Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat by Scott Hippensteel (review)

Reviewed by: Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat by Scott Hippensteel Niels Eichhorn (bio) Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat. By Scott Hippensteel. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023. Pp. 360. Cloth, 114. 95; paper, 44. 95. ) Civil War soldiers suffered from exposure to the elements. They froze in their tents during unexpected late-spring snowstorms, dead corpses bloated up in the hot southern summers, and mosquitoes were a constant nuisance. Soldiers wrote extensively about the environmental, climatic, and geological challenges they faced. Adding to an already extensive literature, Scott Hippensteel brings the last to light in his new book Sand, Science, and the Civil War: Sedimentary Geology and Combat; he argues that "the effect of … sediment on the combatants was determined by the grain size and composition of the collective particles" (3). Hippensteel's book, his third on Civil War geology, is not for the faint of heart, which becomes clear when he writes, "It was this granular material, with a grain size ranging between 0. 06 and 2. 0 millimeters in End Page 264 diameter, that had the greatest impact on the fighting of the Civil War" (4). In contrast to his environmental history counterparts, Hippensteel is not a trained historian, but a geologist. Therefore, he integrates a vast geoscientific knowledge, so much so that there is the potential to overwhelm the non-scientific-minded reader. At the risk of sounding hypocritical, this reviewer would have liked more detailed notes and a bibliography. Nevertheless, Hippensteel provides a detailed narrative. Hippensteel decided to organize the book based on sediment grain size, going from the hard rocks of the piedmonts to the soft rock of the coastal plains, the mud of the Mississippi valley, and finally the sand of the coast. For each section, Hippensteel weaves science and military history together into an engaging narrative. He illustrates how the hard rock karren at the Battle of Stones River offered U. S. soldiers a nature-made entrenchment but also prevented the digging of new trenches, allowing the rebel assaults to succeed. Meanwhile, soldiers in the area around Petersburg and Fredericksburg faced serious exhaustion as they battled mud. With a certain sense of humor, Hippensteel reminds readers that generals lost their jobs getting their army stuck in mud, but not for ordering a dusty march. Along the Mississippi River, U. S. forces dealt with entrenched enemies on high river cliffs made of loess. As Admiral David G. Farragut's assault on Vicksburg illustrates, these cliffs were too high for river-borne cannons to reach, very different from Farragut's easier success around New Orleans. Throughout the war, soldiers' experiences and battle outcomes were determined by geology. Hippensteel's discussion of the tiniest grain, sand, is where his book shines. The focus is on Quincy Adams Gillmore and the campaigns against Fort Pulaski, Battery Wagner, and Fort Fisher. Used to construct coastal fortifications, sand made for an excellent defensive tool as cannon shells buried themselves into the sand and harmlessly exploded. By juxtaposing the masonry of Fort Pulaski with the sand-constructed Battery Wagner, Hippensteel illustrates the vulnerability of masonry forts versus sand fortifications. The battles of Fort Fisher tie together Hippensteel's arguments: a sand fortification, the hard rock soil underlaying the area, and the U. S. attack crossing through muddy marshy soil to get around the enemy fortifications. For those interested in historic preservation, public history, and memory, Hippensteel devotes the final three chapters to lessons learned and to where the places discussed are located in the modern landscape. Sadly, Battery Wagner and Fort Fisher no longer exist because of coastal erosion. It is a central point of Hippensteel's work that the defenses easiest to construct are also the quickest to disappear, but these were the ones that End Page 265 caused Civil War commanders the greatest difficulties and taught the most important lessons. From the first chapters, Hippensteel establishes that while geology as a scientific field did not exist yet, commanders in the Civil War understood the impact of soil on their decisions. The book raises a few questions. For example, Hippensteel does a magnificent job of unfolding how Gillmore learned. . .