpendicular to the line . It can be. The photograph shows them, if i can find it being not perpendicular, but more at a different kind of angle. But they are both traverses . Yes. It depends on the needs and the topography of the position. Any kind of acrid entrenchment will help in this regard. Whether it is perpendicular, literally or at a different angle. The three campaigns that all featured earthworks were late in the war. Can you comment generally about the attitude of the construction of earthworks and the role that improved technology played . In the old days, you could have made fortifications, but a large infantry assault still could have overrun that position. Good question. Thank you for asking. You are touching on another related issue that i have talked about in a previous book called the rifle musket and the civil war. It had been the traditional thought that both armies were armed with the modern rifle musket. Because of the new weaponry, people had to dig in on the battlefield to survive. For decades, that old am a traditional interpretation held sway for when i began doing 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 and the civil war. The was not the rifle musket but continuous combat that led to the heavy use of field fortifications. Before 1864, you do not have continuous contact for weeks at a time of opposing forces. When you do, at sieges, you have earthworks. My argument was because rant mandated continuous contact in 1864 by the army at the potomac and by sherman, that is why you see the sprouting up of field fortifications. Even in 1961 through 1963, battles like gettysburg see no special made fortification on july 1 or second. A little bit i july 3 and a lot more on july 4. This is a pattern, there were many civil war battles were fortifications were not used, but if the armies remained in contact after the fighting for a couple days, they built fortifications after the fighting is over. That to me, disproves the idea that the rifle musket is the instigator of this. Continuous contact is, i think. Lee elder from thomas, ohio. A few days ago my wife and i were in petersburg or chi said said can i assume world war is learned something from this . That is why we have the trenches. I said of course. A few moments ago you told us i was wrong. [laughter] before i get home and hear about it i would like you to tell why she was right. It is a good point. I glad you brought it up. Number one, i dont know if any evidence uncovered why historians that military engineers of the germany army, the french army, or commanders of those armies in 1914 even knew what happened in the civil war. There is no evidence that they did a study of this. The u. S. Army, west pointers and everybody else did study civil war field fortification. The Atlantic Campaign was a unit of study for the u. S. Army and the late 1800s. I had never seen any historian who can show any evidence that european therapist knew about this. Theorists knew about this. The thing you have to keep in mind is that the erie of field fortifications and the growth of their use as a worldwide phenomenon in the 1800s and 1900s and not just america. Why did world war i and the western front deevolve . The primary reason is because by 1914, europe has experienced an explosion of population all over the contentent, because they 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. In other words, you can have continuous fronts and world war i that you could not have in the civil war. There is no possibility of outflanking a trench on the western front because there is no flank. It starts on the coast of the north sea and goes to switzerland 500 miles. Every yard held by a german soldier. Shermans strategy of outflanking the enemy is impossible in world war i. Once those germans dig in. If the germans dig three, which was the basic fortification of world war i, and then take another three lines of trenches half a mile behind that, you have so many layers of trench to bust through it is almost hopeless. If you look at the history of the western front, it is the german army that initiates the intense default meant. Devolvement. They compensated for their growing lack of manpower by the engineers planning the most sophisticated field fortifications in World History that would take johnstons lines look like peanuts. That is why you say on a scale and a sophistication level, the europeans did it all on their own in world war ii. World war i. They didnt need the example of america. If they if a german engineer had looked at the Atlantic Campaign, he would have laughed. That is just my guess. That is my interpretation of it. If you can boil that down into a nutshell tell it to your wife. , [laughter] my question was, is there any difference in how the confederate and federal soldiers built trenches in their skill or style . If there is, why . Interesting question. The answer is yes. It brings up another interesting point i wanted to say and forgot. If you want to look at trenches in the Atlantic Campaign you are lucky. Go to Kennesaw Mountain national park. You can walk along five to six miles of preserved confederate trench. It is red clay, so they are well preserved. One of the interesting things about kennesaw is there are several sections where you can see quirky designs that only appear on this sector. Quirky Little Design features i have 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. If anybody was attending that material Culture Panel yesterday, there is a material culture field fortifications. There is a standard way that is explained in the fortification manuals about how to do it. Then there is also the innovative, madeup thing and 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. In the Atlanta Campaign there were no union earthworks preserved so we dont have a fair comparison here. The other thing is, 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 about being attacked by johnston. Even if we had preserved union earthworks, they would be lighter and less impressive. This is a way to approach your interesting question. You mentioned sherman changed his mind and it really made use of the union forces. When he went south to georgia, sent thomas north, what did he leave . How many did he leave for the defense of atlanta . He left the earth works alone as far as i am aware, there was no destruction of the confederate line or the union line. When they were demolished, i dont know. I wish we did know. Usually what happens is that i should probably end pretty soon. Usually what happens is when the fight is over, went over, landovers comeback and they reclaimed their property. It is right up here. April 1866, you can see evidence of a rehabilitation. And reclamation of the land. That parapet has been dug into by somebody. It is half gone and look at the fence posts. The fence posts were part of the fortifications. One of the first things they did when they had to do with a postwar fortification was to pull the wood out and dry the fence post 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. It is a special interest of mine. There is 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. The landowners got there former slaves now and anybody else and shoveled them over. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. [applause] this is American History tv on cspan three. Where each weekend, we feature 48 hours of programs, exploring our nations past. Next on lectures in history. Force Academy Professor Stephen Randolph teaches a class about president richard nixon, his National Security advisor, Henry Kissinger and the strategies of the u. S. Withdrawal from vietnam. Good morning. Please be seated