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We have moved forward across his earthworks, across which we have so often vainly attempted to move before, through the debris of his abandoned camps, among the graves of his fallen, into the woods beyond. How curiously we regarded everything! How odd it all seemed!
The rebel army East was admirably posted for defensive operations, provided they were to be attacked in their position. His army was on the south bank of the Rapidan, and in rear of Mine Run, and extending east to the spurs of the Blue Ridge, on the west and left flank, protected by heavy earthworks.
Farther down was Island Number 10, bearing one of the most powerful fortifications the world has ever seen. Then came Fort Pillow, guarding the city of Memphis; then at Vicksburg frowned earthworks, bastions, and escarpments that rivalled Gibraltar for impregnability. Lower down were fortifications at Grand Gulf, Port Hudson, and Baton Rouge.
The Potomac formed an additional protection. But a cordon of isolated earthworks does not appeal as an effective barrier to the civilian mind, and above Point of Rocks the great river was easy of passage. Even if Washington were absolutely safe from a coup de main, Lincoln had still good reason for apprehension. The Union capital was merely the seat of government. It had no commercial interests.
The earthworks had been completed, and Lancelot and I were standing on the top, surveying with no little pride the portion we had assisted in throwing up, when I saw a puff of smoke issue from Colway Hill, followed by a thundering report, and a round shot plunged into the bank close beneath our feet. "Come down, youngsters!" shouted my father, who had just before entered the fort.
The stores of the British and Tories had all been brought in, and then we were called upon to level the earthworks which had been thrown up at the beginning of the siege, lest General Burgoyne, who had been reported as possibly coming our way, might be able to turn them to his own advantage and our discomfiture.
There is just a gap in the earthworks which protects Suakim, a regular breach as one may say, which has to be defended by two strong works, which the sailors have given the names of ships to Euryalus and Carysfoot they call them. And why is the gap left? And why are the two forts made to defend it instead of filling it up?
But when the assailants swarm to the breach so massed together that one pushes on another, unless they be brought to a stand by ditches and earthworks, they penetrate everywhere, and no artillery has any effect to keep them back; and though some must fall, yet not so many as to prevent a victory.
The trifling force of two thousand men under Rivas all that the archduke then had in that province and the sconces and earthworks which had been constructed around Ostend to impede the movements and obstruct the supplies of the garrison, would be utterly powerless to prevent the consummation of the plan.
They appear to have believed that the earthworks which had transformed Centreville into a formidable fortress, manned by the Army of Northern Virginia, as the force under Johnston was now designated, were sufficient in themselves to end the war. They had not yet learned that there were many roads to Richmond, and that a passive defence is no safeguard against a persevering foe.
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