Journal of Interdisciplinary History

The author argues that contrary to most historical interpretations, the Confederacy had an adequate corps of professional engineers who served with distinction throughout the Civil War. He points out that West Point–trained engineers and civil engineers, "slow to come of age," performed well using their skills to construct small bridges and lay pontoons (xi). These efforts often proved pivotal later in the war when engineers skillfully built the Kennesaw Mountain Line and the fortifications around Atlanta and successfully threw three pontoons to extract General William J. Hardee's forces from Savannah. Men like Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Wilson Presstman, Major John W. Green, Captain Lemuel P. Grant, and Captain John M. Wampler performed admirably as engineers.

Daniel takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, describing such technical engineering as the design and building of pontoons, the bridgework completed by the firm of Anthony L. Maxwell and Son of Knoxville, and the construction and use of Howe truss bridges. Geography is prominent in his often-fascinating explanation of the problems that southern engineers had to face—for instance, at Vicksburg where the base of the bluffs along the Mississippi River were hard limestone but the bluffs themselves were loess, forcing the engineers to build parapets forty feet thick and thus insufficiently recessed to hit Union gunboats that hugged the shoreline. [End Page 139]

The book's thesis, however, begs two major questions. First, a number of Daniel's cited episodes appear to contravene his argument. In early 1863, as General Braxton Bragg's army went into winter quarters, Daniel characterizes the engineer corps as "saddled with problems," including "over-taxed personnel" (57). When the 3rd Engineer Regiment was formed in 1863, most of the lieutenants were "merely assigned as engineers," implying that they did not have the requisite skill sets (99). Again, when Bragg's army retreated from Chattanooga in November 1863, a correspondent complained, "No engineers or pioneers were to be seen" (109). During the Atlanta Campaign, Major General Samuel G. French of General Leonidas Polk's Army of Mississippi wrote with frustration in his diary, "We want engineers" (129).

Second, the author's focus on the officer corps demonstrates only that most Confederate division and all corps commanders had professional engineers on their staffs, but those engineers were assigned primarily to conduct surveys or mark out potential defensive lines, and they were spread too thin. Moreover, the number of skilled engineers as well as of engineering officers to lead them was inadequate for the necessary work. For example, during the Siege of Vicksburg, Confederate engineer Samuel Lockett had to work with twenty-six sappers and miners, eight mechanics and foremen, four overseers, and seventy-two slaves, twenty of whom were ill.¹ The Confederate line was twelve miles long.

Daniel's quantitative analysis in Chapter 9 contradicts an established fact about the availability of qualified engineers. Based on his count of occupations in the four Heartland states of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, he concludes that notwithstanding the difficulty of defining the term engineer in the 1860 census, the potential number of "artisan engineer troops was over 30,000" (95). According to the eighth census, however, the number was 13,096. Daniel never demonstrates how he arrived at the larger number.² Whether or not Daniel's estimate is accurate, it does not translate into an abundance of engineering regiments or companies. The Confederates did not form an engineer regiment until the summer of 1863. Until late 1862, they had no pontoon train, and they lacked a railroad construction corps. The Confederacy used enslaved persons, not engineers, to repair railroads and roads and to dig fortifications. Furthermore, although Daniel mentions a Black pioneer company, no evidence suggests that Blacks were paid as Confederate pioneers. Considering the scale of the war and contrary to Daniel's thesis, the number of engineers and engineer troops was not adequate to meet the demand of a war that stretched across more than 750,000 square miles. [End Page...