"Has walking a battlefield changed your mind?" Topic

I have been lucky enough to walk/tour several battlefields (Bull Run, Anteitem, Gettysberg, Vickssberg & Little big Horn). Sometimes, even if I had studied a particular battle a lot, actually walking the terrain changes the perception.

At Bull Run I was amazed at how dense the foliage was.
At Gettysberg, the long flat & open field Pickett had to cross was awe inspiring.
At LBH I was surprised at how broken the terrain was and how much dead ground there was for something called the "Great Plains." It was plain to see how the extra range of the US cav carbines wouldn't have helped much.

Has anyone else had an experience where walking the filed changed your thoughts on the battle?

I felt the same about LBH. The terrain was not what I expected.

I would take the foliage with a grain of salt at any of the Civil War battlefields. The NPS folks say that the foliage at Antietam is totally different than at the time of the battle. Vicksburg was reforested during the depression. Foliage at any of these places is going to have grown a lot or been removed or removed/regrown for a variety of reasons in the last 150+ years.

I would say I have also been surprised and gotten a new impression after seeing the battlefield in person. At Gettysburg after being at little round top and looking across the fields towards the Confederate lines, it is hard to believe they even tried to cross that ground. Under cannon fire during the day in the hot sun. Seeing how far it really was did change my mind.
One it was not really surprising the attack failed. Two it should not have ever been attempted those positions with cannons were just two strong. When you read about it sounds like the attack had might have been possible. See the battlefield and it really looks different.

After walking Austerlitz, I realized that flat terrain in Europe in not flat at all.

There are all sorts of divots and rises in what the maps of the battlefield called flat. They can and do block line of sight.

That was a revelation to someone raised on the American plains. When we say flat, we MEAN flat.

Try looking at a battlefield from horseback. I always thought Picket's Charge was foolhardy until I rode Seminary Ridge. From that elevation, Lee would have seen not a flat field, but a series of small ridges that appear to create dead ground across the way. No, I'm not saying that is why Lee ordered the attack, but I can see that view of the terrain having an impact on his decision-making.

And like Allen57 says, don't take the modern terrain as gospel. There is a concerted effort to return Gettysburg back to the time of the battle. The area around Vicksburg was clear-cut before and during the siege, but now is completely overgrown. Chickamauga has the woods in pretty much the right places, but they are the wrong kind. In 1863, the woods were mostly old growth hardwoods that were harvested after the war.

I have walked a lot of battlefields, as I am also a re-enactor, and every time I walk one, I feel I get a better sense of the topography.

Eric

When I walked the field of Fredericksburg I was astonished at how low the heights were, I always had in my imagination a much steeper slope. I come from a part of the world, Vancouver B.C., which is mountainous. It wasn't until I climbed to the top of the heights did I realise how the high ground dominated the surrounding terrain.

I had the opposite experience at Gettysburg. I found it amazing how not flat the terrain that Picket had to cross was. How when crossing it you simply disappear from view on any number of occasions.

Like Cold Steel says, it is certainly not flat and when you see and walk the ground you can understand how someone might have thought that an attack across it may have worked.

I was at Cowpens last year. It was more heavily wooded than I expected. The "hill" Daniel Morgan placed his troops on and behind was a mere rise of less than several feet high.
But then again, I wasn't marching since oh-dark-early against soldiers firing musket volleys at me. :)

Ted

Bull Run was the first reenactment I ever saw. How the local terrain, rolls in the hills, a fence here a gully there … really changed how the troops flow made an impression on me. Very informative.

The ACW battlefields I have walked on, might not have changed my mind on how the battle went, but they did help me realize how communications between units could get fouled up and how hard "Command and Control" was on the battlefield.
Good topic, thanks
Joe

I walked through several parts of Normandy with veterans from the Essex Regiment ("The Pompadours") several years ago, including the hill that they fought a savage battle on which was renamed by the local French authorities as Essex Hill. For them, all of Normandy was a battle field. It was an amazing experience. We were travelling by coach and stopped frequently for photo opportunities. At one I overheard two of the old boys, looking out over a cornfield, discussing where they had set up their Bren gun and where the corn in the field had first caught fire as they lay in it. The conversation ended as one remarked that the tree line that they had escaped into and where their friend had died was still in the same place.

We later travelled to Pegasus bridge and I was amazed at the skill of the glider pilots in getting their aircraft down so close to the bridge in such treacherous terrain. The final positions of the gliders noses are now marked by plinths, and standing on the end of the (new) bridge the closest plinth was just a dozen or so feet away. Really brought home to me how skilful they were, and what a shock it must have been for the defending troops to have these three silent monsters appear, stuffed with paras!

G.

Walking Missionary Ridge made me dismiss all the talk about poor defensive positions as so much hooey. Boy scouts with rocks should be able to hold that ridge.

It was poor generalship by Bragg and whoever split the defenders between the base and the crest of the ridge. One book I have says it was Hardee, the other says it was Breckinridge. Whoever did it really screwed up. As for the ridge being indefensible, Cleburne didn't find it so on his sector. But then he kept everyone on top of the ridge.

At Antietam walking Bloody Lane made me realize how close the Union troops were when they were fired on from it. The position in the low ground made it apparent why the attempt to reinforce the lane failed so badly – the frustrated Union troops got to shoot them up while just over the skyline from the lane.

Normandy – Utah Beach.

I was there at low tide, approximately when the landing took place. I walked all the way out to the water line -- hundreds of years (it's a pretty long and flat beach at low tide). I turned around an was struck by just how freakin' far these guys had to go even once they cleared the water line, much less wading through the water, with all their gear, to get there.

And then to cross that flat beach, interspersed with obstacles, and all under fire! Amazing.

Having walked Kings Mountain many many times I understand why Ferguson thought it was a good position and of course from the many angles at the bottom of the mountain why the Over the Mountain Men had the better of him. The trees at the time of the Battle of Kings Mountain were primal forest growth with the exception that the top of the mountain had been cleared to graze livestock. Like Gettysburg, work has been underway to restore the battlefield to as close to how it would have looked. All of the ground vegetation has been cleared as it simply would not have been able to grow in the dense canopy of the ancient oaks, poplar, and ash. Naturally the woods around Kings Mountain have been harvested multiple times. The current hardwoods are perhaps at best approaching 90 years old so a long way to go to reach the girth the trees would have in 1780.

As I stated I have been to the battle field many times and have made it point to go at the hour and time of year that the battle took place. It is easy to see with the dense mulch and thick woods how Campbell's men were able to sneak up and pretty much surround Ferguson's force. Now with the undergrowth cleared you can see visitors at the top of the mountain back lighted by the sun. You can understand how Ferguson's forces in tight line formation would have made great targets for men who for all purposes were a regiment strength of sharpshooters.

Traversing the hills in Korea in summer and winter gave me just a glimpse how bad those soldiers and Marines had it. Korean War vets are some hard core individuals.

The Plains of Abraham surprised me – it was like a very rough golf course with lots of tiny sand traps.

Walking and often crawling through Naftan Point on Saipan made it exceptionally clear why the 27th Infantry had such a difficult time. The whole area is raised coral with minimal soil. There are two parallel raised coral ridges honeycombed with caves. All of these caves have built up rock defenses at their mouths. The US infantry was in a terrible position. Interlocking fields of fire from the fortified positions swept the center valley. Taking the tops of ridges didn't give great access to the caves below and you were still exposed to fire from the opposite ridge. The jungle and terrain didn't allow effective use of armor. The closeness of the combat and limited lines of site limited US artillery effectiveness. There was no way to dig in because of limited soil development. The best you do was pile a few rocks in front of you. In the heat and humidity it must have been hell on earth.

Culloden. The benign sound of words such as heather and gorse don't begin to describe the tangle foot barbed wire that the Scots had to try and run across.

seeing Vicksburg really changes how you perceive that campaign.

Having walked from the drop zone to Arnhem bridge following the path taken by 2 Para makes it very clear how far it was. And then driving out to Ginlel Heath shows how much further the problem was.

Also wandering around Ligny and its various villages showed how easy it would be to hide units / suddenly appear given the serious folds in the ground.

I haven't walked ACW battlefields (I am planning to do that next March), but the most striking thing about the ones that I have walked in Europe is the sheer size of many of them (apart from Waterloo). The size of the Ramillies field was particularly striking. I often start the games that I am hosting by pointing out the distances involved and what that would mean on the ground if the battlefield was transposed to Melbourne (eg I recall working out that the board for Wagram would stretch from Flemington to St Kilda).

As many have said before, the Normandy battlefield terrain pretty much highlights a lot of why certain things happened on D-Day and the subsequent inland battles.

Omaha beach is just a featurless plain, easy to see why it all went wrong there.

Pegasus Bridge, those glider pilots were gods amongst men, they practically landed on the damn thing. Standing at the plinth that indicates where the nearest glider landed you can near enough touch the bridge.

Pointe du Hoc. Rangers climbed this. While being shot at. Seriously?! Pictures don't do it justice. There are so many craters here its like the surface of the moon.

The few bits of Bocage that remain have to be seen to be believed, tight, twisty knotted bits of hedge, ditches, woodland and field all crammed into small spaces. Amazing to see.

Culloden. The benign sound of words such as heather and gorse don't begin to describe the tangle foot barbed wire that the Scots had to try and run across.

Agrred with McKinstry here. Another featurless plain, except this time one that stops you from moving with any kind of speed. A terrible place to fight a battle.

Deviating ever so slightly from the topic – I traveled to the UK and the US back in 92, with a very large part of that dedicated to checking out battlefields. I got to walk Culloden, Stirling Bridge, Hastings, Hadrian's Wall, Vicksburg, Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Chattanooga…quite a fair bit actually. I was very impressed at the US' approach and treatment of their battlefields, especially Vicksburg, and this was more than twenty years ago without any anniversaries etc. In fact I was completely gob smacked at how beautiful the deep south is – touring the Appalachians, the Bluegrass region, Shenandoah Valley you really understand the passion the people of the Civil War South had for their country. And the hospitality!

The British certainly have their share of signage and statues, but that's it. Naseby, one of the more important English battlefields, was mostly private property, and the one monument I could find was well back from the road and nearly completely inaccessible and completely over grown. Hadrian's Wall was excellent however, the attached centre had a stunning scale model of the wall I think in 1/100 scale.

So yeah, bust on the battlefields in the UK (I'm sure, and I certainly hope, that things have changed now) and two thumbs up for the US battlefields. Mind you, the Tower of London and the Imperial War Museum more than adequately made up for it.

I recently wondered around Hopton Castle and had a nasty feeling of claustrophobia to say the least. I'd also mention the crypt of the Church of St Cyril and Methodius in Prague. It's a very small battlefield but a battlefield nonetheless and a very eery place, especially at the point where they tried to dig out and if it's quiet…..

My biggest take-away from walking several battlefields is that many historians I have read didn't, and formed their opinions accordingly.

Burnsides Bridge us a good example. That he took it at all was a major tactical feat that only happened after the regiments defending the heights that dominated it ran low on ammunition. And yet it is possible to read any number of accounts that blame his for his slowness.

Rick

Agreed on Missionary Ridge…boggling…

Big surprises from walking Borodino a couple, three times and studying centennial photos…how rugged and deep the banks of the Koloch were…completely baffling as to why Kutuzov would bother to put anyone on the right. While there are huge flat areas (I understand why they chose it), there are also a lot of elevation changes--if you're used to the "La Bataille de la Moscowa" map, you're in for a shock. :) The absolute boggy mess the bottom of the hill in front of the redoubt is, as well as how steep the hill itself is.

Vicksburg was reforested during the depression.

The area around Vicksburg was clear-cut before and during the siege, but now is completely overgrown.

The Vicksburg National Military park is making some progress in clearing out trees and brush from many of the approaches to the Confederate defensive works from the Union besiegers lines. So now you'll get a better feel for how open and exposed the assaults on 19th and 22nd May were.

Jim

@MCWong

We have a much smaller country you must remember, and not an inch of it unstained with blood. If we preserved every battlefield we wouldn't be able to move. Our defining civil wars were also longer ago than the ACW, and so there was less interest in preserving the sites.

Burnsides Bridge us a good example. That he took it at all was a major tactical feat that only happened after the regiments defending the heights that dominated it ran low on ammunition. And yet it is possible to read any number of accounts that blame his for his slowness.

Can't remember where this was, but I read about an experiment by some ROTC cadets and their instructors at a stream where the Union forces charged across a long, narrow bridge instead of wading across the narrow stream on a broad front. To say that there had been criticism of the decision was putting it mildly.

They found that the current was stronger than anticipated, but the real problem was that they couldn't get up the far bank! It was too steep, too soft, and they were too tired. They did eventually make it out by searching for a good location, everybody working together, that sort of thing.

An excellent recipe for being massacred.

(BTW, I live in an almost battlefield-free area. Just drove by one of the few, but it's all farmed now and certainly bears no resemblance to the conditions of the battle. And the battle was teeny-tiny.)

Normandy----Pointe Du Hoc
It is hard to imagine any Rangers made it up that cliff.

I saw the union artillery overlay for Gettysberg. Only after that did I get the view from Little Round Topand the walk from the Seminary. My estimation of Lee plummeted with the view on the ground.

Same goes for the view of the town of Gettysberg from the cemetary.

When I saw the railway cut and the area around it, all I could think of is the hasty battle positions we practiced for delays against the soviets in central Germany. I figured Buford needs to be held up as an exemplar more than ever.

I second the thought of is it the bridge at Antietem. "You mean that ditch!". Until I asked what time of year, how deep the water and how fast the flow. You would have lost peole just wading never mind under fire.

Walking Missionary Ridge made me dismiss all the talk about poor defensive positions as so much hooey. Boy scouts with rocks should be able to hold that ridge.

It was poor generalship by Bragg and whoever split the defenders between the base and the crest of the ridge. One book I have says it was Hardee, the other says it was Breckinridge. Whoever did it really screwed up. As for the ridge being indefensible, Cleburne didn't find it so on his sector. But then he kept everyone on top of the ridge.

My understanding (i.e., something I read once) is that the Confederates set up on the geographical crest of the ridge (the highest point) instead of the military crest (the highest point from which you can see the slope in front of you). This meant that the Union troops climbing the ridge weren't visible, and had time to stop, reorganize and catch their breaths near the top before actually attacking. When they charged, they came from much closer than the Confederates expected, who responded by breaking and running.

Cleburne apparently did not make this mistake.

This goes back to Bragg's terrible generalship. His army had been in position for two months and had not marked out lines on the crest. All he needed were stakes in the ground. He sent Longstreet to take Knoxville and sent his chief engineer officer with him. Then Union troops stormed Orchard Knob and Bragg realized he was about to be attacked. He then sent his remaining engineer officer – a lieutenant – to mark lines on the crest. The young man picked the topographic rather than military crest. The error was compounded by having half the troops at the base of the ridge with orders to fire a few volleys and pull back.

Cleburne was being sent to Knoxville when more fighting broke out and he rushed back to the north end of the ridge. He didn't have time to pick out a better line, he just didn't send half to the base. And he fought like he always did, hard and tough.

Along most of the ridge, the troops at the base routed while climbing up the ridge, chased by Yankees eager to erase the shame of Chickamauga. The troops at the top were run through by routed friends just before the Union men rushed them. Cleburne routed Sherman's troops and took near 1,000 prisoners. It was not the position, it was bad tactics that lost the ridge. All the talk about the lines is excuses and whining. And perhaps historians who didn't walk the field.

And more: Bragg had used his ghastly victory at Chickamauga to attack his enemies in the officers of his army. He re-organized his troops to remove the power bases of his foes. This did not help the morale of his army, another reason they broke and ran.

A good point by Pete Melvin, where I live there is an ECW battlefield (St Fagans) a short drive away (I knew where it was but never walked it until a few Xmas ago when we stumbled out of a wood and I realised where we were, quite an authentic way to arrive at a battlefield really) and somewhere in the north of the city under a housing estate is allegedly the site of an Anglo-Norman / Welsh fight that finished the local Welsh princedom. Not big battles but eneough to spoil your day if you were there…..

There is no substitute for detailed reading about a battle, walking the battlefield and then reading even more about a battle. Understanding the terrain really helps one appreciate the decisions that were made. Walking the battlefields or parts of them again later really makes a difference too.

I have walked so many ACW fields over the years. I have even had the pleasure of walking Jena & Auerstadt, Echmuhl and Tuegen Hausen. The unusual ridge configurations and "blocking" front ridge line really impacted the French view at this latter fight.

Recreating accurate terrain to refight a battle over can make all of difference in the outcome and joy of gaming a historical battle.

This has been a great discussion – thanks everyone

Antietam: in Mansfield shoes, what he could see or know. explains a lot more

Also the reverse slope surprise attack on guns who cannot see anything coming.

Generally it is a humbling experience for a wargamer.

Maloyaroslavets: how steep is the edge of the plateau; how open and wide ste streets, the utter huge size of the old town.

"Recreating accurate terrain to refight a battle over can make all of difference in the outcome and joy of gaming a historical battle."

yes and somehow one of most difficult part of it , even more if you are to take in account the various angles of view aviables to general down to soldiers at the time battle was fought for.
Sometime a single walk by country side or urban aeras even without it being former battlefield do reminds how difficult accuaraty might end up to recreate on a gaming table if we were to get all of it.

The LBH has had some serious changes since the battle. Obviously being there opens your eyes about how rugged it was. But remember, the actual site was in some parts very different.

Yes, but after standing on that large mound at Waterloo, I cannot understand why Wellington did not see everything coming and take advantage of it.

Visiting Cu Chi left me in awe of anyone who went down those tunnels with their life at risk.

The LBH has had some serious changes since the battle. Obviously being there opens your eyes about how rugged it was. But remember, the actual site was in some parts very different.

I know they leveled a couple of hills for the monument, etc. But I was thinking of all the rolling hills obscuring vision.

Bloody Lane at Antietam for me was amazing. How the limited field of fire of the Confederates in the lane actually worked for them when the Union troops appeared just over the rise. Being there you can see the shock value of a close well placed volley into shocked Union forces. The kill zone was short in depth and would have piled up in bodies quick. This would have delayed the Union advance even more. They have a viewers tower right beside the lane where you can see the Union challenges better.

@Pete Melvin, I hear you. Was surprised about Naseby though, thought that monument would qualify as one to keep neat and tidy. You can't go ten metres in any direction in the UK and not be somewhere of historical value. And as I sort of mentioned any issues I took away from battlefield preservation were more than made up by the quality of the museums – the British Museum is in a class of its own. The collections there leave you speechless.

Being on any ground is useful to stop gamers claiming line of sight for miles on a flat 'billiard' tabletop … "but I can see him and he is only 72 inches from my smoothbore muskets with a range of 2 inches, why can't I charge?" ….