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Those expert at preparing defenses consider it fundamental to rely on the strengths
of such obstacles as mountains, rivers and foothills. They make it possible for the
enemy to know where to attack. They secretly conceal themselves under the
nine-layer ground.
Tu Yu, A.D. 735-812
Geology has affected military operations since the first protohuman picked-up a rock or tree limb to defend himself. Something as insignificant as a small berm or moraine may have provided enough concealment for early man before he went on the offensive. Caves provided shelter, while the earth provided flint for tools and spear points. As humans progressed from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age, minerals from the ground provided the raw materials needed for not only implements of defense and offense, but for daily life and art. Even today, geology plays a role in military operations...a commander in the field almost always aspires to take the "high ground".
Though geology has played a significant role in military operations for millennia, it did not emerge as a science unto itself until the end of the 18th century, and military geology did not develop into a separate subdiscipline until the middle of the 19th century (Guth, 1998) when commanders began to understand how the geology of the battlefield can have an influence on military planning and operations. This influence has ranged from the best use of terrain to the World War II production of sophisticated preinvasion geological portfolios and the construction of underground factories and shelters to the postwar siting of huge underground military command and control centers (Keirsch and Underwood, 1998).
The first documented military operation using geologic guidance was in 1813. Professor K.A. von Raumer analyzed the terrain of Silesia (today part of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic) for General von Blucher, who defeated Napoleon’s forces in the battle of the Katzback River, 26 August 1813 (Betz, 1984). A similar geologic analysis of the terrain at Luxembourg was made in 1843 for the French military (Marga, 1885; Barré, 1897-1902).
If someone had to be called the father of military geology, the credit would probably go to A.W. Vogdes. A drummer boy in the Civil War, he rose through the ranks and retired as a brigadier general. Vogdes was an internationally known trilobite paleontologist and founding member of the Geological Society of America (Dumble, 1923). In 1884, Vogdes published one of the earliest works pertaining to military geology (Vogdes, 1884).
The New York and New Jersey Revolutionary War campaigns in 1776-1777 were significantly influenced by relic glacial deposits of the region. For example, the Harbor Hill terminal moraine (deposited about 14,000 years ago) was the ideal location for fortifications to protect New York City harbor. The terrain lessons learned during the Revolutionary War campaigns were perhaps an influence on the U.S. Military Academy, because in 1823 it was among the first institutions to introduce formal instruction in geology even though geology was an rudimentary science at that time (Smith, 1964).
The British considered the steep topography and a lack of large flat areas in the High Hills near Eutaw Springs in central South Carolina unfavorable for fighting; however, General Nathanael Green used this area to rest and rebuild his forces before beginning an offensive against the British force commander, Colonel Alexander Stewart. Stewart chose to camp his force of 2000 men at Eutaw Springs because farm crops and drinking water were available, and the position was defensible, bordered by a swamp on the north and open fields elsewhere. On 8 September 1781, Greene attacked the British. The Battle of Eutaw Springs was the last major revolutionary War battle in South Carolina, and one of the costliest, with over 500 soldiers dead, wounded or missing-in-action on each side (Boland, 2002).
When the Civil War erupted, Virginia was the leading mineral-producing state in the Confederacy (Boyle, 1936; Dietrich, 1970). Among the most important mined materials needed to fight a war in the mid-nineteenth century were salt, lead, iron, saltpeter (potassium nitrate - the one of the primary ingredients in the production of gunpowder) and coal. Of all the southern states, Virginia led in the production of all these minerals except iron (Whisonant, 1997). The lead mines at Austinville provided virtually all of the lead produced in the South, (Donnelly, 1959; Robertson, 1993a) eventially contributing at least one-third of the total lead consumed by the Confederate forces during the entire war. The Saltville works in Smyth County were of equal value to the Confederate forces, eventually providing two-thirds of the total supply of salt to the Southern forces. During the peak year of 1864, the Smyth County facility manufactured 4-million bushels of salt (Whisonant,2003).
In West Virginia, Organ Cave played a significant role during the Civil War. The cave, located in the southwestern part of the state, was an abundant source of saltpeter. Confederate soldiers, under the direction of General Robert E. Lee, found that the cave not only an excellent source of saltpeter, but also realized that the cave was a suitable place to refine the mineral into a form suitable for shipment to the powder mills in Augusta, Georgia. Large hardwood vats were built to hold the nitrate-rich soil mined in the cave, then water was poured over the soil, leaching-out the minerals. The resulting solution was filtered and evaporated leaving behind relatively pure saltpeter
During the American Civil War, the battle of Gettysburg in 1863 was profoundly affected by the geology of the area. Strategic heights and commanding hilltops such as Little Round Top and Cemetery ridge are composed of geologic material into which it was relatively easy for the Union forces to dig in. As a consequence of the geology of the area, the Confederate troops were never able to dislodge the defenders who had dug defensive positions. The Confederates never fully recovered from their defeat at Gettysburg (Underwood and Guth, 1998).
On 4 July 1863, during the Tullahoma campaign, Union General William Rosecrans maneuvered the Confederate forces into the Confederate base at Chattanooga. Much of General Rosecrans’ success was directly due to his knowledge of the geology and rough terrain of the area (Brown, 1963a, b). The subsequent Chickamauga campaign forced the Confederate forces to evacuate the Chattanooga base...a result of the skillful use of geology and topography of rugged terrain by the Union forces (Brown, 1964).
References
Barré, O., Cammandant, 1897-1902, Cours de geographie: Croquis geographiques: Fontainbleau, Ecole d’Application de l’Artillerie et Genie, 2 volumes.
Betz, F., 1984, Military geology, in Finkl, C.W., ed., The encyclopedia of applied geology: New York, Von Nostrand Reinhold, p. 238-241.
Boland, I. 2002, The influence of Atlantic coastal plain geology on activities leading to and including the Revolutionary War Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina. Paper 51-15 (abstract), Geological Society of America annual meeting, Denver, October 27-30, 2002.
Boyle, R.S., 1936, Virginia’s mineral contributions to the Confederacy: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources, Bulletin 46, p. 119-123.
Brooks, A.H., 1920, The use of geology on the western front: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 128-D, p. 85-124.
Brown, A., 1963a, A geologist-general in the Civil War: Geotimes, v.7, no. 7, p. 8-11.
Brown, A., 1963b, Geology in the Tullahoma campaign of 1863: Geotimes, v. 8, no. 1, p. 20-22, 53.
Brown, A., 1964, The Chickamauga capaign of 1863: Geotimes, v. 9, no. 3, p. 17-21.
Dietrich, R.V., 1970, Geology and Virginia: Virginia Division of Mineral Resources, 213 p.
Donnelly, R.W., 1959, The Confederate lead mines of Wythe County, Va.: Civil War History, p.402-414.
Dumble, E.T., 1923, Memorial of Anthony Wayne Vogdes: Geological Society of America Bulliten, v. 35, p. 37-42.
Guth, P.L., 1998, Military geology in war and peace: An introduction, in Underwood, J.R., and Guth, P.L., eds. Military Geology in War and Peace: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. XIII.
Hunt, C.B., 1950, Military geology, in Paige, S., ed., Application of geology to engineering practice: Geological Society of America, Berkeley Volume, p. 295-327.
Kiersch, G.A., and Underwood, J.R., 1998, in Underwood, J.R., and Guth, P.L., eds. Military Geology in War and Peace: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. XIII.
Marga, A. 1885, Commandant du Genie, Geographic militaire, pt. 1: Generalities La France, 2 vols., and atlas 4th ed., Paris 1885, pt. 2, Principaux é’tats de l’Europe, 3 vols., and Paris, 1 vol.
Robertson, J.I., 1993a, Lead, in Current, R.N., editor, Encyclopedia of the Confederacy: Simon and Schuster, New York, p. 913.
Smith, J.S., 1964 Military application of geology: Transactions of Kansas Academy of Science, v. 67, p. 311-336.
Underwood, J.R., and Guth, P.L., eds. Military Geology in War and Peace: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. XIII.
Vogdes, A.,W., 1884, Course of science applied to military art; Part I, geology and military geography: Fort Monroe, Virginia, 176 p.
Whisonant, R.C., 1997, Geology and the Civil War in southwestern Virginia: Union Raiders in the New River Valley: Virginia Minerals, v. 43, Virginia Division of Mineral Resources, Charlottesville, p. 29-40.
Whisonant, R.C., 2003, Military geology and geography in the American Civil War - The Cloyds Mountain/New River Bridge campaign. Presented at the International Conference on Military Geology and Geography, June, 2003, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.
Whitmore, F.C., 1953, The dilemma of military photo interpretation: Photogrammetric Engineering, v. 20, p. 425-427.
Whitmore, F.C., 1955, Manpower for military photo interpretation of terrain: Photogrammetric Engineering, v. 22, p. 717-719. |
