Say, its one of the first books to explore social motivation, its an outstanding book is then vinny many others that include pickens charge, the rightful musket in the civil war, a book on field fortifications, and a lot of people dont know Braxton Bragg , im not sure you love them after you read the book but its a fair and very well researched analytical work at the controversial general. He is one a number of awards for his book on civil war tactic and i should know that this book fighting for atlanta was published by the university of North Carolina and will be his topic. We welcome earl hess. [ applause ] thank you for the generous introduction. Fighting for atlanta to tactics during entrenches in the civil war is the topic. The purpose is to understand one of the more important elements the influences the course of up rations during the Atlanta Campaign which is the role of field operations. Its a followup to a trilogy that i did several years ago for the eastern campaigns, volume 2 of the trilogy covered the Overland Campaign, the petersburgh campaign and the Atlanta Campaign is one of four campaigns of the civil war that heavily used fortifications. Overland, petersburgh and these, atlanta, vicksburg in the western theater. A word or two maybe in general about the Atlanta Campaign about people who may not have familiarity with it it was divided into three armies to mcphersons army of the tennessee until he was killed and then replaced by otis howard five days later. Then finally, the Third Field Army under sherman, the army of the ohio under john scofield, pitted against the Confederate Army of tennessee led by Joseph Johnson until july 1820 was replaced by John Bell Hood, this lasted with continuous contact and nine or 10 major battles along the way until alanna fell on december 2, 1864. Sherman drove 100 miles into confederate territory. Now, a campaign of that length and sizes unusual, the history of operations is affected by many factors but however i look merrily at one factor, field fortifications, let me point out that when i did my trilogy on fortification of the east, it became clear to me that its dangerous to look at the field of fortification without understanding topography and tactics. Thats why the tactic here i think you have to add soldier life, thats one of the more fascinating aspects, how do soldiers live and fight infield works for now, then, very brief , what do i mean by tactics . Well, its a complicated topic, ive written a book about some of it so i wont go into a lot of detail but divide tactics into two major components. Number one, primary tact six those of 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 and were universal and they didnt change by the course of the civil war. I wrote a book that pete mentioned a moment ago and i dont cover primary tact six because theres no need to but instead ideal in the atlanta book with the higher or secondary level of tack which used to be called grand tact asked by civil war historians. I think its called operations or whatever they call it today but basically this is the level of the field Army Commander, do i attack and do i act on the defensive and do i tried out fight 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 fortification to one or the other that the grand tactical level. To put it briefly, sherman adopted what i like to call a cautiously offensive mode of operations in the Atlanta Campaign, if that doesnt sound silly, i dont think it does, 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 head 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 pointed out is that it took place simultaneously with the Overland Campaign and the petersburgh campaign to 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. I will keep me so busy in virginia that he can afford to send reinforcements to johnston and both agreed to do that. So, thats one of the uppermost things in shermans mind, we cant let the confederates just lay around or they will do something dangerous like that. Now, one a cautiously offensive ways that sherman conducted himself as he comes up against a strong confederate fortified position and also fortifies in front of it and he holds the confederate attention with sniping and artillery fire so they are distract. Then, he moves part ofs army group to try to outflank johnston writer left in priam out of the fortified position without having to attack it. This is a mode that sherman learned to do very well through the Atlanta Campaign. Now and then he did attack mike on june 27 but generally speaking he conducted his campaign with the wonderful balance of attack and caution, a cautiously offensive mode of operations Joseph Johnson, very conservative defensive mode of operating, digging on good ground, hope the federals will attack and do nothing. Passive defensive. Johnston rarely fought in terms of counterattacking in terms of sherman. He didnt even do very much to harass the federals when they tried to cross the three major rivers to be crossed in the Atlanta Campaign. 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 pretty quickly in the Atlanta Campaign, he frustrated Jefferson Davis and thats why davis fired him on july 18 and replaced him with John Bell Hood one of the core commanders who talked about the need to counterattack and on july 20, 22nd and 28th to the offensive attack sherman, failed, lost 11,000 men and then reverted to relying on massive earthworks and a passive defense like johnston had a few days later. We will talk a little more as we go along about that. The terrain of the Atlanta Campaign is fascinating i dont know how many of you have visited the region, has anybody . Wonderful. Im glad to see that. More than i anticipated. This map will show the general theater of operations that i like to divide the geography of the Atlanta Campaign to three primary zones. The firs zone goes from dalton georgia about 30 miles south of chattanooga, down to the river. If this pointer works ill be utterly delighted. There we go, it kind of worked a little bit didnt seem to be working when it hits the slide the river is right here, right in the middle of the map between the ottawa river and the dalton is largely appalachian terrain characterized by high dominating ridges that are like Rocky Face Ridge that are wonderful defensive positions. You put a lien on top of Rocky Face Ridge and its unassailable by a frontal attack. The problem is all the appalachian ridges have in them, every few miles. All sherman has to do is find the nearest undefended to the right of the position and he could outthink the position easily. My argument is the first topographic zone is good for the federals and it facilitates the movement. Sherman is able to move through zone number one quick the in three weeks time he has battles with dalton on may 8 and 12 osaka may 14 and 15. Once the campaign crosses the at to a river and enters the second zone, piedmont country, this designates a topographic terrain that is halfway between the mountains and the coastal plain , rolling terrain and it so happens that in this part of piedmont theres not much development, lots of fresh, very bad and few roads and this favors johnston in the confederates. Once you find out the road sherman is taking, plus it was true and you stymie him. On top of that, when sherman enters the zone on may 23, the rains begin to descend on northwest georgia turning the road into mud. Sherman is stack. The second zone is the for worst phase of the Atlanta Campaign, zone three favors the confederates and it took from may 23 until july night. So, sherman is worried that hes worried that johnston may use the delay to send troops to grant and thats 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. He learned his lesson from it but generally, sherman has to pry the confederates out of each fortified position and wants the campaign crosses the chattahoochee river, its a different story. Its that shermans advantage now in the terrain game. South of the chattahoochee is still piedmont country but will develop, lots of farms, plantations, the big city of atlanta with 10,000 people, only 10 miles south. They dont have much difficulty in maneuvering troops through this. Atlanta is defended by a massive ring over the fortification that we see photographs of so sherman has to figure out a way to deal with that but he will do that. The three rivers are part of the terrain, i remember, long time ago the historian richard murray, giving a talk in which he said that the three big rivers of the Atlanta Campaign were Major National impediments to shermans operations. I completely disagree with him. Those three rivers, just south of osaka and then the second one is just south of kingston and castro and the third is the chattahoochee short of atlanta. They were natural barriers sherman had little difficulty crossing primarily because they didnt contest crossings because they ty tried the difficult task of crossing the river. A passive defense by johnson even by hood, there are cup of exceptions but for the most part the crossings were largely uncontested. They had good pontoon bridges, the rivers were no impediment. Now, to the main event, the use of field fortifications, big topic this is a photograph taken in april of union earthworks, we are Kennesaw Mountain and you can see the mountain itself, thats the little kennesaw right there. The little hump on the right is pigeon hill, local material eroding as time goes by. Let me give you a little press about how field fortifications were constructed in the Atlanta Campaign and number one, the first step, the Army Commander decides where we stand. Then we have a chief engineer go stake out the line. Theres a look at the topography, he has you 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 and they want to make it so if the enemy is going to advance they cant see him. This is often different from the natural crest. Its like a construction project. The next step and we issue shovels and theyre responsible for entrenching tools they have to be issued every day. They dont yet have these little individual shovels like you do in the model world or world war ii for the 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 3 feet deep in the ground and piled the dirt in front of you to form what is called a parapet , bank of earth. That shields you. And often if youre lucky enough about treason rocks and pile them in the ground in front of you where you want to dig so that when you file the dirt you get better protection. Now, in the ground the body is protected by a builtup berm. Sent to protect yourself from flanking fire, the enemy gets artillery in a position where they can shoot along the trench line against the 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 the photograph taken in 1866. This goes back to the main trench line and if he has the time to do it this is far in 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 is ahead log. You want to put some sort of log to protect your head while firing and you raise it above the parapet by a block. Couple inches of a slit between the top of the parapet and you stick the muskies through end fire. The best thing to do is to cut down a pine tree they are straight, usually. Its easy to cut its an easy light to lift up on top of the parapet the best log is 8 to 10 inches wide. One day, i counted the rings in a sawedoff pine tree and i estimated that a pine tree, eight to 10 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 in one big fortification and cut it down. Thats what were talking about, i couldnt find of photograph of a real head log using a pine tree but this is the best i could find. The confederate earthwork occupied by the federal scholars ahead log can you see it but its like building timber from the house. That will do to. Of course. You can see the building timber in the block of wood, look at this. The heavy artillery knocks this out of place. This is a very deep trench. 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 so you can step up onto it and be able at a height to fire under the head log you step back and theres a deeper part of the trench in order to save yourself. So, this is a pretty sophisticated form of trench. Its not a basic trench anymore and if you have ahead log in it. And, also, if you have even more time and you want to maximize your defensive position, 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 and it may seem kind of ironic that in addition to that you man made some obstructions to replace the trees. Different kinds of obstructions designed to force an attacking enemy to stop short range of your firing line. So you could shoot them down and the Forward Movement is stop. There are several different categories but before i point them out to you, i want to tell you about the ponder house. This is probably the most famous photograph to come from the Atlanta Campaign. Widely reproduced because of the ponder house, the white house that you see there, built by a guy named e from ponder in 1857, made of brick and stucco. Its near the northwest one of the atlanta city defenses. This is a confederate for the 4 s more popularly called for hood. The photographer is looking at the ponder house, the ponder house, a from ponder left his house in 1863 because his wife was unfaithful to him according to the story she was blatantly having an affair with somebody and he was humiliated and basic he abandoned her in 1863. Ellen stay there until the spring of 1864 when she also fled before sherman got there so the house was m d, used by confederate sharpshooters, perforated by u. S. Artillery. First african to graduate with henry flipper, son of one of the slaves. Now, this photograph so widely reproduced, you can see lots of obstructions here, you can see inclined an upright palisades, the upright palisade is a straight looking fence like structures, just in front of the trench just a few inches set rating thats an amazing obstruction that will obscure the fire of the guys in the trench as well as block the movement of attacking troops and inclined palisade are those that are sticking at a 5 degree angle open at the end zone attacker will catch it at his breast. You have to be careful to get the inclined palisade close and up so guys can slip through it or you lose the effectiveness of it. There are other things you can see if you look closely at this at the photograph. The confederates built a massive defensive system for atlanta. The atlanta city defenses were constructed by a guy named grant ironically, a confederate engineer office encircled the city of atlanta and was developed into probably the most heavenly fortified city in america but heavy earthworks were impregnable and sherman of course had no intention at all of trying to attack them. For taxes over in the northwest watching as you can see in the map, it originally was one of five detached routes that grants planned but after hood took command of the army of tennessee he gave orders for those to be connected by infantrys friend what we call them with addition to the northeast sector of the atlanta defensive promoter. So you can see the chef to free in the for round, is a straight pole with holes drilled through it. Constructed define the lines in the blade in front of the fortification and chain it together so that it will not be easily taken apart. Its a formidable looking obstruction, layered defense, as i mentioned to you if you have the time, you have several, five or six different layers of obstruction in front of the heavy earthwork, union officers, soldiers, engineers, looking through their field glasses hoods fortifications when they got to this phase of the Atlanta Campaign shattered. Sherman absolutely refused to launch a frontal attack against this impregnable position. This is from the confederate for looking for the next fort. What you see is the connecting line. The confederates made 18 different fortified positions in the Atlanta Campaign. 18 of them. Somewhere heavier than others, most quite heavy and effective all the way from dalton down to places like lovejoy station, palmetto station which was constructed after the