Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993 TAG: 9309190164
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
With Union cannons to the north and Union troops preparing to march into the city from the south and east, Confederate Brig. Gen. Cadmus Wilcox came up with a novel defense during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg.
Instead of the traditional straight-line earthworks used by armies of the day, Wilcox told his troops to carve a zigzag trench into a hillside.
The idea worked. Despite heavy artillery fire, few of Wilcox's men were killed.
With the zigzag pattern, "if a shell were to come in it would soon hit dirt and not wipe out the whole line," said Jay Luvaas, a professor of military history at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
The zigzag trench was the only one dug during the Civil War, Luvaas said. The design didn't show up again until World War I.
"This guy had a modern solution," he said.
The trench is still visible through a cover of underbrush. Chatham Square Associates, a local development company that is planning an office park project nearby, has given the city about five acres around the trench.
The trench will eventually be connected to other Civil War sites by a network of trails, said Erik Nelson, a city planner.
How soon the trails are in place depends on the pace of development in the area, Nelson said.
Luvaas has a theory on why Wilcox came up with the zigzag design. During the battles near Antietam, Md., months before the Fredericksburg battle, some of Confederate Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson's troops suffered heavy losses when they were caught in a hail of Union bullets from two directions.
The scene was known as the "Bloody Lane" in Civil War lore.
Luvaas was at Antietam several years ago when "it hit me. . . . Wilcox was in Anderson's division" during Antietam. "All he had to do was look at all the bodies in that bloody lane to make an impression on him."
Wilcox's troops occupied the trench again about six months later during the Battle of Chancellorsville, Luvaas said.
Though there was no significant ground fighting in the area during either battle, the site is important, he said.
Wilcox's success in holding the position forced the Union army to divide itself during the Chancellorsville campaign, Luvaas said.
"It was the key terrain to the whole battle," he said.
by CNB