Civil War Trench Warfare

Trench warfare has been a proven defensive tactic for hundreds of years. Trenches were used when one combatant decided to go on the defensive, and attempt to take down the enemy by fighting from a trench or system of entrenchments. As this style continued to receive attention into the late 1800’s, it became a crucial aspect to the North’s decisive victory in the Civil War, and also aided the South who was desperately outnumbered in terms of men, agriculture and economy. Although trench warfare is not incorporated to the same extent now as it was in the Civil War and wars closely preceding it, it was battle tested and proven to be successful. Trench warfare become extremely effective and popular once introduced in the later years of the Civil

The father of this form of combat was the French Marshal Vauban. His system initiated two centuries of siege warfare, and was employed in many different, major wars. Trench warfare came to America from the observations made by George B. McClellan during the Crimean War. The U.S did not take part in the Crimean war as it was fought between Russia and the allied forces of France and Germany. However, he was amazed by the improved power and defensive capabilities that trenches brought to the war scene. Along with his compliments about trench warfare, the marvelous American military theorist, Dennis Hart Mahan, encouraged before the Civil War an entrenched yet active defense while denouncing the frontal assault of reinforced positions. Therefore, Mahan and his supporters represented one school of thought, and their doubts about frontal assaults grew even more when the rifled musket was first introduced in the mid-1850s. The larger more advocated school of thought, however, still believed in the offensive Napoleonic warfare style which gained popularity after being successful in the Mexican War. Thus, in the first two years of the Civil War, entrenchments were often ignored, but from 1863 onward they became much more

Axes, as well as spades, bayonets and knives, as well as axes, - in fact every utensil that could be found was used.” Because proper digging tools were in short supply during the civil war, many men resorted to using inefficient tools such as their knives and bayonets to dig the trenches. There was more than one style of trench system used by the soldiers. Entrenchment – when men dug tunnel-like structures through the ground was the easiest, and the fastest way of making trenches but also the most dangerous. It was dangerous because it left the men susceptible to enemy fire. When digging aids were unavailable soldiers relied on natural ridges and breastworks of chevaux-de frise – a defense made of sharpened, wooden spikes, inserted through large pieces of timber and used in the same fashion as modern barbed wire. The safest and most secret way to prepare a trench was tunneling, but it was also the most difficult and time consuming. As the name implies, soldiers dug a tunnel and when finished, removed the roof. Trenches were no easy defense to make, walls often caved in before the men could frame the trenches in with huge logs and scraps of metal, when tunneling soldiers had to make sure the roof did not collapse on them, and they also filled up with water quite regularly. Trenches were simple when finished, they looked like huge mazes running throughout the battle field. Ladders