It was about sunset when we got to our position. We unlimbered our guns, and ran them up close to the bank of dirt, about two feet high, which we found there, thinking that in case of a row, that would be some little protection. However, things seemed quiet. We couldn’t see any enemy from where we stood, didn’t know whether any force was near us. And after we placed our guns, we strolled around, and looked about us, and were disposing ourselves for a quiet night, and a good sleep, which we needed badly.
Just then somebody, I think it was Lieutenant Anderson, who had walked to the left, some distance, where he could see around the point of pine woods to our right, up on the hill, came back with some news very interesting to us, if not to our advantage. He said that, just beyond these woods up on the hill, not over five or six hundred yards from us, there was a lot of Federal artillery. He saw them plainly. They were in position. He counted twelve guns, and was sure there were others, farther around, which he could not see for the woods. At least six of those, in sight, he was certain were twenty-pounder Parrotts. These guns, he said, commanded our position, and while the enemy had not yet seen us, for the treetops between, they soon would; and anyhow, the moment we fired a shot, and disclosed our position, we would catch it. There were enough heavy guns bearing down on us to sweep us off the face of the earth, unless we were protected. If daylight found us unfortified we couldn’t stay there, so we had better go to throwing dirt.
Against Heavy Odds at “Fort Dodge”
Here was nice news! Our two Napoleons, right under the muzzles of twelve or more rifled cannon, and six twenty-pounder Parrotts, and with no works! This was pleasant advice to tired and sleepy men, who wanted to go to bed. But such were the facts, and as we never had left a position under fire, and had come to stay, and were certainly going to stay, we went to throwing dirt.
We went to work, to raise and thicken the little bank already there, in front of our gun, and to build a short “traverse” to the right, for protection from enfilade fire. We worked all night, six of us, and by morning we had a slight and rough artillery work, with an embrasure for the gun; the whole thing about four feet high, and two and one-half feet thick, at the top. It was the best that could be done by six, tired, and hungry fellows, all young boys, working with two picks and three shovels through a short night. Such as it was, we fought behind it, all through the Spottsylvania battles, and it stood some heavy battering. This gem of engineering skill,—by reason of the pretty constant courtesies we felt it polite to pay to the unceasing attentions of our friends, the enemy, for the next six days, in the shape of shells and bullets, we called “Fort Dodge.”
Just here, I take occasion to correct a very wrong impression about the field works, the “Army of Northern Virginia” fought behind, in this campaign. All the Federal writers who have written about these battles, speak of our works as “formidable earthworks,” “powerful fortifications,” “impregnable lines;” such works as no troops could be expected to take, and any troops could be expected to hold.
Now about the parts of the line distant from us, I couldn’t speak so certainly, though I am sure they were all very much the same, but about the works all along our part of the line I can speak with exactness and certainty. I saw them, I helped, with my own hands, to make them. I fought behind them. I was often on top of them, and both sides of them. I know all about them. I got a good deal of the mud off them on me,—(not for purposes of personal fortification, however).
Our “works” were, a single line of earth, about four feet high, and three to five feet thick. It had no ditch or obstructions in front. It was nothing more than a little heavier line of “rifle pits.” There was no physical difficulty in men walking right over that bank! I did it often myself, saw many others do it, and twice, saw a line of Federal troops walk over it, and then saw them walk back over it, with the greatest ease, at the rate of forty miles an hour; i. e., except those whom we had persuaded to stay with us, and those whom the angels were carrying to Abraham’s bosom, at a still swifter rate. Works they could go over like that couldn’t have been much obstacle! They couldn’t have made better time on a dead level.
“Sticky” Mud and Yet More “Sticky” Men
Such were our works actually! And still, they seemed to “loom largely” to the people in front. I wonder what could have given them such an exaggerated idea of the strength of those modest little works? I wonder if it could have been the men behind them? There were not a great many of these men. It was a very thin gray line along there, back of a thin, red line of clay. But these lines stuck together very hard, and were very hard indeed to separate. The red clay was “sticky” and the men were just as “sticky.” And, as the two lines stuck together so closely, it made the whole very strong indeed. Certainly, it seems they gave to those who tried to force them apart, an impression of great strength!