Abstract
The terrain in the Eastern and Western Theaters of the Civil War was created by geological forces operating during the last billion years of Earth’s history. The construction, and eventual disarticulation, of the supercontinents of Rodinia and Pangea led to the creation of five physiographic—or geological—provinces in eastern North America and each of these provinces provided vastly different landscape characteristics that could be exploited on multiple scales by the commanding officers. This chapter explores how the different geology, and resulting terrain, of each province influenced fighting at multiple scales: Strategic, tactical, and close-quarters combat.
“The nature of the ground is the fundamental factor in aiding the army to set up its victory.”
—Mei Yao-Ch’en, 1002–1060
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Notes
- 1.
The study of landforms.
- 2.
Granite and rhyolite are essentially the same rock, in terms of composition, but granite is coarse-grained and rhyolite cooled more quickly, producing a fine-grained texture.
- 3.
Hoyer & Ludwig, and North East and South West Alabama Railroad. Map showing the N.E. & S.W. Alabama R.R. with its connections also the principal routes between New York and New Orleans. [Richmond, Va., 1853–1854] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/98688742/. (Accessed September 23, 2017.)
- 4.
These dinosaurs almost certainly died while on land, perhaps drowning in a river, and their carcass was transport by river into a shallow marine environment through a process delightfully named “bloat and float”.
- 5.
Of all higher ranking Commanding Officers on either side of the conflict, only one had any type of geological training or background. William Rosecrans, who led the Union Army of the Cumberland at Stones River and Chickamauga, studied geology before the war and was a successful oil, coal, and mining executive.
- 6.
Don’t be surprised if American Airlines begins to add a surcharge to ticket prices to cover this increasing distance on international flights.
References
Brown, A. (1962). Geology and the Gettysburg Campaign, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Educational Series n. 5, 15p.
Ehlen, J., & Whisonant, R. C. (2008). Military Geology of Antietam Battlefield, Maryland, USA—Geology, terrain, and casualties. Geology Today, 24(1), 20–27.
Henderson, S. W. (2004). The Geology of the Chickamauga Campaign, American Civil War. In D. R. Caldwell, J. Ehlen, & R. S. Harmon (Eds.), Studies in military geography and geology (pp. 173–184). Kluwer.
Prothero, D. R., & Schwab, F. (2004). Sedimentary geology (557p). Macmillan.
Whisonant, R. C. (2015). Arming the confederacy: How Virginia’s minerals forged the Rebel War machine (206p). Springer.
Further Reading
Catton, B. (1960). The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War (630p). American Heritage Publishing.
Debelius, M. (1996). Illustrated Atlas of the Civil War (320p). Time Life Books.
McPherson, J. M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (905p). Ballantine Books.
Nosworthy, B. (2003). The bloody crucible of courage: Fighting methods and combat experience of the Civil War (753p). Carroll and Graf Publishers.
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Hippensteel, S. (2019). Introduction. In: Rocks and Rifles. Advances in Military Geosciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00877-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00877-2_1
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