2 Scientists Say Geology Affected Battlefield Casualty Rates
They found that the geological aspects of the terrain on those battlefields influenced the casualty rates. “This is a different way to look at the Civil War,” said Robert C. Whisonant of Radford University. Whisonant, a professor emeritus of geology, and researcher Judy Ehlen published their findings as a chapter in the 2008 book, Military Geography and Geology: History and Technology and presented a paper at the 2009 International Conference on Military Geology and Geography in Vienna, Austria. Whisonant said his interest in the Civil War goes back to his childhood in South Carolina. He recalls his mother showing him a box of medallions from Confederate veteran reunions attended by her great-uncle. His interest in the connection between geology and Civil War battles goes back to his undergraduate days in the early 1960s. “I came across some articles that were written about geology and the Gettysburg campaign,” he said. It intrigued him and was something he wanted to pursue, but his career in geology took other directions when he began working for an oil company. Once he left the oil industry for a teaching job at Radford, he pursued the Civil War connection with geology. He found that the area in southwest Virginia near Radford was the Confederacy’s main source for two crucial minerals. He began writing in the mid-1990s about the salt mine in Saltville and the lead mine at Wytheville. “She is a geomorphologist, meaning she looks at land forms: streams and hills and valleys,” he added. She worked as a terrain analyst for the U.S. Army. “As you can imagine, the military has always been interested in terrain,” Whisonant said. “What Judy and I are trying to do is take it a step further with the question, What causes the terrain in an area? It’s the geology. It’s the rocks or the geological materials that are present, plus the climate, of course.” While brainstorming one day they thought it would be fun to look at Civil War battlefields and see if there’s any connection between what happened and the geology, especially in terms of the casualties. “It’s been over 10 years now, and we developed this list of the top 25 bloodiest battles,” Whisonant said. The reason they used 25 battlefields in their study was to account for and “smooth out differences” caused by other factors that can influence battle casualty levels, like weather, leadership and troop morale. Their data table tallies the average number of casualties per day (to account for battles lasting more than one day) and the casualty rate as a percentage of troop strength. “We only talk about two kinds of terrain: open and dissected,” Whisonant said. “Open terrain means fairly smooth, flat. Open terrain has very gentle, rolling topography.” He explained dissected terrain as “more hills and valleys, more places to take cover.” “We looked at the different kinds of rock types. The one that was consistently connected to high casualty rates – was above average even for the top 25 – was limestone. It is the one that really stood out,” Whisonant said. Of the 25 battles they examined, casualties were above average on the six where the battlefield was on top of limestone. These battlefields are Antietam, Chickamauga, Cedar Creek, Opequon (Third Winchester), Stones River and Perryville. The first battlefield Whisonant and Ehlen examined in detail was at Antietam, where both open terrain (the cornfield) and dissected terrain (Burnside’s Bridge area) were present. The higher casualties at the cornfield can be partly explained by the open terrain, on top of limestone, not offering much cover. Fewer relative casualties near Burnside’s Bridge can be partly explained by the harder dolomite rock underneath that part of the battlefield. “It tends to form more rugged, dissected topography,” Whisonant explained. “There’s gullies and ravines that cut that up into a network of deeper places for troops to use for cover, and higher hills with more dominating advantages and better lines of fire.” Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg presents a different underlying geological picture. “Cemetery Ridge is up there because of some very hard rocks. That ridge is igneous rocks. They were melted and then hardened and then crystallized.” Whisonant said these rocks are not like limestone or other softer rocks. “That’s why Cemetery Ridge is where it is. That’s what formed the Round Tops and Devil’s Den. It’s a good example of the kind of topography you’ll get when you have a really hard rock,” he said. “The slope that’s going up to Cemetery Ridge is not on these igneous rocks – it’s on softer rocks. There’s a sedimentary rock called shale – it’s just compacted clay. If you have a lot of shale, it can form a fairly smooth surface,” Whisonant explained. He tersely described the outcome for the Confederates advancing across the field above the shale formations: “No place to run, no place to hide, shot to pieces.” There is, however, one point Whisonant was very careful to make: “Judy and I are not saying geology determines casualties on Civil War battlefields. It certainly does not. There are other factors.” Their work, though, does tend to show geology influences casualties. Whisonant and Ehlen want to bring greater attention to the matter of geological influences on historical events. Next October he will speak at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine conference and in 2011 they will present a paper at the International Conference on Military Geology and Geography.
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