Why Didn't They Dig In?

In their memoirs, both Grant and Sherman are defensive about their failure to entrench their camps prior to the Battle of Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862), but they take slightly different approaches to it. Sherman, who was commanding the most exposed division, one which was very green, newly formed, and barely trained, justifies his failure to do so in terms of it being unusual to have done so at that point in the Civil War, that the position was naturally strong because of the swollen creeks on his flanks and part of his front, and "because such a course would have made our raw men timid." (Sherman, p. 257)

Grant (p. 332-3) takes a different tack. First, he notes that his engineer, McPherson, told him that he could only make entrenchments near the rear of the position, not in front of the camps of the various divisions. Given that there had been prolonged and heavy rains, that the Ohio River and the creeks were swollen, and the ground soft where it was not swampy, the water table must have been very high. That, surely, would have been enough to justify the failure to entrench the camps. Note that Sherman did not seize on this or on McPherson's report, but gave his odd rationale about making his troops "timid." Apparently it was not enough for Grant either.

He proceeds to give one of the oddest pieces of military logic I have ever encountered. The enemy were well entrenched a few miles away at Corinth. Grant intended an offensive campaign. Since the Union Army would come to them, where they had the advantage, Grant saw no reason for the Confederates to attack his forces. Ergo, there was no apparent need to entrench. Of course this supposed that the Confederates were aware that he was planning to attack soon and not simply try to outflank their position. Even more oddly, it presupposes that the Confederates would not want to defeat him while he awaited reinforcement by a second army under Buell.

All of this is certainly enough to give historians the impression that Grant and Sherman just did not want to be bothered by entrenching their positions. Rather, it seems that they were both so offensive minded at this point that they simply did not see the point. I think Grant might be forgiven, after his conquest of Forts Henry and Donelson two months earlier, for seeing little value in fortifications.

Sherman's attitude is a little harder to understand, but it does reflect a strong strain in military thought in many periods, that "hiding" behind fortifications made an army soft. Was this a reflection of the general rejection of field fortifications throughout much of the Napoleonic Wars (the basis then of so much military thought and education)?

Whatever was really going on in their minds, I think it is much more likely that the attitudes both men held at the time, combined with bad weather and swollen creeks, led to the neglect of the field fortifications, for which they have been criticized.