Existing comment:
Confederate Soldier:
The brigade advanced upon the enemy's lines ... posted behind breastworks erected of logs and rail picketing, covered with green brush. Their position was naturally strong, and ... almost impregnable.
-- Col. George H. Nixon, 48th Tennessee
Confederate forces spent most of the battle on the attack. While Chickamauga's forest often allowed them to get within 200 yards of the enemy before being fired upon, the Federals used the same forest for cover, and increasingly, for material to construct simple field fortifications. Most Confederate assaults were repulsed. The soldiers' experience with field fortifications at Chickamauga led to even more elaborate works becoming common features on battlefields in the last year of the war. Axes, shovels, and picks, the tools necessary to truly fortify a position, became nearly as important to the soldier as his rifle musket. |