West Pointer William Babcock Hazen, a Union brigade commander at the Battle of Chickamauga, recalled the skill with which his command displayed in throwing up breastworks on the morning of the second day.
<font color="orange">"At daybreak Colonel Suman, of the Ninth Indiana, came to me and suggested a breastwork along our front, which no one before seemed to have thought of. I at once gave orders that one rank work at this while the other stood to their arms, and went to urge the commanders on my left to do likewise. General R. W. Johnson at first objected that the noise would attract the attention of the enemy; but in a very few minutes the whole line, including his division, were at work, and long before the attack at eight A.M. the cover was ample against musketry. This was our first really useful improvised cover for infantry."</font id="orange"> (Hazen, <i>A Narrative of Military Service</i>)
Hazen went on to write a brief he called <i>Lessons of the War</i>, in which he gave good treatment on breastworks and referred again to that second morning at Chickamauga.
<font color="orange">"During the first year of the war the importance of a cover for infantry while under fire was not understood. This is to be accounted for by our general apathy as to all military matters, and by the fact that in the days of the old musket, then just disused, such defensive lines were not thought to be of much consequence. But they were necessary, even then, and are now indispensable. If such a line, which could have been easily constructed, had been made on our right at Stone River, and held by troops properly posted, the result of that battle must have been very different. At Chickamauga the work of logs, began after daylight at the suggestion of Colonel Suman, and at first objected to by Johnson, the officer who suffered most at Stone River from the want of such a defense, had a most important bearing upon the fortunes of that day. The little damage done by Polk’s corps proves this. With more effective fighting than the day before, I lost only thirteen men, against more than four hundred the previous day."</font id="orange">
Now I suppose I could have found a number of other references that would tend to color this breastwork issue any number of different ways. But for the intent of this discussion, Hazen’s words serve to initiate the basic thought of <i>time to build</i>. The building of breastworks in the HPS series simply follows a standard 18% construction probability; that is, the troops at First Bull Run have the same probability of constructing breastworks as the troops at Chickamauga. But I’m wondering if there might be a more realistic way of simulating breastwork construction and, if there were, would it radically alter the general play of the games. One of the things that seems at odds with Hazen’s account is that there’s no set maximum time by which a HPS unit or units would finish their construction.
Maj. Gen. Jos. C. Meyer
Second Division, 14th Corps,
Army of the Cumberland
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