In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat

CHAPTER ELEVEN: September

{ 142 } ChaPTer eleven September As early as August 22, the day after Mahone’s last attack, Warren felt that the ground his men occupied at Globe Tavern was as good as any for a permanent line. He proposed the construction of a large fort and a strong curtain connecting it to Jerusalem Plank Road. If Grant wanted further offensive operations, Warren could fill the fort with a garrison and take the rest of the Fifth Corps toward the Richmond and Danville Railroad to draw Lee’s men out of their works. Grant mulled it over and decided by August 25 to call off the Fourth Offensive. “I desire to hold the Weldon railroad as long as possible,” he informed Meade. “Redoubts should be constructed on Warrens [sic] left and the line generally strengthened.”1 federal earThwork ConsTrUCTion Even before Grant’s decision, Warren pulled his men “a few rods” to the rear on August 23 and started to dig a permanent line, leveling the works they had defended two days earlier. “This looks like staying here,” thought William Ray of the 7th Wisconsin. “We will soon have [the defenses] as strong as those in front of Petersburg.”2 Many units slashed the trees for a couple of hundred yards before their new position. Second-growth pine about six inches in diameter fronted Gwyn’s brigade of Griffin’s division. Each regiment sent out many men who were poorly skilled with the ax. They felled trees in every direction imaginable, yelling “‘look out’” every few seconds and making everyone nervous. Trunks often fell against standing trees, creating a further hazard. But Ellis Spear of the 20th Maine had just received 100 recruits from eastern Maine who knew how to work timber. They chopped all the trees nearly through and then finished cutting those closest to the Union position. These fell and knocked the rest down in one swoop, all pointing in the right direction.3 September { 143 } The construction of the line itself began with the major enclosed works. William Benyaurd and Charles Lydecker laid out the large fort Warren wanted, later designated Fort Wadsworth, on August 26. Company B, U.S. Engineer Battalion, broke ground the next day, but details from Crawford’s division dug most of the work. Fort Wadsworth straddled both the Halifax Road and the Weldon and Petersburg Railroad. It had four bastions with a ditch eighteen feet deep and fifteen feet wide, and embrasures for sixteen guns. Warren complained to Duane that Benyaurd and Lydecker had laid it out in a way that “diminishes the interior space . . . increases the length of the parapet and labor of construction without benefit, and increases the dead spaces in front of the Ft. Blaisdell Ft. Bross Boydton Plank Rd. Church Rd. Appomattox River Ft. McGilvery Jordan Hill City Point Railroad Ft. Stedman Dunn House Ft. Haskell Ft. Morton Ft. Melkel Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad Ft. Rice Ft. Patrick Kelly Ft. McMahon Ft. Davison US M ilitary Railroad Ft. Howard Ft. Alexander Hays Ft. Davis Halifax Rd. Ft. Cherry W.W. Davis Chappell Ft. Bratton Ft. Archer Squirrel Level Rd. Line Ft. Wadsworth Ft. Dushane Vaughan Rd. Ft. MacRae Rt. Mrs. Hart Jones Boydton Plank Rd. Line South Side Railroad Ft. Gregg Ft. Stevenson Ft. Prescott Ft. Mahone Ft. Sedgwick Jerusalem Plank Rd. Ft. Whitworth Weldon & Petersburg Railroad Dimmock Line DuncanHarman Rd. Federal Works from Jerusalem Plank Road to Weldon and Petersburg Railroad, August 22–September 28, 1864 { 144 } September curtain. Your west front was so far from meeting flanking principles that I remodeled it myself.” A company of the 50th New York Engineers revetted the parapets and traverses and made platforms, bombproofs, and magazines, as well as the abatis and wire entanglements in front of the work. The engineers essentially completed Fort Wadsworth by September 24.4 Parke’s Ninth Corps filled most of the four-mile space between Warren’s corps at Globe Tavern and Hancock’s command at Jerusalem Plank Road. His men also fell back a short distance before starting to dig in. They began by slashing timber in front and then digging a curtain studded with small, mostly enclosed works. Officers placed pickets well forward of the new line to protect the labor crews, and they positioned artillery to the rear to fire over their heads if needed.The soldiers paced themselves by working a half-hour and resting for thirty minutes. They also leveled...