Review - " Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat " by Scott Hippensteel

[Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat by Scott Hippensteel (University of Georgia Press, 2023). Softcover, maps, photos, tables, endnotes, index. Pages main/total:295/345. ISBN:978-0-8203-6353-0. $44.95]

Published in 2019, geologist Scott Hippensteel's Rocks and Rifles: The Influence of Geology on Combat and Tactics during the American Civil War offered military history readers yearning for something truly different a fascinating survey of the ways in which North American rock formations, and the characteristic differences between them, shaped strategy, operations, and tactics. While that book examined the impact of all three basic rock types (igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary), the last is the focal point of the author's latest work, Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat. In it, the numerous ways in which sedimentary rocks and sediments (mainly "clay, silt, sand, pebbles, and cobbles," size being their most salient property) aided or hindered Civil War military plans and actions are explored.

Naturally, the deployment and effectiveness of heavy weapons during the Civil War were profoundly affected by sediments and the geomorphology of the battlefield surroundings. Delving into that theme, Hippensteel lucidly summarizes the science behind sediment composition's effect on the terminal ballistics of a host of common Civil War artillery types. Through this data-supported and geology-centered approach, the book freshly expands upon our existing appreciation and understanding of the tactical challenges involved in a series of otherwise well-documented battle and siege histories (among them the contests over Fort Pulaski, Vicksburg, James Island/Battery Wagner, and Fort Fisher).

While the difficulties imposed upon attacking forces by sedimentary geology are often foremost in the discussion, there's much more to it. Sediments that helped keep defenders safe and softened the impact of attacking artillery were at the same time put to good use shielding the attacker's batteries and siege/mining approaches. Sediment types characteristic to particular regions also determined where complex earthwork field fortifications could or couldn't be excavated. Additionally, the necessity for revetment (which itself frequently required sediment—to, for example, fill sandbags or gabions) was entirely determined by sedimentary geology and ranged from little to none for disturbed loess soils to very extensive revetment needs for building and maintaining sand fortifications. As the book explains, when it came to erecting temporary field fortifications sedimentary determinism was a real and pervasive concern for both attacking and defending military engineers.

In addition to affecting the movements and morale of Civil War armies (ex. through choking dust on one extreme and immobilizing mud on the other), logistics and strategy could also be heavily determined by sedimentary geology's influence on, for example, the grading of railroad tracks or the location of key cities on or near natural fall lines. Several case studies found in the book, among them chapters covering the Peninsula Campaign-Battle of Malvern Hill, Burnside Expedition-Battle of New Bern, and Fredericksburg, also explain the impact of natural erosional forces on the sedimentary geology of the eastern theater's coastal plain, emphasis being placed on the ways in which those processes shaped the selection of military positions and affected how battles were fought on the tactical level.

However, it would be the extremely volatile sedimentary environment of the Mississippi River Basin, the dramatic short and long-term history and character of which are summarized in the book, where we might find perhaps the war's most illustrative examples of sedimentary geology shaping inland military strategy, operations, and tactics. Geologist Warren Grabau's Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign (2000) was arguably the first major study to popularize awareness of the unique nature and military impact of the east bank's loess soil deposits. Here, Hippensteel explains both the processes that formed those very deep deposits and the meandering erosional forces that cut steeply into them, forming the tall, unstable bluffs that famously troubled Union army and naval forces so much during the Mississippi River campaigns of 1862-63. In addition to providing excellent elevated artillery platforms for controlling river traffic, the loess sediment's unusual physical properties facilitated rapid, easy digging of entrenchment lines and civilian bomb shelters, both of which required little to no revetment. Such advantages were far from one-sided, though. As Hippensteel and others before him have explained, attacking Union forces were able to exploit those same unique soil properties for their own purposes, as the deep deposits were equally favorable military environments for digging siege approaches and mine galleries securely and at a rapid pace.

Of less ambiguous natural assistance to the defense was the fine particulate sand of the Mid and South Atlantic seaboard, although, as already mentioned, sand required vastly more extensive and creative revetment than the loess soil of the Mississippi Basin. The ways in which modern rifled artillery of the period rendered brick coastal fortifications, even the strongest Third System installations, obsolete have been well documented in numerous publications (one of the best being Herbert Schiller's 1995 book Sumter is Avenged: The Siege and Reduction of Fort Pulaski). Additionally, excellent book-length studies of the 1863 Morris Island and 1865 Fort Fisher campaigns have explored the benefits of sand fortifications as the most effective counter to overwhelming Union superiority in heavy artillery weight and numbers. That said, in writing from a more scientific and technical perspective than that found in most narrative historical treatments, Hippensteel offers fresh perspectives on the qualities of the Atlantic beach and sea island sands that aided Confederate military engineers and tremendously challenged their Union counterparts. The author's professional appraisal of how the coastal geomorphology affected both sides is similarly informative. Indeed, in the book's detailed discussions of loess soil manipulations in Mississippi and the exploitation of sand in defense of the Carolinas coastline, one can see the relative significance of geology's impact on military campaigns being closely linked to the level of dynamism present in the natural forces involved in shaping those sediment patterns.

Maps, photographs, charts, and data tables closely support the description and analysis found in the text. Discourse branching off of main topics and themes is also sprinkled throughout the book. While these scholarly diversions are too numerous to list in full, it should at least be noted that they appreciably heighten the interest level and value of the book. As just one example, Hippensteel, who was part of the CSS Hunley project's research team, includes a fascinating discussion of current and potential uses of sediment analysis for forensic examination of human remains.

Complementing each other in fascinating and insightful ways, Scott Hippensteel's Rocks and Rifles and now Sand, Science, and the Civil War together present curious readers with a wonderfully broad survey of how North America's diverse geological formations influenced the conduct of Civil War campaigns and battles. Of course, the idea that 'terrain is key' is the furthest thing from a hidden truth of military study, but Hippensteel's books strongly argue that a useful additional layer to the discussion can be found in the close examination of the geological processes that both form and continually transform terrain and shape its composition. The meandering breadth of Hippensteel's investigation also suggests many other possible avenues for further exploration of the ways in which earth science can inform Civil War military history and conflict archaeology. Highly recommended.