In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: October and the Sixth Offensive

{ 182 } ChaPTer ThirTeen October and the Sixth Offensive Both armies pushed forward with a variety of construction projects along the length of their respective lines in Octoberas the rank and file bundled up to endure colder weather while holding the trenches.The campaign lengthened with no end in sight, but Grant launched one more offensive before winter set in. federal forTifying A fraise already fronted much of the Union line, and Meade wanted one constructed from the Appomattox River to Fort Stedman as well. Several companies of the 50th NewYork Engineers and a detail of 1,000 infantrymen, assisted by fifty wagons, concentrated on this work during the daylight hours while a smaller force of 400 men worked at night. Hancock urged his division commanders to make banquettes where they did not exist, while Warren deepened ditches and improved covered ways to more easily haul artillery to the line west of Jerusalem Plank Road. Some of the covered ways had “small bombproof dodging holes in the side walls, like bank swallow nests,” according to an observer who also described the regular bombproofs behind the Union line as “huge hemispherical heaps of earth and logs like a New England potato cellar.”1 dUTCh gaP Canal At Dutch Gap, Butler’s men reached the halfway mark of their work on the canal by late September, but progress slowed to a crawl in October due to a collection of Confederate mortars planted little more than 300 yards away. They caused few casualties but unnerved the work crews, and there seemed to be no way to dislodge them. Capt. John L. Suess of the 1st New York Engineers constructed a bombproof with a roof of sandbags and earth to protect the steam pump. He made similar structures for the engine and boiler of the steam dredge, using on average 40 engineers and 250 detailed infantrymen each day. October and the Sixth Offensive { 183 } With such protection, the dredge was able to gouge out 400 cubic feet of earth in twelve hours.2 Butler learned that the Confederates forced black prisoners taken during the Fifth Offensive to improve the defenses near Fort Gilmer. In retaliation, he placed Rebel prisoners under fire at Dutch Gap. It took a week for Lee to learn of this and withdraw the African Americans, and Butler withdrew his prisoners as well.3 A photograph taken sometime in late October shows that the Federals performed most of the digging by hand, using large two-wheeled carts pulled by teams of horses or mules. They dug down in stages, totaling about fifty feet at this point in the canal, while the steam dredge dug the last few feet down to and below the water level. One can see the “teeth marks” of the dredge shovel in the earth. In addition to their mortars, the Confederates began to construct heavy batteries to fire on the Union gunboats that they expected to steam through the canal when it was finished. The work was frequently interrupted by fire from heavy Union guns, which “frighten us more than hurt us.” A postwar photograph of one of these finished Confederate batteries shows it to have a revetment of sandbags; the embrasurewas revetted with the same material plus panels of hurdle.4 CiTy PoinT defenses The construction of new works to protect City Point from the west was unaccountably delayed. Benham had laid out those works on September 19, but they were far from finished when Grant complained to Meade on October 4. The general-in-chief had wanted simple defenses thrown up quickly to protect the logistical center from a cavalry strike similar to Hampton’s Beefsteak Raid. Meade defended himself by noting that he had given Benham the proper instructions : first to build redoubts at the main roads leading to City Point, then to slash trees between the works, and to construct curtains last. Grant supplemented those instructions by informing Benham to finish the work in four days, with parapets no more than four feet thick and curtains consisting of “merely a breast work without exterior ditch.” Benham’s only defense was that he had too few officers to superintend the work. Grant diverted newly raised regiments from the northern states to contribute labor and serve as a garrison. In addition to these works, Grant wanted Benham to construct defenses at Broadway Landing on the Appomattox and provide a garrison for this important forward base of Abbot’s siege train.5 Grant’s staff officers were...