Rocks and Rifles: The Influence of Geology On Combat and Tactics During The American Civil War Scott Hippensteel Sample
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Advances in Military Geosciences
Scott Hippensteel
Rocks and
Rifles
The Influence of Geology on Combat and
Tactics during the American Civil War
Advances in Military Geosciences
Series Editor
Peter Doyle
University College London, Essex, UK
Judy Ehlen
Haytor, Devon, UK
Francis Galgano
Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania, USA
Russell Harmon
ERDC International Res Office, Ruislip, UK
Edward P. F. Rose
University of London, Christchurch, Surrey, UK
Military activities are almost always strongly integrated within a wide spectrum of
geoscience. The decisive outcomes of land battles throughout history have been
dictated in large part by the terrain and environmental setting. Modern military
operations rely on a wide range of land-, air-, sea-, and space-borne intelligence and
knowledge of dynamic terrain processes and conditions. In addition, the study of
geo-based environmental science is critical to both the sustainable management of
military reservations and installations, as well as the evaluation of how terrain and
environmental conditions may impact military equipment and operations.
Advances in Military Geosciences contains single and multi-authored books as
well as edited volumes. Series Editors are currently accepting proposals, forms for
which can be obtained from the publisher, Ron Doering ([email protected]).
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
1
Duration of my time in graduate school provided by my wife
v
vi Preface
fighting. The final portion of each chapter is the most important—an analysis of
how the rocks influenced the strategy, tactics, and combat. As organized, the discus-
sion of geology and fighting shifts from larger-scale, strategic influences to smaller-
scale, battlefield tactics. The final portion of each chapter discusses geology on the
smallest (individual) scale, ranging from rock-throwing to the influence of sand on
weapons and fortifications. Other than the Introduction and Conclusion chapters,
only one chapter of the book varies from this organizational scheme. I found the
research on geology and Civil War photography to be wholly fascinating and thus
choose to include it—despite the variance from the organizational tenets of the
book—as the second chapter on Gettysburg.
Perhaps the most important contributions of this book are the numerous illustra-
tions. The Library of Congress was a terrific resource for extremely high-resolution
images from 1861 to 1910, and I have enlarged, cropped, and sharpened the details
of many of these negatives to add to the narrative. The block diagrams included in
each battlefield chapter are a first of their kind. They are inserted to provide the
reader with a geologic framework for the battleground—a schematic understanding
of how the rock types influenced the landscape. Vertical exaggeration is great in
these three-dimensional drawings and varies between battlefield illustrations; nev-
ertheless, a comparison of these diagrams and the later included maps of troop posi-
tions and movements best illustrates the influence of the underlying geology on the
combat.
Finally, this book would not have been possible without the patience, support,
and encouragement from my wife Kyra. Over the years her critiques of my manu-
scripts (too many parentheses) have made me a better writer. Twenty-five years ago,
I took her on a hike through Devil’s Den and the Valley of Death at Gettysburg, for
our second date. I will always be indebted to her for her willingness to share so
much time with me on these battlefields and to tolerate so many dinnertime discus-
sions (lectures) on everything from artillery trajectories to differential weathering of
igneous rocks.
1 Introduction���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1
1.1 Geology and the Combat Experience of Union Private
William Tritt�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1
1.2 Rock Types and Resulting Terrain���������������������������������������������������� 5
1.3 Geological Provinces of the Eastern United States�������������������������� 10
1.3.1 Eastern Theater of War���������������������������������������������������������� 10
1.3.2 Western Theater of War�������������������������������������������������������� 14
1.4 A Brief Geological History of the Eastern United States ���������������� 18
1.5 The Great Valley ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 22
1.6 Strategy, Tactics, Combat, and Scale������������������������������������������������ 23
References�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27
Further Reading ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27
vii
viii Contents
Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 315
Chapter 1
Introduction
Abstract The terrain in the Eastern and Western Theaters of the Civil War was cre-
ated by geological forces operating during the last billion years of Earth’s history.
The construction, and eventual disarticulation, of the supercontinents of Rodinia
and Pangea led to the creation of five physiographic—or geological—provinces in
eastern North America and each of these provinces provided vastly different land-
scape characteristics that could be exploited on multiple scales by the commanding
officers. This chapter explores how the different geology, and resulting terrain, of
each province influenced fighting at multiple scales: Strategic, tactical, and close-
quarters combat.
William Tritt was, in many respects, a typical American Civil War soldier, although the
influence of geology on his combat experiences may have been greater than that of the
majority of soldiers who served on either side during the war. William stood 1.7 m tall
(5-ft 7-in.) and weighed a little under 70 kg (150 lb). He was a carpenter and farmer
from south-central Pennsylvania who enlisted when he was 20 years old. Less than
2 months after joining the Union Army as part of Company D of the 130th Pennsylvania
Regiment, “Penn’s Volunteers”, he was in combat in Maryland. The 130th was attached
to the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division of Brigadier General William French’s II Corps, which
made the initial assault on the famous sunken road at the center of General Robert
E. Lee’s line at Antietam during the afternoon phase of the 1-day battle.
I had always had a particular interest in this famous assault, and especially the
experience of the 130th Pennsylvania, because William Tritt was a (distant) relative.
I never contemplated how geology affected his time in combat or his probability of
survival until I visited the Antietam battleground and retraced the path his regiment
had followed as it progressed across the rolling farm fields towards the Confederates
holding the sunken road.
Historical accounts of the battle describe the sunken road as a nearly ideal defen-
sive position—essentially a pre-dug trench with a crude small parapet constructed
from disassembled split-rail fencing. I had envisioned William and his comrades’
approach on this strong position having occurred under sustained Confederate artil-
lery and small-arms fire, with much of the rifle fire coming from the infantry con-
cealed in the road. In my mind the approach of the 130th would have been somewhat
similar to that of another division of the II Corp that had attacked, and been deci-
mated, only hours earlier and a kilometer away during Major General Sedgwick’s
morning attacks towards the Dunker Church. Instead, when I walked the route of the
130th Pennsylvania’s attack, I realized I could never actually see the sunken road.
The path of approach of the 130th was almost entirely concealed from the
Confederates by a long, winding ridge that made the assault markedly safer
(Fig. 1.1). The reason for this concealment and increased degree of safety could be
directly attributed to one factory: geology.
Fig. 1.1 The sunken lane at the center of the Confederate line at Antietam (left, shaded gray) and
the approach of French’s division (arrow). Note the linear dolostone ridge paralleling much of the
sunken lane
1.1 Geology and the Combat Experience of Union Private William Tritt 3
Fig. 1.2 View from the crest of the dolostone ridge towards the sunken road. Enfilade fire from
this position into the length of the lane removed much of the advantage the pre-existing “earth-
works” offered by the sunken road to the defending Confederates
4 1 Introduction
Fig. 1.3 Flat, only slightly undulating over which the Union assault during the morning phase of
the Battle of Antietam took place. Sedgewick’s men marched across this field towards the Dunker
Church and Stonewall Jackson’s men on the horizon
tone ridge for the final assault. The Confederate defenders of the lane couldn’t see
the approaching Union infantry until it was too late for long- and intermediate-range
fire (400–100 m), and soldiers can’t efficiently wound and kill an enemy they can’t
see.
The dolostone ridge proved highly advantageous to the 130th Pennsylvania, and
their adjacent regiments the 5th Maryland, 14th Indiana, and 8th Ohio, even during
the final combat phase of the engagement. The Union infantry fired from the top of
the ridge before retiring a few meters down the reverse slope of the hill to reload
under the cover of the hard(er)-rock ridge. The results of the firefight for the
Confederates was predictable in such a tactically disadvantageous position, and
there is a good reason their “nearly ideal defensive position” in the sunken road was
renamed “Bloody Lane” after the fighting ended (Fig. 1.4).
The probability of surviving combat is determined by a myriad of parameters,
and the 130th Pennsylvania did not leave Antietam unscathed. The regiment lost
178 men during the battle, with 32 killed on the field and 14 dying later. Nevertheless,
it is inarguable that William Tritt, and the regiment he joined, were fortunate to be
in a part of the afternoon assaults on the center of Lee’s line, when Union command-
ers exploited the geology, instead of during the morning phase of the battle, when
they ignored it. Unfortunately, within 3 months the men from Pennsylvania would
1.2 Rock Types and Resulting Terrain 5
Fig. 1.4 Confederate dead in the Bloody Lane. Edited and enhanced photo from the Library of
Congress Ref. LC-DIG-ds-05168; original photograph by Alexander Gardner
Effective use of terrain was a critical aspect of command that determined the suc-
cess or failure of an army on the battlefield during any war. No single factor contrib-
uted more to the nature of the terrain—slope, roughness, outcrops, sinkholes—and
the potential for successful defensive and offensive tactics than geology. Geology
also determines the ease of digging entrenchments and the source materials avail-
able for construction of breastworks, parapets, or larger fortifications.
Geology, geomorphology,1 and rock-weathering and their influence on combat
and tactics is a topic largely neglected by historians. Consider, for example, the
debate about why the massive First World War network of trenches didn’t appear, at
least on a large scale, on Civil War battlefields until the war was almost half over.
Traditional historical thinking attributed this lack of entrenchment to the command-
ing officer’s reluctance to allow citizen-soldiers to have something to shelter behind
1
The study of landforms.
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