How do you dig rifle pits?

[Jim Mayo]

I have not found any diaries, etc. that reflect the use of craters in Civil War entrenchments, although such use appears to have been very common and well documented in World War II

The reason that pits were not made from shell craters in the CW was due to the type of and size of artillery used. Except for seige operations, field guns used ammunition which unless solid, was designed to be exploded in the air above the soldiers. There were shells with concussion fuses but field artillery was too small and black powder too weak to leave the big craters that WWI and WWII high explosive artillery left. It is not uncommon to dig a CW ground burst and usually most of the fragments will be within a foot or two of each other. Not much exploding power in these type shells.

Bigger guns such as ship's guns or 100 & 200 lb parrott rifles could likely make a big crater if a shell dropped down with enough momentum to bury in the ground. There are not many areas where these types of shells were used against infantry but along the James River they were worrisom.

The CS section of the Howlett line adjoining the James River was inspected shortly after positions were established by the respective armies. I forgot what general did the inspection but the result was a significant strengthing of the line in areas where the Union gunboats or Federal river forts could shell the lines. The general was worried that a large artillery shell from these type guns could punch through field fortifications and would probably be capable of making a man size crater taking most of the breast work with it. Some of these strengthened lines are still surviving and are about 10 or 12 feet wide across the top of the works. (Parkers Battery by Krick)

[Becky Morgan]

Ah, that makes sense. I tend to think in terms of the holes punched by big (and modern) siege guns. I also forgot one of the prime pieces of real estate for those under fire: the hollow left by the root ball of a fallen tree.

One of my favorite parts of the New Market museum is the letter from one of the cadets. He said he tried to use a sapling about two inches across as cover and allowed as he'd have used a blade of grass if he could have sheltered in it. Mind you, by all accounts he performed very well during the battle. A sensible soldier takes any cover he or she can use to stay alive and stay in the fight.

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

As pointed out the digging of the pit was based on materials on hand and the tools available.

Based on a number of descriptions in books it seems that the soldiers tried to limit the 'digging' involved in favor of raising a parapit. They talk about putting down logs or stumps and then throwing the dirt dug on their side of the barricade on top of the debris to raise the height of the parapit. I just finished reading an article where some of the 'pits' dug in the Chancelorville campaign were are shallow as two feet but the use of logs, etc allowed the parapit to be raised to about 4-5 feet.

It a;so seemed that officers tried to layout thier defensive positions with the lay of the land in mind to he might have taken advantage of any dips, sunken roads (sound familiar), etc. to get a head start on the defenses.

So I don't think there was an 'official' army way to construct the defenses.

[John-Owen Kline]

Mr. Mayo is correct as usual. The only shell holes that I personally know of from the period are overshots in the woods behind Ft Anderson and those in front of the works at Sugar Loaf. When looking at the heavy guns assigned to target those works it's no surprise a shallow scar is left today.

The rifle pits at Sugar Loaf are evenly spaced rectangular features while the adjacent shell bursts can best be described as rambling dimples. The pits there and at the Tolar Farm at Bentonville are well laid, uniform parts of the defences.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

The CRRC2 has an entire chapter in it about earthworks--how they were built, by whom, how they were laid out, by whom, and more. I'll provide one short excerpt from that chapter here, specific to rifle pits:

Some common—but by no means only—features in a Civil War fieldworks system included:
1. Rifle Pits: Civil War rifle pits varied in size, from what we might today call a “foxhole” to “complete” fieldworks. Strictly speaking, rifle pits were advanced fieldworks, usually meant for pickets, ranging from a hole sufficient for only two or three men, to earthworks fifty yards or more in length. Sometimes rifle pits were so extensive that, when overrun by attackers, they were mistaken for the enemy’s main line. Rifle pits were usually hundreds of yards in front of the main line; however, even at Cold Harbor—where portions of the opposing main works were as close together as 200 yards—there were still rifle pits in no-man’s-land, albeit fairly near the main lines.

See the rest of the chapter for more info on Civil War field fortification systems.

[Charles Heath]

As just one example, the remaining rifle pits on the South Anna River battlefield (primarily west of the extant CSXT masonry piers) are still visible, deep, and retain a purposeful, angled, appearance. Several of the online engineering and field fortification books, as well as HL Scott's work may go into definitional differences between hasty field fortifications and more long term minor works, yet they haven't been referenced thus far in this thread for some reason.

[sauguszouave]

Here is a scan of the page describing rifle pits from Henry Lee Scott's "Military Dictionary." (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1861.) I haven't checked my 1864 edition to see if it is any different. Apologies for scanning it upside down, but you can flip it in your reader.

Regards,

Paul Kenworthy

[hiplainsyank]

Don't forget there is a famous sketch (by perhaps Waud?), which shows a Union soldier laying down and looking forward, with his musket on his left side and his right hand scooping up dirt with either a tin plate or canteen half. Obviously not a rifle pit as it has been defined here, but an interesting image of a soldier digging while presumably in the presence of the enemy.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Here is a scan of the page describing rifle pits from Henry Lee Scott's "Military Dictionary." (

Good item to post here!

That said, like a lot of military manuals of the day, one thing is defined in a book and sometimes something else was actually done in the field. I've read numerous accounts--particularly (but not exclusively) about the Spotsylvania campaign--where attackers wrote of overrunning things like, "two lines of enemy works until we were unable to penetrate their third line", and similar stuff. In some cases, that type of assertion is referring to simply overrunning a line or "rifle pits" which I believe to be a continuous trench, albeit not as stoutly built as the "main line of defense". In other cases at Spotsylvania, where Confederates pulled back from a main line (i.e., the Mule Shoe) in favor of a more distant, new main line, pickets must have been manning the former main line, in effect using "full works" as rifle pits.

How they were dug, their arrangement, and location depended on the military situation on a given battlefield and the time that opposing forces spent on the ground.

Still, the dictionary-definnition from the era is a darned interesting read, and thanks for posting it!

[sauguszouave]

How they were dug, their arrangement, and location depended on the military situation on a given battlefield and the time that opposing forces spent on the ground.

Still, the dictionary-definnition from the era is a darned interesting read, and thanks for posting it!

Kevin,

You're welcome.

West Point in the 19th century was an engineering school. Dennis Hart Mahan is known among re-enactors for his "Out-post" but he also wrote a book on field fortifications. Cadets spent far more time studying how to design and construct fortifications than they did studying tactical theory. The number of references to rifle pits and other small constructions in period texts is actually very few. Most of the text books start with redans and lunettes and work up from there. One of the distinguishing characteristics of regular army officers in counterdistinction to volunteers is that all the regulars would know how to calculate how many men it would take to move how much earth in how much time to construct a ditch and parapet of a given size. They would also know how thick the wall would have to be depending on the weapons it was expected to defend against.

By the way, one thing I noticed in Henry Lee Scott's rifle pit is the step at the back to allow the men to get in and out of it easily.

Regards,

Paul Kenworthy