1784.a.13, 1(11)

Genre: War Photography

View looking towards earthwork fortifications, with soldiers posed among the line of earth-filled barrels in the foreground: 'This sketch represents a portion of the Confederate fortifications at Manassas after their occupation by the Federal Army. The works were laid out by General Beauregard, well known as an engineer of great ability; but their construction illustrates the inexperience in military matters of the men who rallied at this spot to resist the authority of the Government. The casks were filled with earth, and were intended to supply the lack of more suitable gabions, but would have offered very little resistance to artillery. The flooring was laid for the use of guns, the four short posts [in right foreground] marking the embrasure. The interior of the works was badly drained , and the trenches were almost constantly filled with stagnant water ... The fortifications are now rapidly being leveled, and in a few years will have entirely disappeared. The soil composing them is of a light character, and washes away in every rain, filling up the ditches and reducing the sharply defined works to sloping mounds, over which the farmer's plow is already turning the furrow.'