In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat, by Earl J. Hess
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (June 22, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0807832820
ISBN-13: 978-0807832820
Earl J. Hess has released three books centering on the Civil War from a different perspective: Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864, Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign (Civil War America), and combined with his The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth (Modern War Studies), Hess has put together a nice trilogy of books that has raised the bar in Civil War scholarship.
I have been very impressed with Hess’s writing ability and his scholarship. The notion of Civil War armies maneuvering on the battlefield and then lining up and firing at one another in nice and neat rows is somewhat misleading. In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat analyzes the hidden aspect of Civil War battles, the engineering and trench work that took place and did so as early as 1863.
This is yet another Hess book that is a must for Civil War enthusiasts.
