What was the civil war battle where the men were funneled through a fence?

Question

i remember reading about how they destroyed a part of the fence at night so they could attack but it turned out all it did was make them funnel through the fence together and more people died rather than jump over the fence...

i dont know, i remember it vaguely

Answer 1

Are you talking about the battle of the crater at the siege of Petersburg? This was not a fence. The Union dug a tunnel and exploded a mine under the Confederate trenches. Then their infantry tried to attack through the hole the mine blew in the trenches. They could get in, but not out. The Confederates rallied and shot them from the top of the crater while they tried to clamber out and more piled in on the other side. It was a slaughter pen but had nothing to do with a fence and this is the only battle of the war that had any circumstances remotely like you are describing.

Answer 2

This sounds like it could have been At Fort Stedman in Petersburg, where the rebs prepared a way for a  assault , and a large group claiming they were deserters ,were the skirmish line for Gordon's main  attack.An hour after these first troops appeared the main body quickly overwhelmed the feds, but could not sustain the  charge and lost about 4000 troops,mostly prisoners. It seems as though one of the skirmish line duties was to take down some fences

Answer 3

Sounds like Petersburg to me - but I'm sure it happened MANY times.

EDIT:

Now that it's been cleared up a little. Petersburg.

If you're able - rent "Cold Mountain." It starts with Inman (the love interest) being stationed at the fort outside Petersburg, shows the Union forces digging the tunnel, setting off the charge and then "charging" at the "poor" rebs. Unfortunately, for them, they hadn't dug far enough and the blast created a huge crater into which the G.A.R. wound up falling in to and being slaughtered. Nasty business. It's at the very beginning of the film if you're not in to long, often boring love stories.

The book was wonderful!

There were many instances of men sneaking through fences.

Answer 4

A recent show on the History Channel about Gettysburg identifies the rail fence that ran alongside the slightly sunken road interrupted the advance on the Union Center (Pickett's Charge) and the single opening in the fence acted like a funnel, which would naturally be a serious threat to the attacking army. Remember Thermopylae Pass was chosen so Leonidas' small force would only have to face a small number of Persians at one time.

It's a surprise, an Engineer like Lee and a field commander like Longstreet couldn't have seen this and used sappers to mine the fence so it would fall down when touched off with powder charges.

They have rebuilt the fence at the national military park, it looks to be about chin high. Even if they had tried taking the rails down, the Federal artillery would have cut them down.