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Friday, December 7, 2018

Jackson's Line At First Manassas - A Radical Re-examination

     This posting will certainly open a can of worms, I have no doubt, but I will present this with great confidence, for as you will see, there is substantial evidence to back it up. 
     Have you ever stood behind the Jackson monument on Henry Hill and wondered to yourself, "It took him an hour to arrange this line?" There is nothing spectacular about the ground we are led to believe contained his Virginians, lying prone behind the thirteen assorted pieces of artillery, yet here it has been marked, with one prior adjustment, and worshiped as sacrosanct.
     The prior adjustment I mention dates to sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s, a date no one has given me firm confirmation of, but one that has been acknowledged. Prior to the adjustment, the cannons were lined up some 125 yards or so to the west of where they stand today, having been set close to the monuments to Jackson, Bee, and Bartow. But, eventually, this was reconsidered, and the National Park Service historians came to an epiphany, and moved them tighter to the "woodline", thought to be the one described by all accounts, where the farm lane emerges onto the open plain. 
Much of this has been based on a mere trust of a poorly mapped accounting of what took place. Historians noted for their expertise of this battle readily admit that they are not certain of the placement of the woodlines during the battle, and published maps since July 1861 have been vague at best. Unfortunately, a map produced by a Wisconsin Lieutenant, Charles K. Dean, has received a great deal of traction, mostly after an article appeared in the March/April 2004 issue of Military Images magazine. The Dean map however, is far from reliable, being grossly distorted, and on a par with directions to a 7-11 scrawled on a napkin. It is indeed a wonderful artifact from someone who witnessed the fight and walked the ground again less than a year later, but it has no merits as a reliable, surveyed map. A feature marked by Dean as a "small water hole surrounded by rebel graves", has taken the spotlight since that article appeared, making claim that Dean's map puts it south of the Henry House. Indeed, that is the illusion given by this "map", but as will be explained in a later post, in greater detail, this, forgive the pun, holds no water. Some of my readers may have attended a photography tour I held on the field earlier in the year, hosted by Harry Smeltzer, and are well aware of my challenge to the article's assumption. Suffice to say, the Dean map is not reliable. Now, back to the immediate point at hand.
     Below is an aerial map of the Manassas battlefield, focused on the Henry Hill area. Two foot contour lines have been placed over the ground, providing much greater detail than usually found on topo maps. This information is culled from the Prince William County website. Elevations are marked in white, but not necessary to understand the ground's undulations.   
     What I am about to present rests heavily on another period map, one in the collection of the Manassas National Battlefield Park. This map is the most accurate, and extremely reliable period map that exists of this battlefield. It is superior in its accuracy in the fact that it was actually surveyed, and not sketched or traced from other sources. It was produced for General P.G.T. Beauregard by his map maker, a trained engineer, Captain David Bullock Harris. Harris is most famously known as the designer of numerous Confederate defensive positions, including Centreville, Vicksburg, Charleston, and Petersburg. His map, a real map in every sense of the word, can be placed with amazing accuracy over the topographic map provided. As I gradually increase the opacity, the features Harris delineates begin to demonstrate a profoundly different, yet very logical placement of Jackson's line, one that merits the "hour" it is said to have taken in placement. Notice the arching of the troop position east of the Henry House, and note the contours of the plateau it fringes. Here is a military position that takes advantage of the ground features and makes far more sense. You will see that the treelines shown on the Harris map are considerably different from what is presented by the NPS on the ground today. This can not be ignored, and clearly makes written accounts all the more visually clear. The period treelines have been encroached upon since the establishment of the Battlefield Park, again due to poor understanding of the ground and the lack of published maps with any accuracy. Scroll through the five increases in opacity below. Jackson's artillery placement was some 200 yards further east than marked by the NPS currently. The small plateau where Jackson positioned his guns is now inside trees, and the slope behind, where the Virginians lay prone, has become the Park's maintenance path and  part of the recreational equestrian trail. Note the accurate positioning of the Federal guns near the Henry House as well. This is an important map.
     Walking the ground with these insights is eyeopening.






Here is the 1937 aerial map of the Henry Hill area, before the Park's establishment.
Note the treelines in 1937 are more representative of those in 1861.

This is the Harris map, with enhanced contrast for better detail. Notice the gap between the middle and south gun positions where the farm lane exited the scrub growth near center.

A combination of the Harris map and 1937 aerial photo.
Today the Park has "Jackson's artillery"  running north to south at center.

Below, from the farm lane Jackson's men came up, this view looks southwest, on the crest held by the five southern most guns of his artillery position. The line of trees along the right horizon was not there in 1861, and would have provided an ideal view of approaching Union infantry, and artillery.

Below is Confederate Engineer, Captain David Bullock Harris, creator of the official map of the Manassas Battlefield for General Beauregard. His skills are demonstrated by its accuracy.

Here is a brief video from behind the plateau where Jackson positioned six guns of thirteen, and two covering the right flank where it overlooked a ravine. The remaining five were south of the farm lane, out of frame to the left of the camera. Further to the right, the flank was refused by Hampton's troops. Jackson's Virginians lay prone in the open ground in front of the camera.

I can see no room for argument or debate as to the merits and qualifications of the Harris map. He was a highly skilled and respected engineer with many defensive positions both designed and mapped to his credit. The faded condition  of the original, enhanced for our purposes here, made its use minimal until now. After all, no one seemed to question what was considered an "understood" field.

As stated earlier, this information also enhances a strong critique I maintain of the "Dean map", an artifact of note, but not as an accurate mapping of the field. I will follow up on that in a future post. 
I will welcome any invitation to walk the ground for further discussion.

Below, we see the current presentation of Jackson's line, with the Henry House at distant center. 
The Harris map gives great cause for reconsideration.



3 comments:

Bill Lawson said...

Very interesting John. This definitely deserves more study. I've always felt that the current location of the guns made them exceptionally exposed to return fire. Do you know if any archeological surveys have been done on this area of the field?

John Hennessy said...

The only major argument I would make here is to refute your assertion that the landscape as it exists on Henry Hill reflects the “understood field” for most historians, NPS and otherwise. First, the NPS has done little to achieve any specific landscape treatment on Henry Hill, beyond maintaining what evolved between the 1930s and 1970s. Second, there is and as always has been (since I have been around) profound questions in my and others’ minds as to the accurate presentation of the 1861 landscape. Everyone I know, including myself, knows and has known that the present patterns of forest and field do not represent the historic patterns. It is not a revelation that the left of Jackson’s line did not follow the present tree line, and that the tree line was farther east than it is today.

There is no universally “understood field.” While your arguments are interesting and worth considering, you are not busting apart an intellectual and historiographical cartel in presenting it. Welcome to the conversation.

Of all the available historic maps, the Harris map has been used more than any other by the park and others. It’s excellent.

You might be right, John, But bear in mind too that there is a mountain of documentary evidence that helps illuminate and clarify this and the other historic maps out there. And finally, having used Harris extensively, and having overlaid it upon modern aerials, it has inevitable surveying errors that are difficult to reconcile.

Jim Burgess has done more work on locating Jackson’s line and artillery than anyone. He and I have debated these issues for decades. I will be curious what he thinks, if he chooses to respond.

Having said all this, I appreciate the thought and work put into this. I look forward to pondering all this.....

John Hennessy

John Cummings said...

Mr. Hennessy,

Thank you for responding, and it was you (in part) that I allude to with this remark from my third paragraph in, "Historians noted for their expertise of this battle readily admit that they are not certain of the placement of the woodlines during the battle, and published maps since July 1861 have been vague at best." And by "understood" my point being what has evolved into the popular culture's understanding of how this battle played out. And that is "popular culture" absorbed by the some 900,000 annual visitors the MNBP enjoys. I am delighted you verify the discussion has been active among park historians, and others, as I would have assumed, and know, based on the brief discussions we have had on the subject over the past seven or so years. I also have seen Mr. Burgess fully credit the Harris map and its merits, as for example he states on page 16 of "The Sentinel", Summer 2011 issue, it is "regarded as one of the most accurate maps of the battlefield".
So, no, I have not considered myself "busting a cartel", but simply discussing something that, once I did my own examination of the ground with an overlay, found to be quite an awakening.
Whether the discussion has existed within inner circles or not, is not my purpose. Not having the benefit of these discussions I went about it myself, and I have come to have a better understanding of the ground, an area of the field that I have never explored to such length, primarily for the fact of the well worn path that takes visitors along the line of cannons and interpretive signage painting the picture of Jackson standing "like a stone wall" along that line.
As for "inevitable surveying errors", yes there are those. The strength though in the Harris map is in its anchoring of structures and distances. It is far from a "sketch" map. His less than perfect delineation of streams is excusable (to me) because that precision had less importance in the long term than do the structures (Henry, Robinson, and Stone House), and lines of sight around clusters of trees.
Yes, there is a "mountain" of documentary evidence out there to place upon the Harris map, indeed there is, and properly weighed, what small portion of that mountain I have seen, the Harris map is very deserving of merit.
Again, thank you for responding, I was waiting with bated breath for your comment, now and in the future.