Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (Vintage Departures)

by Tony Horwitz

Fort Sedgwick, dubbed “Fort Hell” because of the constant mortar and sniper fire aimed at it, now lay beneath the franchise hell skirting town. When we stopped to ask directions, a policeman said, “Where the Kmart is, that’s the approximate location.” Fort Mahone, another famous rampart, had been leveled, too, and now lay beneath a Pizza Hut parking lot. What remained of the battlefield offered an even starker preview of World War I than had Spotsylvania or Cold Harbor. During the 292-day stalemate here (roughly a quarter of the entire War), the armies constructed sandbagged bombproofs, chevaux-de-frise (porcupinelike obstacles bristling with spikes) and trip lines of telegraph wire strung between tree stumps. The Union even experimented with a precursor of the machine gun known as the Gatling gun, a multi-barreled weapon that spat out bullets with the aid of a hand crank (this was also the origin of the gangster slang “gat”). It was here, too, that the Union pulled off the boldest engineering feat of the War. Seeking to break the deadlock, Pennsylvania coal miners burrowed a 500-foot tunnel beneath a rebel salient. Then they detonated four tons of gunpowder, literally blowing the defenders sky-high. But the Union assault that followed quickly degenerated into a gruesome folly. Advancing troops plunged straight into the huge pit the blast had created, allowing Confederates to gather round the rim and fire down at the helpless, close-packed Federals. The Union force lost 4,...