Natural Fortifications Incorporated Into Breastworks

Gettysburg Greg

First Sergeant
Joined
Jun 6, 2010
Location
Decatur, Illinois
bw stret.jpg


Whenever possible, soldiers included rocks, boulders and fallen trees into their defenses. On the south summit of Little Round Top a grouping of boulders was incorporated into breastworks constructed by New York men on the evening of July 2nd, after most of the fighting had ended for the day. Just below the 44th/12th NY Castle on LRT a photograph was taken just days after the battle that exemplifies this technique.
In the photo, there are many items seen left behind by the soldiers. Easily seen are wooden slats from empty ammo boxes, paper wrappers from torn cartridges, as well as wooden stakes probably used to hold up blankets for protection from the hot July sun. Also, nearly impossible to see without magnification is a rifle bayonet that belonged to a soldier who fought in this area. I will include a blow up from this image in which the bayonet can be seen more clearly.

bayonet jpeg.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for posting @infomanpa . I took a similar shot I was looking for to post for @Bee, but could not find it. I am saving your pic, if ok.

Not my picture. I cropped it from Google Street View. I lot of you might not know it, but about a year ago, a Google guy with a handheld camera walked some of the more common paths on the battlefield. It's worth checking out. I don't want to talk too much about contemporary views of the battlefield or I'll get in trouble with the moderator.:wink:
 
Thanks for help discovering details in these hi-rez photos.

This post isn't open to a discussion of other battlefields but I was reading a book on the Yazoo Pass Expedition and how the Confederates picked the site for Fort Pemberton. Most of the flat delta land was too low to set-up artillery positions especially after the Union army blew the Mississippi levee. However, they found a section of the Tallahatchie River that had high embankments that afforded just enough elevation to get fire down onto the Union gunboats. And the surrounding fields were 4 feet above the flood level.
Just wanted to throw that in.
 
Charles Ezra Sprague, of the 44th New York, had an amusing way of describing it: "The principal feature of the ground there was rocks. Not what they term rocks in prairie states, where a rock is the size that a small boy can throw, but what would have been recognized even in Vermont as rocks - weighing half a ton or more. These were elegant things to get behind and shoot over; we appreciated them fully, for we always had to scoop up our own protection, and never had had ready-made works; ours were custom goods."
 
Last edited:
Back
Top